Digital Reading Room 2.0 -- POLI 480: Politics of Our Networked World in the Digital Era (Rev. 6)

POLI 480: Politics of Our Networked World in the Digital Era (Rev. 6) Report a Broken Link

Unit 1: Introduction—The Rise of Informational Capitalism

Castells, M. (2010). Prologue: The net and the self. In The information age: Economy, society, and culture: Vol. 1 The rise of the network society (2nd ed., pp. 1–25). Blackwell.

Castells, M. (2023). The network society revisited. American Behavioral Scientist, 67(7), 940–946.

Birch, K. (2020). Automated neoliberalism? The digital organisation of markets in technoscientific capitalism. New Formations, 100–101, 10–27.

Further Readings

Brodie, J., & DeGagné, A. (2014). Neo-liberalism. In J. Brodie, S. Rein, & M. Smith (Eds.), Critical concepts: An introduction to politics (5th ed., pp. 60–76). Pearson.

Comunello, F., & Mulargia, S. (2023). Does the “platform society” mean the end of the “network society?” Reflections on platforms and the structure and dynamics of networks. American Behavioral Scientist, 67(7), 859–871.

Huws, U. (2015). iCapitalism and the cybertariat: Contradictions of the digital economy. Monthly Review, 66(8), 42–57.

Unit 2: Capitalist Restructuring of Production—Platform Capitalism and the Internet of Things

Walton, N., & Nayak, B. S. (2021). Rethinking of Marxist perspectives on big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and capitalist economic development. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 166, 1–8.

Mahnkopf, B. (2019, June). The “4th wave of industrial revolution”—A promise blind to social consequences, power and ecological impact in the era of “digital capitalism” [Discussion paper No. 01]. EuroMemo Group.

van Deursen, A. J. A. M., van der Zeeuw, A., de Boer, P., Jansen, G., & van Rompay, T. (2021). Digital inequalities in the Internet of Things: Differences in attitudes, material access, skills, and usage. Information, Communication & Society, 24(2), 258–276.

Huws, U. (2019). The hassle of housework: Digitalisation and the commodification of domestic labour. Feminist Review, 123, 8–23.

Further Readings

Gupta, H. (2019). Testing the future: Gender and technocapitalism in start-up India. Feminist Review, 123, 74–88.

Pötzsch, H., & Schamberger, K. (2022). Labour struggles in digital capitalism: Challenges and opportunities for worker organisation, mobilisation, and activism in Germany. tripleC, 20(1), 82–100.

Huws, U. (2017). Where did online platforms come from? The virtualization of work organization and the new policy challenges it raises. In P. Meil & V. Kirov (Eds.), Policy implications of virtual work (pp. 29–48). Palgrave.

Unit 3: Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrencies, and the Theory of Money

Chey, H.-K. (2023). Cryptocurrencies and the IPE of money: An agenda for research. Review of International Political Economy, 30(4), 1605–1620.

Mellor, M. (2020). Bitcoin and the myths of neoliberalism. Australian Humanities Review, 66(May), 204–209.

Gikay, A. A., & Stănescu, C. G. (2019). Technological populism and its archetypes: Blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Nordic Journal of Commercial Law, 2, 64–109.

Please read the first 20 pages.

Further Readings

Boffo, M., Saad-Filho, A., & Fine, B. (2019). Neoliberal capitalism: The authoritarian turn. Socialist Register, 55, 247–270.

Unit 4: Theories and Practices of Surveillance

Galič, M., Timan, T., & Koops, B.-J. (2017). Bentham, Deleuze and beyond: An overview of surveillance theories from the panopticon to participation. Philosophy and Technology, 30(1), 9–37.

Beydoun, K. A. (2022). The new state of surveillance: Societies of subjugation. Washington & Lee Law Review, 79(2), 769–845.

Zuboff, S. (2019). Surveillance capitalism and the challenge of collective action. New Labor Forum, 28(1), 10–29.

Further Readings

Monahan, T. (2022). On the impossibility of ethical surveillance. In A. Pinchevski, P. M. Buzzanell, & J. Hannan (Eds.), The handbook of communication ethics [Forthcoming]. Routledge.

Roche, G., & Leibold J. (2022). State racism and surveillance in Xinjiang (People’s Republic of China). The Political Quarterly, 93(3), 442–450.

Unit 5: Counter-Surveillance—Countering Power From Below

Gonzalez, S. M., & Deckard, F. M. (2022). “We got witnesses” Black women’s counter-surveillance for navigating police violence and legal estrangement. Social Problems, 00, 1–18.

Spiegel, S. J. (2021). Fossil fuel violence and visual practices on Indigenous land: Watching, witnessing and resisting settler-colonial injustices. Energy Research & Social Science, 79, 1–18.

Unit 6: Social Media, Democracy, and the Public Sphere

Seeliger, M., & Sevignani, S. (2022). A new structural transformation of the public sphere? An introduction. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 3–16.

Staab, P., & Thiel, T. (2022). Social media and the digital structural transformation of the public sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 129–143.

Maldonado, M. A. (2019). Understanding fake news: Technology, affects, and the politics of the untruth. Historia y Comunicación Social, 24(2), 533–546.

