The categories of subjectivity and subject in digital culture research

The categories of subject, agency and subjectivity in different approaches to the study of the Internet and digital culture are considered. These terms may have opposite meanings in different historical and academic contexts, placing the “subject” in active or passive voice. In critical theory, the subject and subjectivity cannot be thought without considering the issues of empowerment and oppression, which is a perspective that allows the conceptualization of the subject that is able to take into account cultural and gender differences, historical and situational processes of subjectification, a wide range of ethical issues as a key element of subjectivity. The complex relationships of a person with technological environment are also reflected in the critical studies of the Internet. As a subject of research, “subjectivity” in the above meaning practically does not appear in Russian-language academic literature, in which the concept of the subject as agent (of activity, socialization) prevails, and which accounts for a significant proportion of the Internet studies publications that adhere to the idea of digital technologies as symbolic tools that mediate different forms of activity. An overview of the issue of subjectification as a function of digital surveillance in the context of media consumption and political subjectivity on the Internet shows how the digital environment is intertwined with politics, education, healthcare systems and other institutions and practices. This requires such a conceptualization of subjectivity that avoids the trend to study an individual only as an agent of activity outside normative social systems, not reducing persons to institutional discourses, but taking into account that they interact in a unique way with their emotionality and motivational sphere. The critical concept of the subject should take into account that the digital environment, being a phenomenon much more than merely an activity mediating tool, provides not only new opportunities for the disciplinary construction of the subject, but also those for configuring one’s discursive resources and idiosyncratic subjectivities, allowing a person to take subordinate, negotiated and subversive positions with respect to dominant institutional orders. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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