New paperback:
Fuchs, Christian and Marisol Sandoval, eds. 2014. Critique, Social Media
and the Information Society. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-72108-0.
http://fuchs.uti.at/books/critique-social-media-and-the-information-society/
This book is an outcome of the 4th ICTs and Society Conference
“Critique, Democracy, and Philosophy in 21st Century Information
Society: Towards Critical Theories of Social Media” (May 2-4, 2012,
Uppsala Univeristy, Sweden)
Read the introduction: Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval - Critique,
Social Media and the Information Society in the Age of Capitalist Crisis
http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/intro.pdf
In times of global capitalist crisis we are witnessing a return of
critique in the form of a surging interest in critical theories (such as
the critical political economy of Karl Marx) and social rebellions as a
reaction to the commodification and instrumentalization of everything.
On one hand, there are overdrawn claims that social media (Twitter,
Facebook, YouTube, etc) have caused uproars in countries like Tunisia
and Egypt. On the other hand, the question arises as to what actual role
social media play in contemporary capitalism, crisis, rebellions, the
strengthening of the commons, and the potential creation of
participatory democracy. The commodification of everything has resulted
also in a commodification of the communication commons, including
Internet communication that is today largely commercial in character.
This book deals with the questions of what kind of society and what kind
of Internet are desirable, how capitalism, power structures and social
media are connected, how political struggles are connected to social
media, what current developments of the Internet and society tell us
about potential futures, how an alternative Internet can look like, and
how a participatory, commons-based Internet and a co-operative,
participatory, sustainable information society can be achieved.
With contributions by Andrew Feenberg, Catherine McKercher, Christian
Fuchs, Graham Murdock, Gunilla Bradley, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Margareta
Melin, Marisol Sandoval, Mark Andrejevic, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Peter
Dahlgren, Robert Prey, Sebastian Sevignani, Thomas Allmer, Tobias
Olsson, Verena Kreilinger, Vincent Mosco, Wolfgang Hofkirchner.
Contents
1. Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval
Introduction: Critique, Social Media and the Information Society in the
Age of Capitalist Crisis
Part I: Critical Studies of the Information Society
2. Christian Fuchs
Critique of the Political Economy of Informational Capitalism and Social
Media
3. Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Potentials and Risks for Creating a Global Sustainable Information Society
4. Sebastian Sevignani, Robert Prey, Marisol Sandoval, Thomas Allmer,
Jernej Amon Prodnik and Verena Kreilinger
Critical Studies of Contemporary Informational Capitalism: The
Perspective of Emerging Scholars
5. Gunilla Bradley
Social Informatics and Ethics: Towards the Good Information and
Communication Society
Part II: Critical Internet- and Social Media-Studies
6. Andrew Feenberg
Great Refusal or Long March: How to Think About the Internet
7. Graham Murdock
Producing Consumerism: Commodities, Ideologies, Practices
8. Marisol Sandoval
Social Media?: The Unsocial Character of Capitalist Media
9. Nick Dyer-Witheford
The Global Worker and the Digital Front
10. Mark Andrejevic
Alienation’s Returns
11. Peter Dahlgren
Social Media and Political Participation: Discourse and Deflection
12. Tobias Olsson
“The Architecture of Participation”: For Citizens or Consumers?
Part III: Critical Studies of Communication Labour
13. Catherine McKercher
Precarious Times, Precarious Work: A Feminist Political Economy of
Freelance Journalists in Canada and the United States
14. Margareta Melin
Flight as Fight: Re-Negotiating the Work of Journalism
15. Vincent Mosco
Marx is Back, But Will Knowledge Workers of the World Unite?: On the
Critical Study of Labour, Media and Communication Today
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