From Democracy to Infocracy: Consequences of Information Capitalism from the Perspective of Byung-Chul Han

Abstract

The notion of infocracy, coined by Byung-Chul Han, provides an interpretive framework for elucidating the structural transformation of contemporary democracy. Under this new regime, dominated by information capitalism, the political, ethical, and communicative foundations of social life are profoundly reconfigured. Power no longer operates primarily through coercion, but through seduction and self-subjugation, producing an invisible form of domination that erodes the political community.

From this perspective, it can be argued that informational saturation, digital immediacy, and the emotionalization of public discourse have weakened listening, reflection, and the very possibility of dialogue, giving rise to a palliative post-democracy characterized by fragmentation, dispersion, and collective exhaustion. On the basis of this diagnosis, insights from Shoshana Zuboff and Sara Ahmed are incorporated in order to expand the conceptualization of digital power and the political dimension of affects.

With this aim, the paper presents Han’s proposal for a form of resistance grounded in the recovery of vita contemplativa, silence, and listening, understood as political practices oriented toward restoring attention, alterity, and the care of the common. Finally, it is argued that the revitalization of democracy in the age of infocracy requires not only a transformation of subjectivity, but also systemic and institutional struggles aimed at reconstructing the political community as a space of care, deliberation, and shared thought.