Rethinking the spectacle: Radical political agency in the information society

This work critically examines the tension between the theoretical concept of "spectacle" and political agency in the theory and practice of the Situationist International (SI) in order to assess the potential that new communications technology provides for left-wing organizations and social movements. Combining the ideas of Guy Debord and other SI members with those of Mikhail Bakhtin and Hannah Arendt, it argues that neither sleek public relations strategies nor grand, awe-inspiring displays should be used as substitutes for democratic dialogue. Spectacles should not be used to foster fleeting agreements on particular issues; rather, what is necessary is to use them to develop public spaces for ongoing agreements and disagreements. For this to occur, a radical spectacle must be conceived in much wider terms, as involving not just the images and messages themselves, but also the processes in which they are produced and the contexts in which they are received.;Although Debord is not generally considered a radical democratic thinker, chapter 3 argues that there are tendencies in his thought that lead in this direction, including his notions of the situation, derive, detournement, and play. The last of these, the concept of play, is especially important, providing the underlying political ethos for the situation and all of Debord's other practical concepts. Chapter 4 uses Bakhtin's dialogism and Arendt's conception of politics to further establish a foundation on which to ground the playful tendencies of Debord and the Situationists. Taken together, these theoretical contributions offer a number of insights on what a radical spectacle might look like, ideas that are presented in chapter 5 in the context of an engagement with public relations theory.;Chapter 1 begins with Debord's renowned theorization of the spectacle, while chapter 2 examines the practical implications of this conception of the spectacle for the organization Debord co-founded, the SI. With the first two chapters highlighting Debord's problematic assumption of audience passivity and the SI's highly exclusionary organizational form, chapters 3 and 4 proceed to develop a framework for thinking about how spectacles could be made consistent with a radical conception of democracy.