Wednesday 2pm Section

The Multiple, like Ang's piece, works well in problematizing the notion of the subject. Basically what both seem to point out is that despite the rhetorically radical ways that media is disseminated and new ways it structures the society in inhabits, there are still situations of oppression which operate under, and are even assisted by a "liberating" new media. Friedberg cites how the mobility of a laptop actually manifests itself in reality as a hindering restraint on one's freedom (does one really want their laptop at the beach), by creating the expectation of one to always be doing work. Friedberg asks is the "fractured subjectivity" that new media gives us in the postmodern world is in service of '[capitalist] productivity and efficiency (235)." It recalls Ang's notion of late capitalism being fueled off this de-staticization (not a word, oops) of the subject into a continually changing presence, constantly in flux. I think that this seeming paradox invites and forces us to re-examine what constitutes a free subject; if we are to fight for freedom for people against oppressors, we must first treat the subject (and subjectivity) in new unpositivist modes, modes which were the tools of the Western hegemony.