[liberationtech] New open access book: Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Capitalism, Labour and Politics in the Age of Big Data
New open access book: David Chandler and Christian Fuchs, eds. 2019. Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Capitalism, Labour and Politics in the Age of Big Data. London: University of Westminster Press. ISBN 978-1-912656-20-2. https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book29/ This volume explores activism, research and critique in the age of big data capitalism. Published by University of Westminster Press. Available as affordable paperback and free open access book. The book has a conversational nature so that each contribution is followed by a response/reflection. With contributions by Joanna Boehnert, Elisabetta Brighi, David Chandler, Robert Cowley, Jodi Dean, Christian Fuchs, Paolo Gerbaudo, Peter Goodwin, Kylie Jarrett, Anastasia Kavada, Phoebe V. Moore, Toni Negri, Jack L. Qiu, Paul Rekret, Paulina Tambakaki. Table of Contents Introduction: Big Data Capitalism – Politics, Activism, and Theory 1-20 Christian Fuchs and David Chandler Section I: Digital Capitalism and Big Data Capitalism Digital Governance in the Anthropocene: The Rise of the Correlational Machine 23-42 David Chandler Beyond Big Data Capitalism, Towards Dialectical Digital Modernity: Reflections on David Chandler’s Chapter 43-51 Christian Fuchs Karl Marx in the Age of Big Data Capitalism 53-71 Christian Fuchs What is at Stake in the Critique of Big Data? Reflections on Christian Fuchs’s Chapter 73-79 David Chandler Seeing Like a Cyborg? The Innocence of Posthuman Knowledge 81-94 Paul Rekret Posthumanism as a Spectrum: Reflections on Paul Rekret’s Chapter 95-100 Robert Cowley Section II: Digital Labour Through the Reproductive Lens: Labour and Struggle at the Intersection of Culture and Economy 103-116 Kylie Jarrett Contradictions in the Twitter Social Factory: Reflections on Kylie Jarrett’s Chapter 117-123 Joanna Boehnert E(a)ffective Precarity, Control and Resistance in the Digitalised Workplace 125-144 Phoebe V. Moore Beyond Repression: Reflections on Phoebe Moore’s Chapter 145-150 Elisabetta Brighi Goodbye iSlave: Making Alternative Subjects Through Digital Objects 151-164 Jack Linchuan Qiu Wage-Workers, Not Slaves: Reflections on Jack Qiu’s Chapter 165-167 Peter Goodwin Section III: Digital Politics Critique or Collectivity? Communicative Capitalism and the Subject of Politics 171-182 Jodi Dean Subjects, Contexts and Modes of Critique: Reflections on Jodi Dean’s Chapter 183-186 Paulina Tambakaki The Platform Party: The Transformation of Political Organisation in the Era of Big Data 187-198 Paolo Gerbaudo The Movement Party – Winning Elections and Transforming Democracy in a Digital Era: Reflections on Paolo Gerbaudo’s Chapter 199-204 Anastasia Kavada The Appropriation of Fixed Capital: A Metaphor? 205-214 Antonio Negri Appropriation of Digital Machines and Appropriation of Fixed Capital as the Real Appropriation of Social Being: Reflections on Toni Negri’s Chapter 215-221 Christian Fuchs -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest mode, or change password by emailing liberationtech-ow...@lists.stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call: Critical Digital and Social Media Research Conference
Critical Digital and Social Media Research Conference March 6-8, 2019 Umeå University Organised by DIGSUM (Centre for Digital Social Research) at Umeå University and the CAMRI (Communication and Media Research Institute), University of Westminster https://www.umu.se/en/events/critical-digital--social-media-research_7318389/ Keynote speakers: Mark Andrejevic, Christian Fuchs, Kylie Jarrett, Simon Lindgren, Evgeny Morozov, Tiziana Terranova This combined symposium and PhD workshop aims at showing that critical theories, critical methodologies and critical practices are cornerstones of digital and social media research and how they act as tools for questioning big data fetishism and the dominance of overly data-driven analytics. The event, aside from the keynotes, presents an opportunity for PhD students and postdocs to present a short paper and receive feedback from CAMRI and DIGSUM researchers, and prominent international participants. Applications to take part in the conference are accepted on a running basis starting November 29 2018, and the first 16 candidates to be accepted will have their participation (all travels and accommodation) fully funded by DIGSUM and CAMRI. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] From Tax Avoidance to AI: Policy Challenges in the Age of Big Data and Digital Monopolies
From Tax Avoidance to AI: Policy Challenges in the Age of Big Data and Digital Monopolies Launch of the Communication and Media Research Institute's (CAMRI) Policy Brief Series Tuesday, July 3, 2018, 18:30-20:00 Venue: The Boardroom at University of Westminster, Regent Street Campus (309 Regent Street London W1B 2H) Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/from-tax-avoidance-to-ai-policy-challenges-in-the-age-of-big-data-and-digital-monopolies-launch-of-tickets-47215918082 The event will feature presentations of the first briefs published by CAMRI in its new policy series: Mercedes Bunz: "Artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things: UK Policy Opportunities and Challenges" Christian Fuchs: "The Online Advertising Tax: A Digital Policy Innovation" "The Online Advertising Tax as the Foundation of a Public Service Internet". Hard copies of the reports will be available at the event. The presentations will be followed by a drinks reception. In an age where the accelerated development of media and communications creates profound opportunities and challenges for society, politics and the economy, the CAMRI Policy Brief series series cuts through the noise and offers up-to-date knowledge and evidence grounded in original research in order to respond to these changes in all their complexity. The publications are available here: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/series/camri-policy-briefs -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Free ebook: Nationalism 2.0
Free ebook: Christian Fuchs: Nationalism 2.0: The Making of Brexit on Social Media https://www.plutobooks.com/9781786802996/nationalism-2-0/ "Nationalism 2.0" reveals how the political fetishism of nationalist ideologies has displaced attention from the roles of capitalism and class as factors causing social problems today. This is a free ebook companion to "Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter" - https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337968/digital-demagogue/ Book launch "Digital Demagogue", March 1, 7pm, Univ of Westminster: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-demagogue-authoritarian-capitalism-in-the-age-of-trump-and-twitter-tickets-41214808602 Competition: 3 copies of "Digital Demagogue" - https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/32 -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Critical Digital and Social Media Studies - Call for Book Proposals, deadline approaching
REMINDER - 2018 CALL FOR BOOK PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS: CRITICAL DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES Submission Deadline: Monday 12 February 2017 23:00 BST by e-mail to Andrew Lockett (University of Westminster Press Manager) at a.lock...@westminster.ac.uk For fullest series details and proposal guidelines see https://uwestminsterpress.blog Critical Digital and Social Media Studies is an established book series edited by Christian Fuchs on behalf of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and published by the University of Westminster Press (UWP). We invite submissions of book proposals that fall into the scope of the series. CALL DETAILS After the publication of five titles in the series we invite submission of book proposals (adhering to the guidelines set out below) as one document with one full chapter for books in the range of 35,000-80,000 words. The books in the series are published online in an open access format available online without payment using a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC-ND) and simultaneously as affordable paperbacks. We are able to publish a number of books in the call without any book processing charges thanks to generous support by the University of Westminster that covers these fees. Potential authors are welcome to contact the series editor outside of the initial time frame of this call for book proposals but should note that priority for funding support for suitable projects will be given to those proposals meeting the deadline. There is a preference for the submission of proposals for books whose writing can be finished and that can be submitted to UWP within the next 6-15 months. In the event of a surplus of strong proposals preference will be given to single-authored book proposals over edited volumes. We welcome submissions of a book outline proposal with (exactly one) sample chapter submitted as one single Word or PDF document. We can only accept suggestions for books written in English. TOPICS Example topics that the book series is interested in include: the political economy of digital and social media; digital and informational capitalism; digital labour; ideology critique in the age of social media; new developments of critical theory in the age of digital and social media; critical studies of advertising and consumer culture online; critical social media research methods; critical digital and social media ethics; working class struggles in the age of social media; the relationship of class, gender and race in the context of digital and social media; the critical analysis of the implications of big data, cloud computing, digital positivism, the Internet of things, predictive online analytics, the sharing economy, location- based data and mobile media, etc.; the role of classical critical theories for studying digital and social media; alternative social media and Internet platforms; the public sphere in the age of digital media; the critical study of the Internet economy; critical perspectives on digital democracy; critical case studies of online prosumption; public service digital and social media; commons-based digital and social media; subjectivity, consciousness, affects, worldviews and moral values in the age of digital and social media; digital art and culture in the context of critical theory; environmental and ecological aspects of digital capitalism and digital consumer culture. PUBLISHED TITLES CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION: LUKÁCS, ADORNO, MARCUSE, HONNETH AND HABERMAS IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA Christian Fuchs, Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Westminster https://doi.org/10.16997/book1 KNOWLEDGE IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL CAPITALISM: AN INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE MATERIALISM Mariano Zukerfeld (CONICET), Argentina. https://doi.org/10.16997/book3 POLITICIZING DIGITAL SPACE: THEORY, THE INTERNET, AND RENEWING DEMOCRACY Trevor Smith Carleton University Ottowa. https://doi.org/10.16997/book5 CAPITAL, STATE, EMPIRE: THE NEW AMERICAN WAY OF DIGITAL WARFARE Scott Timcke, University of the West Indies, at St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago. https://doi.org/10.16997/book6 THE SPECTACLE 2.0: READING DEBORD IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL CAPITALISM Edited by Marco Briziarelli, University of New Mexico and Emiliana Armano, the State University of Milan. https://doi.org/10.16997/book11 -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] March 1: Launch of the book "Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter"
Book Launch: Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter, by Christian Fuchs Thursday, March 1, 2018, 19:00 University of Westminster 309 Regent Street London W1B 2HW 117 Boardroom Organised by Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies, Communication and Media Research Institute and Pluto Press https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-demagogue-authoritarian-capitalism-in-the-age-of-trump-and-twitter-tickets-41214808602 Christian Fuchs will be giving an introductory talk to “Digital Demagogue”, a timely and topical study of the expressions of ideology, nationalism and authoritarianism in the age of big data, social media and Donald Trump. We’re all familiar with the ways that Donald Trump uses digital media to communicate, from the ridiculous to the terrifying. This book digs deeper into the use of those tools in politics to show how they have facilitated the rise of authoritarianism, nationalism, and right-wing ideologies around the world. Christian Fuchs applies an updated theoretical framework that draws on thinkers such as Franz L. Neumann, Rosa Luxemburg, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer, Wilhelm Reich, Leo Löwenthal and Klaus Theweleit, to show the pernicious role of social media in the hands of nationalist politicians. The book is available for pre-order (English: Pluto Press, German: VSA Verlag) https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337968/digital-demagogue/ http://www.vsa-verlag.de/nc/buecher/detail/artikel/digitale-demagogie/ -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Reconsidering Value and Labour in the Digital Age.
