The work reflects on the harmful consequences, but also on the power of digital technologies for solidarity
At 7am, soft but imposing music sounds next to the bed, emitted by the smartphone that lies on the bedside table. Immediately, the owner of the device turns off the alarm clock and takes the opportunity to check the “latest” on social networks and respond to messages registered in the messaging application. Shower and coffee taken, the character returns to using his cell phone to check, via another application, the best route to get to work. Although fictional, the scene is quite real for most people. Increasingly, digital technologies permeate the contemporary way of life, to the point of exerting control over it. This and other aspects are covered in the book Digital Discourse Analysis: subject, space, memory and archive, recently launched by linguist Cristiane Dias, researcher at the Urban Studies Laboratory (Labeurb) at Unicamp. The work reflects on the changes caused by digital, which tends to transform subjects into “data subjects”.
According to Cristiane, the book is the result of a set of research that she has been developing since her doctoral thesis, defended in 2004 at Unicamp. “I dedicate myself to understanding digital discourse in terms of its effects on society, on the ways in which the subject and life are constituted. I also seek to understand the changes that have been occurring in the world's discursivity. There are a lot of things changing and if we don't dedicate ourselves to analyzing these changes, we will be swallowed up by them”, considers the researcher.
The linguist observes that digital cannot be analyzed solely as a technological issue, although this dimension is important. In other words, the topic is not just related to devices that facilitate our communication and mobility. “All of this is very good, but there is another side, which is regulation, control and total surveillance of subjects. More than that, it has to do with mapping our tastes, habits and purchasing power. Through digital devices, we generate data about ourselves all the time. In the book, I approach this aspect through reflection on memory and on a data subject that would shake the stability of a subject of law. In this sense, we are not just generating data; we are the data”, understands Cristine.
The author explains that Digital Discourse Analysis is not a subarea of Discourse Analysis, as some may interpret. This is not, she reaffirms, a “theoretical trick”. “From my perspective, digital constitutes a field of questions for language. In the book, I deal with discourse as a theoretical object and digital discourse as a field from which different objects of analysis are formulated”. Along these lines, the researcher works more strongly with notions of memory, thinking about the formulation of a digital memory; subject, reflecting on the aforementioned data subject; archive, considered as a “memory” that can store everything; and mobility, in the sense of time paths [of data and networks], which configure what Cristiane calls “connectiCity”.
Digital discourse, continues the author of the book, is a process of producing meanings. Understanding the effects of this discourse on individuals and society is fundamental, she says, because they determine trajectories, habits and even forms of relationships. As a contribution to this analysis effort, Cristiane offers examples of mobilizations organized through social networks, such as the 2013 June Jornadas in Brazil, and the so-called fake news, as the fake news that swarms on the same social networks is called. "To the fake news They are not a new phenomenon as many say, but the way they are formulated and circulated is unprecedented. It is known that the fake news were decisive in the last electoral campaign for the Presidency of the United States, won by Donald Trump. They also bear great responsibility for the political polarization we experience in the world, Brazil in particular. All of this is digital discourse, which for me is of the order of circulation. It is formulated to circulate and it is through circulation that it is constituted”, he details.
Asked whether people have critically analyzed this relationship with the digital universe, the researcher replies no. However, she ponders: “It is difficult to establish this criticality because we are talking about something that we cannot escape. We no longer do anything without digital technologies. They are there and will continue. Still, I believe we can produce a deep understanding of the effects of these technologies on our lives. It is the subjects who develop digital technologies, and they produce them for specific reasons and within well-established power relations. Hence the importance of understanding how digital discourse works from the perspective of Discourse Analysis”, she points out.
In the book, Cristiane avoids the trap of analyzing the digital world from a Manichean perspective. “In my approach, I try to show the harmful effects, but also the potential for solidarity of these technologies. They favor other forms of organization of subjects in the new order of reality that is being established. In the book, I seek to produce theoretical tools precisely to understand this new reality”, she explains. Although written in academic language, the work is accessible to the lay public, “who will have no difficulty in recognizing themselves in the various topics covered”, assures the author.
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Degree: Digital Discourse Analysis: subject, space, memory and archive
Author: Cristiane Dias
Publishing company: Bridges
pages: 204
Suggested price: R$45,00
