Comunicação e poder no Facebook: da autonomia à automação na era do capitalismo informacional

Abstract

This research has as its theme the convergence between two axes: communication and power. Inserted in the field of media studies, the thesis addresses how power relations, which are built by communication processes, are emerging in the midst of “informational capitalism” (CASTELLS, 1999) and the “attention economy” (GOLDHABER, 1997; BENTES, 2019). More precisely, the thesis questions how Facebook, one of the products of this new commercial logic, has been restructuring the interface between communication and power. Therefore, the research seeks to reiterate the argument that power relationships are built in the mind, based on communication processes, and that, therefore, psychic strategies are more effective and potent than the use of force, discipline and control. We argue that in addition to hard power (FOUCAULT, 1979; 1987) and soft power (FOUCAULT, 1979; 1987; DELEUZE, 1992), which operate through repressive and ideological devices and use violence, norms and surveillance to dominate, respectively, we are facing new agencies of domination, marked by “intelligent power” (HAN, 2018a), an instance of power that operates through psychic strategies, from the use of digital technologies of communication and information, to seduce, attract, persuade and influence the subjects' thinking and behavior. In this sense, we seek to understand, from Facebook, how the platform acts as a media and political agent and how its action, supported by informational capitalism and the economy of attention, is restructuring the relationship between communication and power, in contemporary times. Therefore, we use cartography as a methodology, as it recognizes the rhizomatic aspect of the object (DELEUZE & GUATTARI, 1997; SANTOS, 1988; ROLNIK, 2007; KASTRUP, 2007; KIRST et al., 2003). We conclude that the informational hyperflow, promoted by the distributed network topology, although reflecting on the increase in emission, has been contributing to the reduction of the communication process, therefore, favoring new power relations and that Facebook, through the use of marketing strategies Opaque, with serious social and political implications, represents an important agent of this change, as its way of acting promotes both an increase in emission and automatic decisions, as well as a reduction in the effective occurrence of communication and the autonomy of social agents.