Now (finally) available as paperback: Reconsidering Value and Labour in the Digital Age, ed. Eran Fisher & Christian Fuchs. http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137478566 http://fuchs.uti.at/books/reconsidering-value-and-labour-in-the-digital-age/ How do labour and value-production change in the age of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter? The labour theory of value is one of the core tenets of Marx’s theory of historical materialism, and of his understanding of capitalism. It is the theory that connects value to class structure, and that unveils the exploitative social relations that lay behind prices of commodities. This volume explores current interventions into the digital labour theory of value, proposing theoretical and empirical work that contributes to our understanding of Marx's labour theory of value, proposes how labour and value are transformed under conditions of digital and social media, and employ the theory in order to shed light on specific practices. With contributions by Christian Fuchs, Marisol Sandoval, Arwid Lund, Bingqing Xia, Brice Nixon, Eran Fisher, Yuqi Na, Thomas Allmer, Sebastian Sevignani, Jernej Prodnik, Olivier Frayssé, Jakob Rigi, Kylie Jarrett, Andrea Fumagalli, Frederick H. Pitts -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] 2018 CALL FOR OPEN ACCESS BOOK PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS: CRITICAL DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES
**NEW 2018 CALL FOR BOOK PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS: CRITICAL DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES** Critical Digital and Social Media Studies is an established book series edited by Professor Christian Fuchs on behalf of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and published by the University of Westminster Press (UWP). We invite submissions of book proposals that fall into the scope of the series. **Submission Deadline: Monday 12 February 2017 23:00 BST** by e-mail to Andrew Lockett (University of Westminster Press Manager) at a.lock...@westminster.ac.uk For fullest series details and proposal guidelines see https://uwestminsterpress.blog/2018/01/08/call-for-book-proposal-submissions-2018-critical-digital-and-social-media-studies-series/ Books already published in the Series: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/series/critical-digital-and-social-media-studies/ University of Westminster Press Publishing Portfolio: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/ubiquity-partner-network/uwp/UWP_Catalogue.pdf CALL DETAILS After the publication of five titles in the series we invite submission of book proposals (adhering to the guidelines set out below) as one document with one full chapter for books in the range of 35,000-80,000 words. The books in the series are published online in an open access format available online without payment using a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC-ND) and simultaneously as affordable paperbacks. We are able to publish a number of books in the call without any book processing charges thanks to generous support by the University of Westminster that covers these fees. Potential authors are welcome to contact the series editor outside of the initial time frame of this call for book proposals but should note that priority for funding support for suitable projects will be given to those proposals meeting the deadline. There is a preference for the submission of proposals for books whose writing can be finished and that can be submitted to UWP within the next 6-15 months. In the event of a surplus of strong proposals preference will be given to single-authored book proposals over edited volumes. We welcome submissions of a book outline proposal with (exactly one) sample chapter submitted as one single Word or PDF document. We can only accept suggestions for books written in English. TOPICS Example topics that the book series is interested in include: the political economy of digital and social media; digital and informational capitalism; digital labour; ideology critique in the age of social media; new developments of critical theory in the age of digital and social media; critical studies of advertising and consumer culture online; critical social media research methods; critical digital and social media ethics; working class struggles in the age of social media; the relationship of class, gender and race in the context of digital and social media; the critical analysis of the implications of big data, cloud computing, digital positivism, the Internet of things, predictive online analytics, the sharing economy, location- based data and mobile media, etc.; the role of classical critical theories for studying digital and social media; alternative social media and Internet platforms; the public sphere in the age of digital media; the critical study of the Internet economy; critical perspectives on digital democracy; critical case studies of online prosumption; public service digital and social media; commons-based digital and social media; subjectivity, consciousness, affects, worldviews and moral values in the age of digital and social media; digital art and culture in the context of critical theory; environmental and ecological aspects of digital capitalism and digital consumer culture. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Paperback: Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism/Marx and the Political Economy of the Media
Now available in paperback: Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism & Marx and the Political Economy of the Media Edited by Christian Fuchs & Vincent Mosco Haymarket Books 2017 200 years after Marx’s birth and 150 years after the publication of Capital Volume 1, capitalism continues to be haunted by crises, each bringing renewed attention to his works. These two volumes present a total of 34 contributions on 1164 pages that explore the role of the Marxian analysis of communication in the age of digital capitalism and engage with foundations of the Marxian political economy of the media. Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1034-marx-in-the-age-of-digital-capitalism Marx and the Political Economy of the Media https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1033-marx-and-the-political-economy-of-the-media Table of Contents: http://fuchs.uti.at/books/marx-in-the-age-of-digital-capitalism/ http://fuchs.uti.at/books/marx-and-the-political-economy-of-the-media/ -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] What Internet do we want? Please participate in the netCommons survey
netCommons is an interdisciplinary Horizon2020 EU project studying the social, legal and technological reality and future of the Internet - https://netcommons.eu/ The University of Westminster’s project team conducts a survey among experienced Internet users that asks: What Internet do we want? What are the Internet’s main problems? How can alternatives look like? https://d52netcommons.limequery.com/357528?lang=en We appreciate if you could take approx. 20 minutes to participate in the survey, which helps us to better understand the Internet’s problems and possible solutions. Many thanks! Kind regards, Dimitris Boucas, Maria Michalis, Christian Fuchs (Univ of Westminster netCommons research team) -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Capital, State, Empire by Scott Timcke
Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare Open Access book by Scott Timcke Part of the Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies series edited by Christian Fuchs University of Westminster Press Free download, affordable paperback: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book6/ The United States presents the greatest source of global geo-political violence and instability. Guided by the radical political economy tradition, this book offers an analysis of the USA’s historical impulse to weaponize communication technologies. Scott Timcke explores the foundations of this impulse and how the militarization of digital society creates structural injustices and social inequalities. He analyses how new digital communication technologies support American paramountcy and conditions for worldwide capital accumulation. Identifying selected features of contemporary American society, Capital, State, Empire undertakes a materialist critique of this digital society and of the New American Way of War. At the same time it demonstrates how the American security state represses activists—such as Black Lives Matter—who resist this emerging security leviathan. The book also critiques the digital positivism behind the algorithmic regulation used to control labour and further diminish prospects for human flourishing for the ‘99%’. Capital, State, Empire contributes to a broader understanding of the dynamics of global capitalism and political power in the early 21st century. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] June 28: Critical Theory in the Digital Context: Search Engine Labour and Creative Production
Critical Theory in the Digital Context: Search Engine Labour and Creative Production Wed, June 28, 2017, 18:00 WIAS Seminar University of Westminster 309 Regent St, Room UG.04 Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/critical-theory-in-the-digital-context-search-engine-labour-and-creative-production-tickets-34113161384 How are major search algorithms produced? How is their global relevance sustained and promoted? What is the role of creativity in digital games production? How do creative producers cope with contradictions in their precarious workplaces? Focusing on search engines and the digital games industry, Ergin Bulut and Paško Bilić will in two talks explore various angles of critical theory. Concepts such as technological rationality, alienation, bio-political production and exploitation will be evoked to understand the specifics of labour processes in digital contexts. Paško Bilić is Research Associate at the Department for Culture and Communication, Institute for Development and International Relations in Zagreb, Croatia. Ergin Bulut is Assistant Professor at the Department of Media and Visual Arts at Koc University, Istanbul. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Digital Needs and the Commons under Informational Capitalism
