When powerful players in politics and media gather in secret and their meeting is exposed, is it any wonder that people would see straight through the stagecraft to the leading actors rehearsing their parts? In today’s growing political authoritarianism, there is little doubt that control and consolidation of communications is necessary to manage an agenda and major narratives. In light of the recent meeting between President Trump and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, what new productions are now on the horizon for the people to parse?
If Hollywood’s 2010 reproduction of Facebook’s immaculate birth, The Social Network, is to be believed, its beginnings were humble. Facebook, as the fable unfolds, was born over conversations in a Harvard dorm room. Today, we can see how Facebook is part of a constellation of companies — such as Instagram and WhatsApp (both owned by Facebook); Google; Oculus VR; and over 70 others — which form synergies between a variety of different sectors. These include banking, payments and currency (e.g. Libra); brain-machine learning (e.g. CTRL-Labs); and gaming (e.g. Beat Games) that, together, have created a new political economy of communications.