The Meaning of the Feminist T-Shirt: Social Media, Postmodern Aesthetics, and the Potential for Sociopolitical Change
Media and Communication. 2018;6(2):210-219 DOI 10.17645/mac.v6i2.1302
Journal Title: Media and Communication
ISSN: 2183-2439 (Online)
Publisher: Cogitatio
LCC Subject Category: Language and Literature: Philology. Linguistics: Communication. Mass media
Country of publisher: Portugal
Language of fulltext: English
Full-text formats available: PDF
AUTHORS
Trine Kvidal-Røvik
(Department of Tourism and Northern Studies, UiT—The Arctic University of Norway, Norway)
EDITORIAL INFORMATION
Time From Submission to Publication: 18 weeks
Abstract | Full Text
This article examines the potential for political or social change as part of postmodern cultural expression in consumer culture. Throughout the article, I discuss the way sociopolitical messages, circulating in contemporary culture, represent an interesting element in terms of their intertextual referencing and postmodern blurring. Postmodern aesthetic features merge commodifying, resistive, and identifying processes, which can enable sociopolitical messages to spread into new arenas of resistance and fly under the radar, so to speak. In particular, I claim that new forms of engagement in social media communication produce an alternative venue for politics—one created by neoliberalism itself. I explain that sociopolitical messages presented via postmodern aesthetics in consumer culture, particularly when circulated using social media, can function counter-hegemonically, even while using hegemonic structures to gain commercial success. With this, the potential for change can come about; power lies in the hands (or social media accounts) of consumers.<