Digital Needs and the Commons under Informational Capitalism A WIAS research seminar with talks by Sebastian Sevignani and Benjamin Birkinbine Tue, June 6, 18:00-20:00 309 Regent Street, W1B 2HW, London Boardroom Organised by the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-needs-and-the-commons-under-informational-capitalism-tickets-33491158958 How can we define informational “needs?” What type of information is necessary for human development, survival, and social progress? What is in this context the role of the information commons and digital commons? In what ways does capitalism restrict the fulfillment of these needs? In this seminar, Dr. Sebastian Sevignani reflects on what needs are, how they develop, and offers proposals for what informational needs might be. Dr. Benjamin Birkinbine focuses specifically on the informational commons as one way to provide for such needs, while highlighting the contradictions that these movements face under capitalism. The overall goal for this discussion is to work toward a critical theory of needs under informational capitalism. Benjamin J Birkinbine is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at University of Nevada, Reno. Whilst based at WIAS as international research fellow, he works towards a critical theory of the digital commons. Sebastian Sevignani is Assistant Professor at the Department for General Sociology and Sociological Theory, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. As WIAS international research fellow he works on foundations of a theory of digital needs. For updates, subscribe to WIAS-newsletter: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Activism, Research & Critique in the Age of Big Data Capitalism
Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Activism, Research & Critique in the Age of Big Data CapitalismThe 6th ICTs and Society Conference Sat & Sun, May 20-21 University of Westminster, London Hosted by the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies This symposium presents critical perspectives on the role humans and digital technologies in big data capitalism. The event is free, registration is required at latest until Thu, May 18 by sending the completed form http://icts-and-society.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Registration-form-Digital-Objects-Digital-Subjects.docx to ictsandsociety2...@gmail.com Speakers: Toni Negri, Jodi Dean, David Chandler, Christian Fuchs, Paolo Gerbaudo, Orit Halpern, Kylie Jarrett, Jack Linchuan Qiu, Antoinette Rouvroy, Etienne Turpin More infos: http://icts-and-society.net/events/digital-objects-digital-subjects-a-symposium-on-activism-research-critique-in-the-age-of-big-data-capitalism-the-6th-icts-society-conference/ Programme: http://icts-and-society.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/8353%E2%80%B9WIAS_ProgrammeEventA5.pdf -- For further infos, sign up to the WIAS newsletter https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Open Data Movements in the Age of Big Data Capitalism: WIAS seminar with Arwid Lund and Jonathan Gray
Open Data Movements in the Age of Big Data Capitalism Tue 16 May 2017 17:00 – 19:00 Organised by the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies 309 Regent Street University of Westminster London W1B 2HW Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-data-movements-in-the-age-of-big-data-capitalism-tickets-33995439274 A WIAS seminar with International Research Fellow Dr Arwid Lund and Open Knowledge Activist Dr Jonathan Gray Big data has received a lot of attention in recent years, open data/knowledge less so, and the relation between open data/knowledge and the predominantly commercial big data sector even less so. This seminar aims at critically discussing and shedding light on the under-theorised field of open data/knowledge and its relation to capitalism. In this WIAS seminar, Dr Arwid Lund reflects on his study of the ideological landscape underpinning the open data/knowledge movement (Open Knowledge London). Dr Jonathan Gray focuses on his own involvement in this movement and his forthcoming book Data Worlds: The new politics of information. The aim of the seminar is to introduce critical perspectives on open data/knowledge’s relation to capitalism, as well as a critical understanding of the political character that informs its advocates. We will round the event off with a wine reception. Dr Arwid Lund is a Lecturer at the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden. Arwid is completing the second part of his WIAS fellowship from 3 April 2017 to 2 June 2017. During his fellowship, he will be working on how ‘openness’ is understood ideologically by advocates within the Open Knowledge Network. His aim is to identify the ideological landscape within this movement. Dr Jonathan Gray is a Prize Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath. He is also Research Associate at the médialab of Sciences Po and Tow Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University. As Director of Policy and Research at the global civil society organisation Open Knowledge, Jonathan has founded and co-founded numerous initiatives, including the Data Journalism Handbook, Europe’s Energy, Open Data for Tax Justice, OpenSpending, Open Trials, The Public Domain Review and Where Does My Money Go?. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Activism, Research & Critique in the Age of Big Data Capitalism
Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Activism, Research & Critique in the Age of Big Data Capitalism The 6th ICTs and Society Conference May 20-21 University of Westminster, London Hosted by the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies Speakers: Toni Negri, Jodi Dean, David Chandler, Christian Fuchs, Paolo Gerbaudo, Orit Halpern, Kylie Jarrett, Jack Linchuan Qiu, Antoinette Rouvroy, Etienne Turpin Registration, all abstracts and more info: http://icts-and-society.net/events/digital-objects-digital-subjects-a-symposium-on-activism-research-critique-in-the-age-of-big-data-capitalism-the-6th-icts-society-conference/ Presenters at the symposium will engage with questions of the digital in respect to activism, research and critique. The conference will engage with the possibilities, potentials, pitfalls, limits, and ideologies of digital activism. It will reflect on whether computational social science, the digital humanities and ubiquitous datafication enable new research approaches or result in a digital positivism that threatens the independence of critical research and brings about the death of the social sciences and humanities. The conference will explore the futures, places and possibilities of critique in the age of digital subjects and digital objects. Talks: - Toni Negri: The Incorporation of the Digital Machine: A Metaphor? - Jodi Dean: Critique or Collectivity? - David Chandler: Governmentalities of the Digital: Mapping, Sensing and Hacking - Christian Fuchs: Karl Marx in the Age of Big Data Capitalism - Paolo Gerbaudo: The Platform Party: The Transformation of Political Organisation in the Digital Era - Orit Halpern: The Smart Mandate: Ubiquitous Computing, Environment, and “Resilient Hope” - Kylie Jarrett: The Digital Housewife: Labour at the Intersection of Culture and Economy - Jack Linchuan Qiu: Goodbye iSlave: Rethinking Smartphone, Activism, and Chinese Labour - Antoinette Rouvroy: Revitalizing Critique Against the Critical Sirens of Algorithmic Governmentality - Etienne Turpin: The Same River Twice: Torrential Formations of the Anthropocene -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call for Open Access Book Proposals: Critical Digital and Social Media Studies (Univ of Westminster Press)
DEADLINE APPROACHING SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday 30 January 2017 23:00 BST by e-mail to Andrew Lockett (University of Westminster Press Manager), a.lock...@westminster.ac.uk. For full details and proposal guidelines see; http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/news Critical Digital and Social Media Studies is a new book series edited by Professor Christian Fuchs on behalf of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and published by the University of Westminster Press (UWP). We invite submissions of book proposals that fall into the scope of the series. CALL DETAILS After the publication of the first title in the series we invite submission of book proposals (adhering to the guidelines set out below) accompanied by one full chapter for books in the range of 35,000-80,000 words. The books in the series are published online in an open access format available online without payment using a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC-ND) and simultaneously as affordable paperbacks. We are able to publish a number of books in the call without any book processing charges thanks to generous support by the University of Westminster Library that covers these fees. Potential authors are welcome to contact the series editor outside of the initial time frame of this call for book proposals but should note that priority for funding support for suitable projects will be given to those proposals meeting the deadline. We welcome submissions of a book outline proposal with (exactly one) sample chapter but only accept suggestions for books written in English. Example topics that the book series is interested in include: the political economy of digital and social media; Brexit and digital media; authoritarianism and digital media; the EU and digital media; digital and informational capitalism; digital labour; ideology critique in the age of digital/social media; new developments of critical theory in the age of digital and social media; critical studies of advertising and consumer culture online; critical social media research methods; critical digital and social media ethics; working class struggles in the age of social media; the relationship of class, gender and race in the context of digital and social media; the critical analysis of the implications of big data, cloud computing, digital positivism, the Internet of things, predictive online analytics, the sharing economy, location- based data and mobile media, etc.; the role of classical critical theories for studying digital and social media; alternative social media and Internet platforms; the public sphere in the age of digital media; the critical study of the Internet economy; critical perspectives on digital democracy; critical case studies of online prosumption; public service digital and social media; commons-based digital and social media; subjectivity, consciousness, affects, worldviews and moral values in the age of digital and social media; digital art and culture in the context of critical theory; environmental and ecological aspects of digital capitalism and digital consumer culture. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Frankfurt School Critical Theory - Donald Trump, authoritarian capitalism/populism & Twitter
