ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how media has transformed with the rise of digital modernity, as the centralized broadcast media has been replaced by the interactional complexity of social media. Drawing on Neil Postman's critique of television, the chapter explores how the shift from mass-media to social media has shaped a new epistemology through which political and social life is enacted. Social media, driven by data extraction, encourages identity performance and self-presentation – creating a public sphere centered on identity which intensifies fragmentation and polarization. Digital capitalism thereby shapes an understanding of the world through the lens of identity and difference.
