Mannheim's paradox: ideology, utopia, media technologies, and the 'Arab Spring'

This article explores the complicated historical relationship between ideology and utopia in European thought, and what this relationship can teach us when faced with the exuberant promises that characterise much new media discourse. Discussion is divided into two parts. The first develops a detailed account of how this pairing of ideology and utopia has been theorised in the influential (if contentious) earlier work of Karl Mannheim, and how the work and ideas of Mannheim have been taken up (and critiqued) by more recent critics, including Paul Ricoeur, among others. The second then uses the example of the use of social and other media technologies during the so-called 'Arab Spring' of 2010-2011 as a basis from which to consider how applicable these twin ideas of ideology and utopia are to an examination of media technologies and the discourses that attend and structure our engagements with them. The paper concludes by considering the potentially productive theoretical possibilities that continue to be found in engaging with ideology and utopia in critical examinations of media technologies and cultures.