Theorizing the present: digital media, pre-emergence and infra-structures of feeling

Abstract

Digital media are frequently described as producing a ‘real-time’, ‘live’, ‘always-on’ temporality. While seemingly referring to similar processes and experiences, these descriptions indicate a temporality that is diverse, multiple and changing. This paper proposes that it is necessary to develop theoretical approaches to this temporality, and that it is productive to understand this temporality in terms of the present; a temporality that is both ‘now’ and on-going. It sets out one framework for theorizing the present and conceptualizing the temporal qualities of digital media, drawing on Raymond Williams’ influential work on structures of feeling and the (pre-)emergent qualities of media culture. It focuses on Williams’ definition of a structure of feeling as attending to the ‘active’, ‘flexible’ ‘temporal present’, and the importance he places on pre-emergence in grasping this present. Discussing various examples including social media platforms, devices, streaming services and apps, I suggest that pre-emergence is an especially prevalent quality of today's media culture. I develop Williams’ notion of structures of feeling to offer the concept of infra-structures of feeling. This concept helps to account for the amplified significance of pre-emergence, its affective quality and how digital media work across each other in complex architectures of texts, textures, platforms and devices. To flesh out this concept, I analyze the present temporalities that are produced by and productive of the social networking site Twitter and the streaming service Netflix. I argue that these media produce the present differently; creating a real-time, live, connected present in the case of the former, and a suspended or expanded present in the latter. These distinctions are significant; however, in both, pre-emergence is central. The paper therefore concludes by inquiring into whether pre-emergence may define today's structure of feeling and, if so, what this implies for a politics of the present.

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