A Political Act in the E-Society: Digital Vigilantism and Swarms

• Authors: Augustė Dementavičienė

Title variants

PL

Akt polityczny w e-społeczeństwie: zjawisko cyfrowej straży obywatelskiej i roje

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The main aim of this article is, by using the case of digital vigilantism, to analyze what new challenges could occur in the E-society and how understanding of the self and self-act is changing during the process when more and more new technologies are integrated in people’s everyday life. The swarm is a metaphor which Zygmunt Bauman uses to show how the understanding of communities is changed in liquid modernity. Swarms are based on untied, uncontrolled, short-term relationships between consumers/users to achieve some goals. Swarms could be massive in numbers and have a lot of power for a very short period. One of the examples could be digital vigilantism, which is an act of punishing certain citizens (they are believed to deserve punishment) by other Internet users. One example of DV would be to put personal information on display to spread shaming acts. The problem is that people are interested in some actions for a very short time, but the political act/change requires an active and stable effort. Despite the phenomenon of DV not getting much attention from the field of political science or political philosophy, it provides us with some insights about the current changes in our understanding of politics and the concept of what is “political” as well as inviting us to reconsider the idea of swarms as put forward by Bauman.

PL

Głównym celem tej pracy jest przyjrzenie się nowym wyzwaniom, które mogą wystąpić w e-społeczeństwie, oraz temu jak zmienia się sposób postrzegania siebie jako osoby i indywidualnego aktu w trakcie nieustannej integracji nowych technologii z życiem codziennym. Zygmunt Bauman używa metafory roju, aby przedstawić w jaki sposób pojęcie społeczeństwa zmienia się w płynnej rzeczywistości nowoczesnego świata. „Roje” istnieją dzięki niepowiązanym, nieskontrolowanym, krótkotrwałym relacjom nawiązywanym pomiędzy konsumentami/użytkownikami po to, aby osiągnąć wspólne cele. Roje mogą ogromne oraz posiadać znaczącą moc, jednak tylko przez krótki czas. Przykładem tego może być sprawiedliwość samodzielnie wymierzana w świecie cyfrowym celem ukarania niektórych obywateli (którzy przez innych użytkowników internetu są uważani za zasługujących na karę), na przykład udostępnianie informacji osobowych na forum publicznym, aby potępić dane zachowanie. Jednak problem polega na tym, że społeczeństwo nie jest zainteresowane takimi jednorazowymi akcjami, a akt lub przemiana polityczna wymaga aktywnego i trwałego wysiłku. Mimo że działania internetowej straży obywatelskiej nie budzą większego zainteresowania ze strony nauk politycznych lub filozofii politycznej, dostarczają wiedzy o zmieniającym się współcześnie rozumieniu świata polityki pojęciu tego, co jest „polityczne”. Skłaniają nas także do zastanowieniem się nad ideą rojów w rozumieniu Zygmunta Baumana.

Keywords

EN

digital vigilantism; swarms; E-society; Bauman; social media

PL

digital vigilantism; internetowa straż obywatelska; roje; e-społeczeństwo; Bauman; media społecznościowe

• Publisher: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II. Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL
• Journal: Roczniki Nauk Społecznych
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 11(47)
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 7-26

Contributors

author

Augustė Dementavičienė

• Vilnius University

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18290/rns.2019.47.2-1