From cyberculture to networked emotions

Abstract

An archaeology of computer-mediated communication has to identify the period of popularization of the Internet, in the last decade of the last century, as a crucial moment in the formation of a cyber-political ideology that has guided many of the practices and discourses associated with digital networks. We will review this type of discourse, showing how it became even more widespread when we began to understand that the new digital media are networks in the precise sense of that term. The theory of networks allows us to see how imitation has become increasingly present in the new media, particularly in the most recent social networks such as YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. We will analyse several mechanisms of propagation of imitation, giving particular relevance to the way in which emotions, namely negative emotions such as anger or fear, spread and become dominant in networks. We show empirical data that support that kind of analysis, but we will mainly stress the role that algorithms such as those by Facebook and YouTube play in emotional contagion. This will allow to revaluate the ideas that accompanied the initial phases of the development of the Internet, as well as the dilemmas that the regulation of this network currently faces.