Distopie del rischio. Un’analisi di Black Mirror

The huge success of the television series Black Mirror has radically changed the already rich landscape of televised seriality. Since the very first episode it has imposed itself as a radical turning point in the TV series offer, both in terms of quality and ability to animate debate, also triggering fandom phenomena within the increasingly inter-connected medial ecosystem experienced by users. The TV-series appears, as a whole, as one of the most acute and convincing metaphors to describe and explain the impact of ‘new’ technologies on contemporary societies, the functioning of the current media ecosystem and their impact on the culture and political dynamics of post-democratic societies. Although the series is apparently set in a next, imprecise future, it actually talks about ongoing processes, radicalizing its criticism through the use of fictional language. As Sculos (2017) notes, Black Mirror is not a mere allegory of the future, but a compelling metaphor of current-time dystopias. Taking up a well-known subject of the ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1966), the author suggests a fundamental key to interpret present: the ‘real’ theme of the series is the new and unprecedented forms by which technology is making us slaves. As it promises to get us free from fatigue and enslavement of capitalism, at the same time it makes us increasingly dependent and vulnerable.