Read how Donald Trump is prototypical for a new form of authoritarian capitalism. What is authoritarian capitalism? How does Trump practice authoritarian capitalism? These questions are discussed in C. Fuchs' new study "Donald Trump: A Critical Theory-Perspective on Authoritarian Capitalism" that uses critical theory for the analysis of Trump: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/835 What does Trump's Twitter use tell us about how politics works in authoritarian capitalism? The following piece analyses how Twitter's me-centredness is the ideal tool for Trump's narcissistic and authoritarian politics: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/christian-fuchs1/how-the-frankfurt-school-_b_14156190.html Critical theory is urgently needed today... The journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique will throughout 2017 operate the special section "Critical Theory Interventions on Authoritarianism and Right-Wing Extremist Ideology in Contemporary Capitalism" and invites submission of interventionist contributions to this section - Submission details: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions Please make sure to use the template and to apply the guidelines http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/abou/submissions#authorGuidelines -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Jan 25: Building Community with the Help of Information and Commmunications Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges (netCommons/WIAS event)
BUILDING COMMUNITY WITH THE HELP OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES – OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES Wed, 25/1/2017 6pm University of Westminster, 309 Regent St, London W1B 2HW Fyvie Hall Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-community-with-the-help-of-information-and-communications-tickets-30489441741 Accessing the Internet day in, day out is part of everyday life. But we take for granted that the way we access the Internet is via a service provider, usually among the largest for-profit corporations in the world. We rarely think about whether there are alternative forms of Internet infrastructure that do not operate access as profitable business. This event explores community networks as alternative forms of Internet access and presents two talks on community networks by experts who come from academia and industry. Prof Claire Wallace, University of Aberdeen, will present work carried out in Aberdeen among four rural communities that have used information technology in different ways to help build community networks and an enhanced sense of identity and social cohesion. The research was sponsored by the EPSRC as part of the Cultures and Communities Network+ initiative and as part of the Aberdeen Digital Economy hub. Adam Burns, member of the netCommons project advisory board and a long-time community network practitioner, will talk about his experiences, motivations, and the realiteis of community networks. He will report on how from his experience alternative Internet access and infrastructure can be organised and what the opportunities and challenges are in doing so. This public event is organised by the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) in the context of the EU Horizon2020 project netCommons (http://netcommons.eu/) Forthcoming WIAS events: Fri, Feb 3: China’s Economic Transformation in the New Media Era, https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chinas-economic-transformation-in-the-new-media-era-tickets-31022409863?aff=erelpanelorg Fri, March 3: The Unreality of Reality TV: From "After Dark" towards Twitter, Big Data, and "Big Brother" https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/unreality-of-reality-tv-from-after-dark-towards-twitter-big-data-and-big-brother-tickets-29380168876?aff=erelpanelorg For WIAS infos about events, publications, calls, etc, subscribe to the WIAS Newsletter https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter -- Prof. Christian Fuchs University of Westminster, http://fuchs.uti.at, http://www.triple-c.at @fuchschristian -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] ESA 2017 conference "(Un)Making Europe: Capitalism, Solidarities, Subjectivities": Abstract submission now open
Abstract submission now open "(Un)Making Europe: Capitalism, Solidarities, Subjectivities" 13th European Sociological Conference European Sociological Assocation Athens, Greece, 29 August to 1 September 2017 http://www.europeansociology.org./conferences/13th-conference-2017/ Abstract submission via https://www.conftool.pro/esa2017/ Abstract submission deadline: February 1, 2017 Invited speakers include David Harvey, Yanis Varoufakis, Donatella della Porta, Eva Illouz, Hartmut Rosa, Silvia Federici, Ruth Wodak, Gerard Delanty, Margaret Abraham, Maria Kousis, Markus Schulz, Michel Wieviorka, and others. The conference will feature keynote talks, invited semi-plenaries, sessions by ESA's 37 thematic networks, 17 research streams, midday specials, and a pre-conference PhD workshop. In addition, the ESA conference provides for the first time the opportunity for submission of abstracts to selected semi-plenary session topics. Such Semi-plenary topics now open for submission include for example the themes "(Un)Making Europe", "Un)Making Capitalism", "(Un)Making Solidarities", "(Un)Making Subjectivities", and other topics. Call details: http://www.europeansociology.org/download/esa2017_CFPs.pdf Please consult the details of the call and have a look at the guidelines before you start submission. In order to make use of the reduced conference fee, renew your ESA membership early or become a new ESA member now: New membership: http://www.europeansociology.org/member/ Renew membership: http://www.europeansociology.org/membership_renewal/ Conference theme "(Un)Making Europe: Capitalism, Solidarities, Subjectivities" Europe can be made or unmade, and this is especially true since the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008. European society, and even the very idea of Europe, is under threat. First, the inherent contradictions of capitalism are obviously stronger than we thought: Greece, where the emphatic idea of “Europe” originated, has experienced severe austerity measures; Europe has seen a deepening of neo-liberal politics, threats to what remains of the welfare state and increasing inequality. Second, solidarities are fragmented in and between societies across Europe. The new world economic crisis formed a context for both the constitution and the undermining of solidarities. On the one hand, from the Arab Uprisings to the various Occupy and Indignados movements and their manifestations at the level of political parties we have seen rebellions by citizens demanding political change. On the other hand, refugees fleeing wars have been denied human rights and their lives have been threatened by the closure of borders and the lack of a coordinated European strategy. Third, subjectivities are formed that do not only result in resistance and protest, but also in apathy, despair, depression, and anxiety. Authoritarianism, nationalism, racism, xenophobia, right-wing extremism, spirals of violence, and ideological fundamentalisms have proliferated throughout the world, including in Europe. As a result, the promise of Europe and the geographical, political, and social borders of Europe have been unmade and this ‘unmaking’ poses a profound challenge for sociology and the social sciences more generally. It is in this context that the European Sociological Association’s 2017 Conference takes place in Athens at the epicentre of the European crisis. The underlying question for the conference is: How and where to should a sociology that matters evolve? How can sociology’s analyses, theories and methods, across the whole spectrum of ESA’s 37 research networks and various countries, be advanced in order to explain and understand capitalism, solidarities and subjectivities in the processes of the making, unmaking and remaking of Europe? -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] New Call for Open Access Book Proposals: Critical Digital and Social Media Studies
NEW CALL FOR OPEN ACCESS BOOK PROPOSALS: CRITICAL DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES Critical Digital and Social Media Studies is a new open access book series edited by Professor Christian Fuchs on behalf of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and published by the University of Westminster Press (UWP). We invite submissions of book proposals that fall into the scope of the series. SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday 30 January 2017 23:00 BST by e-mail to Andrew Lockett (University of Westminster Press Manager), a.lock...@westminster.ac.uk. For full details and proposal guidelines see; http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/news CALL DETAILS The Critical Digital and Social Media Studies Series is published by the University of Westminster Press (http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk). The first volume in the series - Christian Fuchs: Critical Theory of Communication - has just been published and is available as gratis open access book and as affordable paperback: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/detail/1/critical-theory-of-communication/ Example topics that the book series is interested in include: the political economy of digital and social media; digital and informational capitalism; digital labour; ideology critique in the age of social media; new developments of critical theory in the age of digital and social media; critical studies of advertising and consumer culture online; critical social media research methods; critical digital and social media ethics; working class struggles in the age of social media; the relationship of class, gender and race in the context of digital and social media; the critical analysis of the implications of big data, cloud computing, digital positivism, the Internet of things, predictive online analytics, the sharing economy, location- based data and mobile media, etc.; the role of classical critical theories for studying digital and social media; alternative social media and Internet platforms; the public sphere in the age of digital media; the critical study of the Internet economy; critical perspectives on digital democracy; critical case studies of online prosumption; public service digital and social media; commons-based digital and social media; subjectivity, consciousness, affects, worldviews and moral values in the age of digital and social media; digital art and culture in the context of critical theory; environmental and ecological aspects of digital capitalism and digital consumer culture. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] New open access book: C. Fuchs - Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet.
