Precarity and Social Media from the Entrepreneurial Self to the Precariatised Mind

Abstract

Within the digital age, self-narrations of individuals unfold within social media, especially within Social Networking Sites (SNS) like Facebook and Google +. These online-based self-narrations actualize topoi of the entrepreneurial self (cf. Brockling in The entrepreneurial self. Fabricating a new type of subject. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2015). The entrepreneurial self can be understood as an ideal image of neoliberal self-government. The online-based self-narrations within SNS use topoi of the entrepreneurial self and effect thus the experience of precarity or—with respect to Standing (The precariat: the new dangerous class. Bloomsbury, London, 2011) a precarized mind. In the first subsection, the relation ‘neoliberal policy/precarity’ is discussed. The interpellations and subjection effects of neoliberal policy and the related experience of precarity will be analyzed. The second subsection uses a discourse-analytical orientated approach. Via the interpretation of different empirical data and study results it will be discussed, how narration topoi of the entrepreneurial self structure the self-narrations within SNS.