Fibreculture Journal (Jul 2012)
FCJ-146 Mannheim’s Paradox: Ideology, Utopia, Media Technologies, and the Arab Spring.
Abstract
This article explores the complicated historical relationship between ideology and utopia in European thought, and what this relationship can teach us when faced with the exuberant promises and hype that characterise new media technologies. The article is structured in two parts. The first develops a detailed account of how this pairing of ideology and utopia has been theorised in the influential (if contentious) earlier work of Karl Mannheim, and how the work and ideas of Mannheim have been taken up (and critiqued) by more recent critics, including Paul Ricoeur and others. The second examines the use of media technologies associated with the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. The article concludes by considering the ongoing merit of, but challenges we face in, engaging critically with these twin ideas of ideology and utopia in unison, and in relation to media technologies and cultures.