Fuchs, Christian. 2016. Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet. London: University of Westminster Press. ISBN 978-1-911534-04-4. Critical Digital and Social Media Studies Book Series, Volume 1. More information: http://fuchs.uti.at/books/critical-theory-of-communication/ http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/detail/1/critical-theory-of-communication/ Watch the introductory talk from the book launch https://vimeo.com/187128375 This book contributes to the foundations of a critical theory of communication as shaped by the forces of digital capitalism. Christian Fuchs explores how the thought of some of the Frankfurt School’s key thinkers can be deployed for critically understanding media in the age of the Internet. Five essays that form the heart of this book review aspects of the works of Georg Lukács, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Axel Honneth and Jürgen Habermas and apply them as elements of a critical theory of communication’s foundations. The approach taken starts from Georg Lukács' "Ontology of Social Being", draws on the work of the Frankfurt School thinkers, and sets them into dialogue with the Cultural Materialism of Raymond Williams. Critical Theory of Communication offers a vital set of new insights on how communication operates in the age of information, digital media and social media, arguing that we need to transcend the communication theory of Habermas by establishing a dialectical and cultural-materialist critical theory of communication. It is the first title in a major new book series ‘Critical Digital and Social Media Studies’ published by the University of Westminster Press. Table of Contents 1. Introduction: Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet 2. Georg Lukács as a Communications Scholar: Cultural and Digital Labour in the Context of Lukács’ Ontology of Social Being 3. Theodor W. Adorno and the Critical Theory of Knowledge 4. Herbert Marcuse and Social Media 5. The Internet, Social Media and Axel Honneth’s Interpretation of Georg Lukács’ Theory of Reification and Alienation 6. Beyond Habermas: Rethinking Critical Theories of Communication 7. Conclusion Index -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Book launch: Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet
Book launch: Critical Theory of Communication Wed 12 October 2016, 18:30 Fyvie Hall 309 Regent St London W1B 2HW https://www.westminster.ac.uk/events/book-launch-critical-theory-of-communication Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-critical-theory-of-communication-tickets-27680660601 University of Westminster Press and Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies are pleased to mark the first publication of UWP, Critical Theory of Communication, by Christian Fuchs. It is the first book in a new book series entitled Critical Digital and Social Media Studies. Christian Fuchs will be giving an introduction to his new book that revisits writings of Frankfurt School authors in the age of the Internet. He argues that today we need to transcend Habermas' communication theory by establishing a dialectical and cultural-materialist critical theory of communication. The approach he takes starts from Georg Lukács' "Ontology of Social Being" and draws on works by Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Axel Honneth. It sets these approaches into a dialogue with Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, outlining why such analysis is so vital for understanding a world dominated by the likes of Facebook,Google, Amazon and other corporate technology multinationals. Programme Introduction by University of Westminster Provost Professor Graham Megson Setting up a university press in the digital age by Andrew Lockett, Press Manager, University of Westminster Press Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet talk by Prof Christian Fuchs, Director of Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and the Communication and Media Research Institute -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call: 2017 Westminster Institute for Advances Studies-International Research Fellowships in Critical Digital & Social Media Studies
Call: 2017 Westminster Institute for Advances Studies-International Research Fellowships in Critical Digital & Social Media Studies https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news/2016/call-for-applications-wias-international-research-fellowships-in-critical-digital-and-social-media-studies-2017 http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AUN132/westminster-institute-for-advanced-studies-international-research-fellowships-in-critical-digital-and-social-media-studies-2017-call-for-applications/ The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) www.westminster.ac.uk/wias is an academic space for independent critical thinking beyond borders. It is located at the University of Westminster in the heart of London. Prof Christian Fuchs is its Director. The WIAS’ research focus is critical digital and social media studies. The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies has an open call for international resarch fellows who during a 3 month stay in 2017 conduct critical studies of digital and social media's role in society. The WIAS aims to contribute to bringing about a paradigm shift from big data analytics to critical digital and social media research methods and theories. Digital and social media research at WIAS uses and develops critical theories, is profoundly theoretical, and discusess the political relevance and implications of the studied topics. The WIAS’ Critical Digital and Social Media Studies Fellowship Programme is aimed at current and future research leaders, who engage in independent critical thinking. It enables them to undertake independent and collaborative research on original topics in a stimulating academic environment in London. Funded scholarships are only awarded as a result of open calls. Priority will be given to well-defined projects. The regular scholarship duration is 3 months (start between 9 January and 1 May 2017). Later start dates are not possible. Application deadline: Friday October 28, 2016 More information, details and application: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news/2016/call-for-applications-wias-international-research-fellowships-in-critical-digital-and-social-media-studies-2017 Subcribe to the WIAS newsletter - https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Oct 12: Launch of Christian Fuchs' OA book "Critical Theory of Communication" and the University of Westminster Press
Launch of the book "Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet" and University of Westminster Press Wednesday, October 12, 2016 18:30-20:30 (followed by reception) Fyvie Hall 309 Regent St W1B 2HW London Further information: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/events/book-launch-critical-theory-of-communication Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-critical-theory-of-communication-tickets-27680660601 Update about availability of paperback/gratis ebook/gratis pdf: www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter University of Westminster Press (UWP) and Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies are pleased to mark the first publication of UWP, Critical Theory of Communication, by Christian Fuchs. It is the first book in an new open access book series entitled Critical Digital and Social Media Studies. Christian Fuchs will be giving an introduction to his new open access book that revisits writings of Frankfurt School authors in the age of the Internet. He argues that today we need to transcend Habermas' communication theory by establishing a dialectical and cultural-materialist critical theory of communication. The approach he takes starts from Georg Lukács' "Ontology of Social Being" and draws on works by Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Axel Honneth. It sets these approaches into a dialogue with Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, outlining why such analysis is so vital for understanding a world dominated by the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon and other corporate technology multinationals. The book will be available from October on as affordable paperback and as free pdf and ebook from http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk and www.westminster.ac.uk/wias - updates via subscription to the newsletter www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter --- Programme Introduction by University of Westminster Provost Professor Graham Megson Setting up a university press in the digital age, by Andrew Lockett, Press Manager, University of Westminster Press Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet Christian Fuchs, Director of Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies Reception (Drinks and snacks) --- Subscribe to the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies’ newsletter (events, publications, scholarships, calls, initiatives, etc.): https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Special Issue Call: Ferments in the Field: The Past, Present and Futures of Communication Studies (Journal of Communication)
Special Issue of the Journal of Communication: Ferments in the Field: The Past, Present and Futures of Communication Studies Editors: Christian Fuchs & Jack Qiu Call for submission of extended abstracts http://fuchs.uti.at/1699/ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10./(ISSN)1460-2466/homepage/call_for_papers__ferments_in_the_field.htm In 1983, Journal of Communication (JoC) published the special issue “Ferment in the Field” (Volume 33, Issue 3, co-edited by George Gerbner and Marsha Siefert). The issue focused on “questions about the role of communications scholars and researchers, and of the discipline as a whole, in society” (Gerbner & Siefert, 1983, p. 4). The 35 contributions reflected “on the state of communications research today; the relationship of the researcher to science, society, and policy; the goals of research with respect to social issues and social structure; and the tactics and strategies for reaching their goals” (ibid). In 1993, two comparable JoC issues were dedicated to “The Disciplinary Status of Communication Research” (Volume 43, Issues 3-4, co-edited by Mark Levy and Michael Gurevitch). In 2008, a JoC special issue discussed “Epistemological and Disciplinary Intersections” (Volume 58, Issue 4, edited by Michael Pfau). More than three decades after the original Ferment issue, it is again time to reflect on disciplinary transformations in communication studies. By calling this new special issue Ferments in the Field, we see historical continuity in our efforts along JoC’s tradition of inviting communication scholarship to reflect upon itself. Meanwhile, we ask questions with a special eye on the increasing complexity and diversity of the field: * What does the field of communication research look like? * What have been the key tendencies and developments in communication(s) research and its subfields? * How has the field developed in the past decades? What have been long-term continuities and discontinuities since the 1980s? * What is the actual and desirable role for communication studies in contemporary academe and society? * What is the status of theory, methods, critique, ethics, and interdisciplinarity in our field? * What is the status of critical research and theories? * How should the field position itself vis-à-vis key contemporary processes and challenges? * What does the future of communication studies look like? Contributions to a new edition of “Ferments in the Field” should be provocative essays that offer bold ideas with broad implications for the field as a whole and areas of specializations. This special issue speaks of ferments in the plural in order to spur reflections beyond established academic boundaries and stimulate discussions that encourage scholars to think beyond comfort zones. From multiple theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives, it asks about the continuities and discontinuities in communication research in an attempt to initiate a new round of debates about the past, present and futures of the field. The special issue will be published in 2018. The editors are Professor Christian Fuchs (University of Westminster) and Professor Jack Qiu (Chinese University of Hong Kong). Authors are welcome to submit extended abstracts to the Editors by December 1, 2016. Extended abstracts should have a length of 400-1,000 words (excluding tables, figures, and references). Abstracts should be submitted to c.fu...