The outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine is a disruption that synthesizes multiple shifts in contemporary society. From geopolitical realignment to the massive use of social media to spread news, propaganda, and disinformation, the war manifests forces of conservatism and nationalism amidst the liberal international system built in the early 1990s. If globalization has been weakened in the wake of the financial crisis, the spectre of international terrorism, the rise of authoritarian populism, and COVID-19, the war expresses the persistence of power politics and ideology and the return of history.
In this episode, we discuss Guy Debord’s work, Society of the Spectacle and what it represents in the digital age in the form of Society of the Selfie. We also expand on the strongman figures and how during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we observed a particular type of homogeneity of the strongman playing in the spectacle of war. In this sense, we explore how the homogeneity of the strongman and the spectacle of war becomes part of a media spectacle across different political and international contexts, such as the strongman propaganda and the homogeneity of strongman framings, specifically in Brazil, the Philippines and India, with Bolsonaro, Duterte and Modi.
While the book was published in September 2022, this episode was recorded in December 2022. We just made it available to Macondo Papers in February 2023.
Jeremiah Morelock is a medical sociologist and social theorist focusing on vaccine hesitancy, populism, sociology of scientific knowledge, and morality. In addition to teaching sociology at Woods College, he is the program coordinator of the Taking Care of Us initiative and a postdoctoral researcher at the William F. Connell School of Nursing and a Postdoctoral Researcher and TCU Program Coordinator, William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College. His latest publications include The Society of the Selfie: Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy, published by the University of Westminster Press, 2021 and The Return of History: the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Global Spectacle, published by Barão de Mauá in 2022.
Sources & Recommended Readings
Knabb, Ken., Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Black & Red, 2006.
Morelock, Jeremiah., Narita, Felipe Ziotti. The Society of the Selfie: Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy . University of Westminster Press, 2021.
Morelock, Jeremiah., Narita, Felipe Ziotti. The Return of History: the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Global Spectacle. Barão de Mauá, 2022.
This episode is edited by Daniel Mizukosi, founder of Mukashi Mukashi.
Click here to listen to this episode on Spotify.
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