Kassandra D. Rothenstadt

Mediated Emotions and Politics of Dissent

 

The Occupy movement can be said to have been born out of two elements: powerful emotions of political indignation and the affordances of virtual technology. Emotions involve complex cognitive, evaluative as well as intentional content and are central in our system of ethical reasoning. Thus, emotions are essential in political activism because knowledge alone, according to Mestrovic (1996), is not enough to result in action. Action based on information assumes a connection between the emotions and the intellect.

The formation of this connection, it can be argued, has been facilitated by virtual media through its many affordances. Still, McLuhan (1967) in his day warned against the numbing effects of the media, while others insist that it might be another form of “opium for the people” and a social control tool used to placate dissent by homogenizing and manipulating emotions, thought and ultimately behaviour.

 

Kassandra D. Rothenstadt has a BA Honours and an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Calgary. She is currently a researcher at SMIT (Studies in Media, Information and Telecommunications) while also pursuing her interdisciplinary PhD degree at VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) in Communication Sciences and Philosophy. The subject matter of the project is on the emotion of political indignation and its role in the virtual political sphere with implications for the larger social structure as well as for individual ethical-existential considerations.