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Dr. Jamie Cohen critically examines internet aesthetics and their societal implications, shedding light on the reality of an evolving digital landscape
Photo Credit: Christian Streili
As a scholar on internet cultures, Dr. Jamie Cohen challenged Media Academy participants to gain a deeper understanding of internet cultures and question their own engagement with social media.
Jamie inspects “how users create new media that affects the community around it and how the community changes as a result”. He participated in the 2023 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change as a returning faculty member and conducted a session with participants on the Inequities of Internet Aesthetics: A Critical View of Contemporary Content.
Focusing his work on memes, Jamie thinks about what it means to translate a big topic into something visual that becomes shareable in a different space and “affects politics and advertising”. In his presentation, he used an example of the infamous Pepe the Frog meme being appropriated as a symbol of the alt-right movement and displayed during the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol building.
There are many current issues with internet spaces, such as a lack of safety in online spaces for minority groups and the problematic usage of AI. As a form of mass media, social media is built upon a system of knowledge and power that maintains white supremacy.
Participants questioned the dynamics at play behind the content on their social media feeds and on the internet. Jamie stressed the importance of taking a critical approach to popular internet aesthetics which romanticize certain lifestyles and can be used to promote extreme political views.
Drawing lessons from the presentation, participants should “think critically when they use the Internet” and “think about the infrastructure that operates underneath it”. Everyone should be posting, downloading, and streaming “with an intentional and not passive agreement with the platform”.
He advocated for a form of media that attempts to repair our culture by healing how we make media, connect through technology, and generate knowledge. New internet aesthetics “might offer abilities for inclusion and exposure and appearance and perception. If we start focusing on the idea of aesthetics as they evolve and not [get] stuck in a nostalgic past, we might have a future that we can imagine with new aesthetics that don't fit into capitalist structures”.
Two of Dr. Jamie Cohen’s students from Queens College were participants at the Academy and assisted in preparing his presentation. Carla Cordova commented that as someone who lives in the US but is not American herself, something she “really appreciates about Jamie's presentation is [that] even though we were discussing western topics and trends, he tries to include the experiences of other countries”.
Marisa Iovino added that “Dr. Jamie Cohen has a very cutting-edge pedagogical approach where he's able to engage with students on emerging matters that influence our daily lives, but we don't often have the space for these very engaging and necessary conversations. Jamie always centers that and always makes space”.
Jamie left participants with an optimistic outlook that there is still space for expression and safety that could be a part of cultures on the internet. This presents an opportunity to build community, connect with each other, and lift others up online.