ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that in online cultures we can see the presence of reciprocated confidences which circulate around community, and in the remaindered stock of state institutional arrangements in areas such as education, welfare and health provision as public goods. This historical context feeds into the contemporary myth of connectivity. Reciprocated confidences, it is argued, is best understood not only in the gossipy sense of personal exchange on social media platforms, but in the related sense of mutual trust or consensus at a larger, community scale. The chapter also outlines the limitations of basing a recognition theory exclusively on predominant discourses of identity, which can only go so far in describing the psychosocial implications of a semi-permanent condition of connectivity. The chapter then begins to outline a recognition theory of social media connectivity, partly based upon Axel Honneth’s model of ethical personality, to establish the grounds for describing how an accelerated media ecosystem challenges traditional social relations, particularly with regard to political and ethical issues around rights (responsibility, property and freedoms), fairness (justice) and equity (commons). Such an approach enables critical engagement with the notion of misrecognition as social disrespect, particularly in the context of the ‘quantified self’. The chapter then develops a love-esteem-respect model of ethical self-realisation that situates recognition with social media interactions and always-on connectivity to critically explore the principle of mutuality.