@westminster.ac.uk and jackl...@cuhk.edu.hk. For doing so, please complete use the submission form available here: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/Ferments.docx Subsequently, authors who were asked to submit complete papers will need to submit their manuscripts by May 2, 2017. Each manuscript should not exceed 4,000 words (including tables, figures, and references). -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Henryk Grossman 2.0: A Critique of Paul Mason’s Book “PostCapitalism"
Fuchs, Christian. 2016. Henryk Grossman 2.0: A Critique of Paul Mason’s Book “PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future“. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique 14 (1): 232-242. http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/757 Abstract This article reviews Paul Mason’s book “PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future”. It discusses Mason’s version of long wave theory, the book’s interpretation of Karl Marx, its analysis of the Grundrisse’s “Fragment on Machines”, and aspects of political struggles and societal change. The conclusion is that Paul Mason is digital Marxism’s Henryk Grossman 2.0. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] *FINAL CALL: Proposal deadline: 1 March 2016 FINAL CALL ***
A reminder that the deadline of 1 March 2016 is approaching for book submissions to the Critical and Digital Social Media Studies. https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news/2016/critical-digital-and-social-media-studies-call-for-book-proposals http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/news/ "Critical Digital & Social Media Studies" is a book series edited by Christian Fuchs on behalf of the Westminster Insitute for Advanced Studies and published by the University of Westminster Press. It publishes books that critically study the role of the Internet, digital and social media in society and make critical interventions. We invite submissions of book proposals that fall into the scope of the series. The books in the series are published in an open access format available online without payment using a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC-ND) and simultaneously as affordable paperbacks. We are able to publish a number of books in the call without any book processing charges thanks to support by the University of Westminster Library. The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies http://www.westminster.ac.uk/wias is a new interdisciplinary institute at the University of Westminster. Its inaugural research theme is critical digital & social media research. Subscription to its newsletter is possible here: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] International Visiting Fellowships in Critical Digital & Social Media Research
Call for Applications: International Visiting Fellowships in Critical Digital & Social Media Research The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) www.westminster.ac.uk/wias is a newly created academic space at the University of Westminster in London for independent critical thinking beyond borders. Its inaugural research theme is Critical Digital & Social Media Research. One of the WIAS’ key features is the Research Fellowship Programme that attracts and brings together current and future academic leaders. We invite applications for international junior and senior research fellows (from all academic backgrounds) who conduct fellowship research projects in the realm of Critical Social & Digital Media Research for the duration of 3 months in 2016. Several fellowships will be awarded as result of this call. The fellowships cover airfare and a contribution to accomodation and subsistence in London. Funded scholarships are only awarded as a result of open calls. The WIAS invites both junior and senior fellows. Junior fellows are researchers who hold a PhD that has been awarded not more than 5 years before the date of the call publication. Senior fellows are researchers who hold a PhD that has been awarded more than 5 years before the call is published. More details and application: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news/2016/call-for-applications-international-research-fellowship Application deadline: February 29, 2016, 17:00 BST Subscription to the WIAS newsletter in order to receive updates about events, future fellowship calls, calls of the book series "Critical Digital & Social Media Studies", publications, etc. is possible here: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call for book proposals: Critical Digital & Social Media Studies OA book series
"Critical Digital & Social Media Studies" is a book seried edited by Christian Fuchs on behalf of the Westminster Insitute for Advanced Studies and published by the University of Westminster Press. It publishes books that critically study the role of the Internet, digital and social media in society and make critical interventions. We invite submissions of book proposals that fall into the scope of the series. Deadline: March 1, 2016 The books in the series are published in an open access format available online without payment using a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC-ND) and simultaneously as affordable paperbacks. We are able to publish a number of books in the call without any book processing charges thanks to support by the University of Westminster Library. Details: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news/2016/critical-digital-and-social-media-studies-call-for-book-proposals http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/news/ The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies http://www.westminster.ac.uk/wias is a new interdisciplinary institute at the University of Westminster. Its inaugural research theme is critical digital & social media research. Subscription to its newsletter is possible here: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter The University of Westminster Press is an open access publishing house. Media, communication & culturalstudies is one of the academic publishing fields it specialises in: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/ -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] 2 PhD scholarships in digital labour analysis & digital ideology critique
2 PhD scholarships in digital labour analysis & digital ideology critique University of Westminster: Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies & Comunication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) Three years, full time £16,000 annual stipend plus fee waiver http://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/research-degrees/research-areas/media-arts-and-design/research-studentships/westminster-institute-for-advanced-studies-research-studentship http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AMQ147/westminster-institute-for-advanced-studies-research-studentships/ The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and the Westminster School of Media, Arts & Design are pleased to offer two PhD Studentships, consisting of a fee waiver and annual stipend of £16,000 for three years. The Studentship will commence in September 2016, and is available to applicants with a Home (UK) or EU fee status. The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) is a new institute at the University of Westminster. It is an academic space for independent critical thinking beyond borders. The WIAS’s aim is to foster and disseminate advanced studies that generate insights into the complex realities and possibilities of the contemporary world. The WIAS first research focus is critical social media research. Professor Christian Fuchs is the Institute’s director. We welcome proposals that fit into the WIAS’s research framework of critical social/digital media research and give particular focus to the theoretical and empirical analysis of particular questions having to do with a) the political economy of digital labour or b) the ideology critique of social media data and discourses. The Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) is one of the leading research groups in media and communication. Its work has been rated by the UK Government’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework as 52% 4* (world leading), and 35% 3* (internationally excellent). We have over 20 research active staff and 70 PhD students. We have a wide and expanding range of research interests, centered on three main research groups in social media, media policy and industries and media history. We have established centres for the study of the media in China, India, the Arab world and Africa. In the broadest sense we are interested in the social, economic, political and cultural significance of the media, and welcome proposals from prospective students on these or any other topic related to media and communication. Eligible candidates will hold at least an upper second class honours degree and a Master’s degree. Candidates whose secondary level education has not been conducted in the medium of English should also demonstrate evidence of appropriate English language proficiency, normally defined as 6.5 in IELTS (with not less than 6.0 in any of the individual elements). Entry requirements: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/research-degrees/entry-requirements The Studentship consists of a fee waiver and a stipend of £16,000 per annum. Successful candidates will be expected to undertake some teaching duties. Prospective candidates wishing to informally discuss an application should contact Professor Christian Fuchs, c.fu...@westminster.ac.uk <mailto:c.fu...@westminster.ac.uk>, or Dr Anthony McNicholas, mcni...@westminster.ac.uk <mailto:mcni...@westminster.ac.uk>. The closing date for applications is 5pm, 21 January 2016 Application and Application Guidelines: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/research-degrees/research-areas/media-arts-and-design/apply -- Prof. Christian Fuchs University of Westminster, Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute, http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri, Director of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies @fuchschristian c.fu...@westminster.ac.uk +44 (0) 20 7911 5000 ext 67380 -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] 5th ICTs and Society Conference 2015: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory
The 5th ICTs and Society-Conference: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory. Vienna University of Technology. Vienna, Austria June 3-7, 2015. Abstract submission deadline: this week http://icts-and-society.net/events/5th-icts-and-society-conference Organised by the The ICTs and Society Network - an international research network that aims to bring together critical Internet/digital media/social media-researchers. Submission deadline: February 27, 2015 http://sciforum.net/conference/isis-summit-vienna-2015/icts Part of the ISIS Summit Vienna 2015: Information Society at the Crossroads: Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information. http://summit.is4is.org http://summit.is4is.org/calls/call-for-participation Keynote speakers: http://summit.is4is.org/programme/speakers Given that the information society and the study of information face a world of crisis today and are at a crossroads, also the future of the Internet and social media are in question. The 5th ICTs and Society Conference therefore wants to focus on the questions: What are the main challenges that the Internet and social media are facing in capitalism today? What potentials for an alternative, commonist Internet are there? What are existing hindrances for such an Internet? What is the relationship of power structures, protest movements, societal developments, struggles, radical reforms, etc. to the Internet? How can critical political economy and critical theory best study the Internet and social media today? Presentations and submissions are organised in the form of 23 panel topics (ICTS1-ICTS23; please indicate the panel identification number to which you submit in your submisison/abstract): * ICTS1 The Internet and Critical Theory: * ICTS2 The Internet, Karl Marx, and Marxist Theory: * ICTS3 The Internet, Commodities and Capitalism: * ICTS4 The Political Economy of Online Advertising * ICTS5 The Internet and Power: * ICTS6 Raymond Williams’ Cultural Materialism and the Internet: * ICTS7 Dallas Smythe and the Internet: * ICTS8 Critical Cultural Studies Today: Stuart Hall, Richard Hoggart * ICTS9 The Frankfurt School and the Internet: * ICTS10 Marxist Semiotics, Marxist Linguistics, Critical Psychology, Marxism and the Internet * ICTS11 The Internet and Global Capitalism * ICTS12 The Internet and Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics * ICTS13 The Political Economy of Digital Labour * ICTS14 The Political Economy of the Internet and the Capitalist State Today * ICTS15 Ideology Critique 2.0: Ideologies of and on the Internet * ICTS16 Hegel 2.0: Dialectical Philosophy and the Internet * ICTS17 Capitalism and Open Access Publishing * ICTS18 Class Struggles, Social Struggles and the Internet * ICTS19 Critical/Radical Internet Studies, the University and Academia Today * ICTS20 The Internet and the Left * ICTS21 Anti-Capitalist Feminism and the Internet Today * ICTS22 The Internet, Right-Wing Extremism and Fascism Today * ICTS23 An Alternative Internet Online SUBMISSION: http://sciforum.net/conference/isis-summit-vienna-2015/icts http://sciforum.net/conference/isis-summit-vienna-2015/page/instructions Please submit an extended abstract of 750-2000 words: First register and then select the conference “ISIS Summit Vienna 2015” and the conference stream “ICTS 2015” Only one submission per person will be considered Please indicate the number/ID of the panel to which you are submitting at the start of your abstract (ICTSxx). Submissions without panel identifier or that fall outside the topics covered by the 23 panels will not be further considered. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] C. Fuchs: Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media
New book: Fuchs, Christian. 2015. Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media. New York: Routledge. 424 pages. ISBN Paperback 978-1-13-883931-1. ISBN Hardcover 978-1-13-883929-8 More info (plus possibility to order review copies, library copies, and examination copies for courses) http://fuchs.uti.at/books/culture-and-economy-in-the-age-of-social-media/ This book applies Raymond Williams' approach of Cultural Materialism to critically analyse cultural labour, digital labour, ideology, politics, democracy, the public sphere, globalisation, social media in China, the international division of digital labour, productive labour, and social struggles in the age of digital capitalism. Table of Contents 1. Introduction PART I: Theoretical Foundations 2. Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval: Culture and Work 3. Communication, Ideology, and Labour PART II: Social Media’s Cultural Political Economy of Time 4. Social Media and Labour Time 5. Social Media and Productive Labour PART III: Social Media’s Cultural Political Economy of Global Space 6. Social Media’s International Division of Digital Labour 7. Baidu, Weibo, and Renren: The Global Political Economy of Social Media in China PART IV: Alternatives 8. Social Media and the Public Sphere 9. Conclusion Related books: Christian Fuchs (2014): Digital labour and Karl Marx, http://fuchs.uti.at/books/digital-labour-and-karl-marx Christian Fuchs (2014): OccupyMedia! The Occupy Movement and Social Media in Crisis Capitalism http://fuchs.uti.at/books/occupymedia-the-occupy-movement-and-social-media-in-crisis-capitalism -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Extended Call ESA 2015 Conference: “Critical Media Sociology Today”
The ESA 2015 submission deadline has by the local and central organising committees been extended to February 15 - so submissions for the RN18 panel Critical Media Sociology Today are further open until then. On 26/01/2015 12:53, Christian Fuchs wrote: Call: RN18 Panel “Critical Media Sociology Today” 12th Conference of the European Sociological Association August 25-28, 2015. Prague Abstract Submission Deadline: Feb 1 Submission: http://esa12thconference.eu/abstract-submission Call text: http://fuchs.uti.at/1338/ Critical Media Sociology Today We live in times of ongoing crisis, the extension and intensification of inequalities concerning class, gender, and race, a return of the importance of the economy and political economy, a lack of imaginations of alternatives to neo-liberalism and capitalism, an intensification of right-wing extremism and fascism all over Europe, a lack of visions and power of the political Left, an intensification and extension of extremely repressive forms of state power such as communications surveillance conducted by secret services, ideological scapegoating conducted by conservative and far-right parties, and law and order-politics. Left-wing movements and parties have in some countries emerged or been strengthened, but the crisis has overall brought a further political shift towards the right and an intensification of capitalism and inequality. We today require politically a renewal of the Left. For critical media sociology this means that it needs to ask questions, theorise, and conduct critical analysis of media and communications in the context of capitalism, class, ideologies, racism, fascism, right-wing extremism, gender, state power, activism and social movements, challenges for public service, media reforms, crisis, globalisation, the rise of China, digitalisation, consumer and advertising culture, information/cultural/media work, digital labour, the new international division of cultural and digital labour, warfare and military conflicts, the new imperialism, financialisation, etc. ESA RN 18 calls for contributions that shed new light on questions that Critical Media Sociology needs to ask today and on theoretical and analytical insights that help to shape Critical Media Sociology in the 21st Century. RN18’s panel at the ESA 2014 Prague Conference “Differences, Inequalities Sociological Imagination” and its contributions are organised in the form of specific session topics. ESA RN18 calls for contributions to the following sessions: RN18_1: Critical Media Sociology and Karl Marx Today: What is the role and legacy of Karl Marx’s works and Marxist theory for critical media sociology today? RN18_2: Critical Media Sociology and Capitalism Today: How does capitalism shape media and communications today? RN18_3: Critical Media Sociology and Critical Theory Today: What is a critical theory of 21st century society? What role do communication, media and culture play in such a theory? RN18_4: Critical Media Sociology and Stuart Hall Today: How do Stuart Hall’s works, projects, and collaborations matter for critical media sociology today? RN18_5: Critical Media Sociology and Cultural Materialism Today: How does Raymond Williams’ approach of cultural materialism matter today for understanding the sociology of media and communications? RN18_6: Critical Media Sociology, Patriarchy and Gender Today: What is the role of and relationship of identity politics and anti-capitalism for feminist media sociology today? RN18_7: Critical Media Sociology and the Critique of the Political Economy of the Internet and Social Media: How does capitalism shape the Internet and social media? RN18_8: Critical Media Sociology and Ideology Critique Today: What are the main forms of ideology today and how do they operate in the media? Which forms and approaches of ideology critique do we need to understand them? RN18_9: Critical Media Sociology, Right-Wing Extremism and Fascism Today: What is the relationship of far-right movements and parties, the media and communication? RN18_10: Critical Media Sociology and Digital Labour Today: What forms of digital labour and digital class struggles are there and how can they best be theorised, analysed, and understood? RN18_11: Critical Media Sociology and the Left: How could a 21st century Left best look like and what is the role of media and communications for such a Left? What is the historical, contemporary, and possible future relationship of critical media sociology to the Left? What is the role of media, communications, the Internet, and social media in left-wing movements? What problems do such movements face in relation to the media, communications, the Internet, and social media? RN18_12: Critical Media Sociology and China: How can critical media sociology understand the media in China and the role of China and Chinese media in global capitalism? What are differences and commonalities between European and Chinese media understood
