English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

The Victorian Socialists (VicSocialists) are a socialist electoral organisation in Australia which has had some electoral success as a regional fourth party behind the Greens. This article seeks to address what kind of organisation the VicSocialists are, what communicative techniques the organisation employs in assembling a counterpublic or constituency, and what this case study illustrates in terms of the broader formation of counterpublics in the ‘digital age’. This article characterises the VicSocialists as a “macro-sect”, a new organisational form. The macro-sect is something more than a socialist micro-sect and less than a mass party, while optimistically conceiving of itself as a proto-mass party. The macro-sect strategy is distinct from another 21st-century party-form, the digital party. Unlike the digital parties, which tend to fetishise digital media, the VicSocialists treat digital media soberly as just one tool in the formation and mobilisation of counterpublics, a tool with serious limitations. Additionally, digital media is complementary with face-to-face communication (such as doorknocking) in important ways. A study of a parallel US macro-sect, the DSA, similarly found that activists were ambivalent about digital media, yet strongly used it for promotion. This commonality with the DSA suggests the international emergence of a new organisational form, with a distinct communicative strategy for forming counterpublics in the so-called ‘digital age’ – one which necessarily uses digital media, yet does not fetishise it.

The Socialist Macro-Sect in the 'Digital Age': The Victorian Socialists' Strategy for Assembling a Counter-Public