‘Fuck the clowns from Grease!!’ Fantasies of participation and agency in the YouTube comments on a Cypriot Problem documentary

Abstract

The article aims to contribute to (and deepen) the debates on participatory theory through the usage of the psychoanalytical concept of fantasy. Its starting point is that participation is defined as a process where power relations are equalized. As a society with totally balanced power relations is both a real and impossible desire – given society’s diversity and complexity – there is a need to theorize how situations of ‘full’ (or maximalist) participation are unattainable and empty, but simultaneously play a key role as ultimate anchoring points and horizons. By reverting to the notion of fantasy, (maximalist) participation can be defined as a phantasmagoric discourse that incorporates, firstly, the impossible idea of reaching a full power equilibrium in society and, secondly, the ability to serves as a crucial driving force for the attempts to further deepen democracy. Moreover, this conceptualization also allows me to acknowledge the ways that this (maximalist) participatory fantasy is affected by a series of other fantasies, including the closely related (and reinforcing) fantasy of agency and freedom, and the more counteracting fantasies of homogeneity and unity, and of leadership and the societal centre. The complexity and interconnectedness of these fantasies is (in the second part of the article) illustrated by an analysis of a series of YouTube comments on a documentary. This documentary, entitled ‘Cyprus Still Divided’, deals with the Cyprus Problem and the 1974 invasion of the island by Turkey. The often heated debates show that the participatory fantasy (and the related fantasy of agency) play a key role in the legitimization of the posters’ efforts to formulate and defend their perspectives on the Cyprus Problem. Through the case study, we can also see how other fantasies impose structural limits on these participatory practices (and fantasy), and how a series of drives threaten to reduce participation to its purely formal version.

Keywords:

• media studies
• participation
• psychoanalysis
• fantasy
• Cyprus
• politics

Notes on contributor

Nico Carpentier is Associate Professor at the Communication Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB – Free University of Brussels) and Lecturer at Charles University in Prague. He is also an executive board member of the International Association for Media and Communication Research and he was vice-president of the European Communication Research and Education Association from 2008 to 2012. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. Some prudence is called for here, as power is often reduced to the possession of a specific societal group. Authors such as Foucault (1978) have argued against this position, claiming that power is an always-present characteristic of social relations. In contemporary societies, the narrations of power are complex narrations of power strategies, counter-powers and resistance.

2. As Akdoğan (2012, p. 14) argues, there are other related concepts to theorize this type of discursive relationship, namely myth and utopia. Like fantasy, myth and utopia have negative connotations (related to naivety and lack of realism). Fantasy is preferred here, as it puts more emphasis on the generative aspects, and (in its more contemporary form) on the fluidity of these phantasmagoric constructions. In contrast to utopia, it is less place-bound in its semantic origins. At the same time, this article does not follow the Lacanian orthodoxy, but uses the Lacanian psychoanalytical model as a starting point, while taking on board Klein's broad notion of fantasy – she uses phantasy – as a social construct (Isaacs 1948; Klein 1997; Roach 2003, p. 104).

3. This implies that determinist positions are often the prime locations of the centre fantasy.

4. Throughout the text, the Greek names, combined with English spelling, are used for geographical entities. This was done mainly for the comfort of the author.

5. EOKA stands for Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, or the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters.

6. The UK retained control over two military bases on Cyprus.

7. Higher numbers have been mentioned: Sant Cassia (2005, p. 22), for instance, puts this number at 200,000.

8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpLh3PYVs48.

9. The citations from the forum have not been altered, also not to correct spelling or grammatical mistakes. Moreover, the sometimes rather insulting and abusive language has not been changed, given the importance of the logics of conflict in this analysis. The names of the posters are rendered in Italic.

10. Rauf Denktaş was the first president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

11. Kıbrıs is Turkish for Cyprus.

12. National identities are not the only structuring (political) components of the comments. Other discourses, like discourses on democracy and the state, also play key roles.