Further Readings

Sevignani, S. (2022). Digital transformations and the ideological formation of the public sphere: Hegemonic, populist, or popular communication? Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 91–109.

Brown, É. (2018). Propaganda, misinformation, and the epistemic value of democracy. Critical Review, 30(3–4), 194–218.

Unit 7: Digital Technologies and Political Engagement—From Cyber-Optimism to Cyber-Pessimism

Small, T. A., & McNabb, D. (2022). “It’s kinda complicated”: Digital technology and democracy. In J. Brodie, S. Rein, & M. S. Smith (Eds.), Critical concepts: An Introduction to politics (6th ed., pp. 240–254). Oxford University Press.

Candón-Mena, J., & Montero-Sánchez, D. (2021). From cyber-activism to technopolitics: A critical take on historical periods and orientations in the use of digital technology by social movements. International Journal of Communication, 15, 2921–2941.

Please read pages 2930–2941.

Zaman, A. (2015). Markets and society [Pre-publication draft of Chapter 18: Unregulated Markets and the Transformation of Society for C. Spash (Ed.), Routledge handbook of ecological economics: Nature and society. Routledge, 2017].

Further Readings

Zaman, A. (2017, December 27). Resources for study of Polanyi’s Great Transformation. WEA Pedagogy Blog: Perspectives on Economics & Society.

Treré, E., & Kaun, A. (2021). Digital media activism: A situated, historical, and ecological approach beyond the technological sublime. In G. Balbi, N. Ribeiro, V. Schafer, & C. Schwarzenegger (Eds.), Digital roots: Historicizing media and communication concepts of the digital age (pp. 193–211). De Gruyter.

Unit 8: Social Media and the Rise of Populism

Hopster, J. (2021). Mutual affordances: The dynamics between social media and populism. Media, Culture & Society, 43(3), 551–560.

Govil, N., & Baishya, A. K. (2018). The bully in the pulpit: Autocracy, digital social media, and right-wing populist technoculture. Communication Culture & Critique, 11(1), 67–84.

Pickup, M., Stecula, D. A., & van der Linden, C. (2021, April 13). American exceptionalism: Determinants of spreading COVID-19 misinformation online in five countries. SocArXiv, 1–18.

Further Readings

Gerbaudo, P. (2018). Social media and populism: An elective affinity? Media, Culture & Society, 40(5), 745–753.

Hall, N.-A. (2022). Trajectories towards political engagement on Facebook around Brexit: Beyond affordances for understanding racist and right-wing populist mobilisations online. Sociology, 57(3), 569–585.

Unit 9: Social Media and Social Movement Activism

Artz, L. (2022). Social media and social movements. Protest, 1(2), 248–271.

Williams, J. B., Mezey, N., & Singh, L. O. (2021). #BlackLivesMatter—Getting from contemporary social movements to structural change. California Law Review Online, 12, 1–39.

Carlson, B., & Frazer, R. (2020). “They got filters”: Indigenous social media, the settler gaze, and a politics of hope. Social Media + Society, 6(2), 1–11.

Further Readings

Leong, C., Pan, S. L., Bahri, S., & Fauzi, A. (2019). Social media empowerment in social movements: Power activation and power accrual in digital activism. European Journal of Information Systems, 28(2), 173–204.

Boulianne, S. (2019). Revolution in the making? Social media effects across the globe. Information, Communication & Society, 22(1), 39–54.

Saaliq, S. (2021, January 27). Explainer: Why India’s farmers are revolting against PM Modi. APNews.

Sinha, S. (2021, February 1). India farmers’ protests: Internet shutdown highlights Modi’s record of stifling digital dissent. The Conversation.

Shivji, S. (2021, November 26). How India’s farmers faced down their prime minister and won. CBC News.

Unit 10: The Future of the Internet—Free? Governed? Controlled?

Ressa, M. (2022, November 25). How Facebook, and friends of friends, brought down democracy. The Globe and Mail.

Muldoon, J. (2021, December 8). Regulating big tech is not enough. We need platform socialism. Open Democracy.

Aho, B., & Duffield, R. (2020). Beyond surveillance capitalism: Privacy, regulation and big data in Europe and China. Economy and Society, 49(2), 187–212.

Flew, T. (2022). Beyond the paradox of trust and digital platforms: Populism and the reshaping of internet regulations. In T. Flew & F. R. Martin (Eds.), Digital platform regulation: Global perspectives on internet governance (pp. 281–309). Palgrave Macmillan.

Further Readings

Burri, M. (2022). Fake news in times of pandemic and beyond: An enquiry into the rationales for regulating information platforms [Forthcoming]. In K. Mathis & A. Tor (Eds.), Law and economics of the Coronavirus crisis (pp. 31–58). Springer.

Gilroy-Ware, M. (2021). What is wrong with social media? An anti-capitalist critique. Socialist Register, 58(1).

Elhefnawy, N. (2022). “The 1990s are over”: A note on the decline of neoliberalism and the end of unipolarity. Social Science Research Network, 1–38.

Bremmer, A., & Suleyman, M. (2023). The AI power paradox: Can states learn to govern artificial intelligence—Before it’s too late? Foreign Affairs, 102(5), 26–43.

Ortiz, S. (2023). What is ChatGPT and why does it matter? Here’s what you need to know. ZDNET.