Abstract

In the case of the attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 two primary discourses generative of biopolitics in the global matrix of war can be identified as a framework of knowledge about mobile technologies: first, that national security is threatened by the use of digital information technologies heavily symbolized by the use of mobile devices and the perceived manipulation of otherwise neutral forms of media by those deemed to be enemies; and, second, that national security is enhanced by the utilization of these technologies on the level of individuals and non-state groups within the nation to better practice democracy and to identify as citizen-consumer subjects. In the global matrix of war, the emphasis on digital information technologies and new media — especially mobile iterations — as weapons has generated the subjects of globalized and local technoculture in historically specific, militarized directions. In this context, contemporary media operate in ways that call for critical engagement rather than romanticization of a purely emancipatory sphere of social networking over and against a fully networked, enemy ‘other’.