The bully chamber: Creation of funhouse selves from distorted media

Abstract

Abstract This article considers how the technological changes have facilitated the establishment of a sense of ‘ressentiment’ in modern political cultures. This is the unease created when someone believes they have been injured by another but feel impotent to act. While technologies have developed at a startling rate, society’s ability to deal with them has not kept up. Consequently, neo-liberal economic principles and political narratives have distorted the culture practices as a range of agencies (political, economic, technology) have become elitist and self-serving. Individual forms of identity are undermined by a surfeit of information in which online gatekeepers (Google, Facebook, Twitter) use algorithms that synthesize real with virtual emotional values. These distortions are now being made tangible with the election of right-wing populists such as Donald Trump and the genuine sense of popular dislocation that contributed to the UK Brexit vote.