[liberationtech] Marisol Sandoval: From Corporate to Social Media (CAMRI Seminar Feb 4)
CAMRI Seminar Marisol Sandoval From Corporate to Social Media: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility in Media and Communication Industries Univ of Westminster Wed, Feb 4, 2015 14:00 Harrow Campus, room A7.1 Launch of the paperback edition of the corresponding book Registration per e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/marisol-sandoval-from-corporate-to-social-media-critical-perspectives-on-corporate-social-responsibility-in-media-and-communication-industries In this talk, Marisol Sandoval presents her recent book “From Corporate to Social Media: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility in Media and Communication Industries”, Routledge 2014, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415722568/ The corporate and the social are crucial themes of our times. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, both individual lives and society were shaped by capitalist crisis and the rise of social media. But what marks the distinctively social character of social media? And how does it relate to the wider social and economic context of contemporary capitalism? The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is based on the idea that a socially responsible capitalism is possible; this suggests that capitalist media corporations can not only enable social interaction and cooperation but also be socially responsible. This presentation provides a critical and provocative perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in media and communication industries. It examines both the academic discourse on CSR and actual corporate practices in the media sector, offering a double critique that reveals contradictions between corporate interests and social responsibilities. Marisol Sandoval’s political economic analysis of Apple, ATT, Google, HP, Microsoft, News Corp, The Walt Disney Company and Vivendi shows that media and communication in the twenty-first century are confronted with fundamental social responsibility challenges. From software patents and intellectual property rights to privacy on the Internet, from working conditions in electronics manufacturing to hidden flows of eWaste – Marisol Sandoval’s book encourages the reader to explore the multifaceted social (ir)responsibilities that shape commercial media landscapes today. It makes a compelling argument for thinking beyond the corporate in order to envision and bring about truly social media. Marisol Sandoval is a lecturer at City University London’s Department of Culture and Creative Industries. Her research critically deals with questions of power, responsibility, commodification, exploitation, ideology and resistance in the global culture industries. She is co-editor of the collected volumes Internet and Surveillance (2012, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415633642/), Critique, Social Media and the Information Society (2013, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415841856/), and of the tripleC-special issue “Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorising Digital Labour and Virtual Work - Definitions, Dimensions and Forms” (http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/issue/view/29). She is co-editor of the open access online journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique (http://www.triple-c.at). Her book From Corporate to Social Media? (Routledge, 2014, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415722568/) looks beyond common understandings of the term social media by providing a critical analysis of corporate social (ir)responsibility in the global media and communication industries. Forthcoming talk (open for registration): Feb 11: Justin Lewis - Beyond Consumer Capitalism: A Movie Screening and QA with Justin Lewis http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/justin-lewis-beyond-consumer-capitalism-a-movie-screening-and-q-and-a-with-justin-lewis -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call ESA 2015 Conference: “Critical Media Sociology Today”
Call: RN18 Panel “Critical Media Sociology Today” 12th Conference of the European Sociological Association August 25-28, 2015. Prague Abstract Submission Deadline: Feb 1 Submission: http://esa12thconference.eu/abstract-submission Call text: http://fuchs.uti.at/1338/ Critical Media Sociology Today We live in times of ongoing crisis, the extension and intensification of inequalities concerning class, gender, and race, a return of the importance of the economy and political economy, a lack of imaginations of alternatives to neo-liberalism and capitalism, an intensification of right-wing extremism and fascism all over Europe, a lack of visions and power of the political Left, an intensification and extension of extremely repressive forms of state power such as communications surveillance conducted by secret services, ideological scapegoating conducted by conservative and far-right parties, and law and order-politics. Left-wing movements and parties have in some countries emerged or been strengthened, but the crisis has overall brought a further political shift towards the right and an intensification of capitalism and inequality. We today require politically a renewal of the Left. For critical media sociology this means that it needs to ask questions, theorise, and conduct critical analysis of media and communications in the context of capitalism, class, ideologies, racism, fascism, right-wing extremism, gender, state power, activism and social movements, challenges for public service, media reforms, crisis, globalisation, the rise of China, digitalisation, consumer and advertising culture, information/cultural/media work, digital labour, the new international division of cultural and digital labour, warfare and military conflicts, the new imperialism, financialisation, etc. ESA RN 18 calls for contributions that shed new light on questions that Critical Media Sociology needs to ask today and on theoretical and analytical insights that help to shape Critical Media Sociology in the 21st Century. RN18’s panel at the ESA 2014 Prague Conference “Differences, Inequalities Sociological Imagination” and its contributions are organised in the form of specific session topics. ESA RN18 calls for contributions to the following sessions: RN18_1: Critical Media Sociology and Karl Marx Today: What is the role and legacy of Karl Marx’s works and Marxist theory for critical media sociology today? RN18_2: Critical Media Sociology and Capitalism Today: How does capitalism shape media and communications today? RN18_3: Critical Media Sociology and Critical Theory Today: What is a critical theory of 21st century society? What role do communication, media and culture play in such a theory? RN18_4: Critical Media Sociology and Stuart Hall Today: How do Stuart Hall’s works, projects, and collaborations matter for critical media sociology today? RN18_5: Critical Media Sociology and Cultural Materialism Today: How does Raymond Williams’ approach of cultural materialism matter today for understanding the sociology of media and communications? RN18_6: Critical Media Sociology, Patriarchy and Gender Today: What is the role of and relationship of identity politics and anti-capitalism for feminist media sociology today? RN18_7: Critical Media Sociology and the Critique of the Political Economy of the Internet and Social Media: How does capitalism shape the Internet and social media? RN18_8: Critical Media Sociology and Ideology Critique Today: What are the main forms of ideology today and how do they operate in the media? Which forms and approaches of ideology critique do we need to understand them? RN18_9: Critical Media Sociology, Right-Wing Extremism and Fascism Today: What is the relationship of far-right movements and parties, the media and communication? RN18_10: Critical Media Sociology and Digital Labour Today: What forms of digital labour and digital class struggles are there and how can they best be theorised, analysed, and understood? RN18_11: Critical Media Sociology and the Left: How could a 21st century Left best look like and what is the role of media and communications for such a Left? What is the historical, contemporary, and possible future relationship of critical media sociology to the Left? What is the role of media, communications, the Internet, and social media in left-wing movements? What problems do such movements face in relation to the media, communications, the Internet, and social media? RN18_12: Critical Media Sociology and China: How can critical media sociology understand the media in China and the role of China and Chinese media in global capitalism? What are differences and commonalities between European and Chinese media understood with the help of critical media sociology? RN18_13: Critical Media Sociology, Democracy and the Public Sphere Today: How can we best theorise and understand potentials and limits for the mediated
[liberationtech] CAMRI seminar 28/1: Clint Burnham on Slavoj Žižek and the Internet
CAMRI seminar Clint Burnham: The Subject Supposed to LOL: Slavoj Žižek and the Event of the Internet Wed, 28/1, 14:00 Univ of Westminster Harrow Campus Room A7.01 Registration is possible by e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/clint-burnham-the-subject-supposed-to-lol-slavoj-iek-and-the-event-of-the-internet Is the Internet an Event? Does it constitute, as Žižek argues an Event should, a reframing of our experience, a retroactive re-ordering of everything we thought we knew about the social but were afraid to ask Facebook? In this talk Clint Burnham will engage with Žižek’s recent work (Less than Nothing, Event, Absolute Recoil) as a way to argue, first, that in order to understand the Internet, we need Žižek’s “immaterial materialism,” and, in turn, to understand Žižek’s thought and how it circulates today, we need to think through digital culture and social media. As regards the Internet, then, no cynical disavowal, no Facebook cleanses, no shutting off the wifi: les non-dupes errent, or those who distance themselves from social media and the like are the most deceived. Next: the Internet’s two bodies: digital culture is both the material world of servers, clouds, stacks and devices and the virtual or affective world of liking, networking, and the mirror stage of the selfie. And here we must confront the “obscene underside” of digital culture: not only the trolls, 4chan porn, and gamergate bro’s, but also the old fashioned exploitation of labour, be it iPhone assembly-line workers at Foxconn, super-exploited “blood coltan” miners in the Congo, “like farmers” in India, or social media scrubbers in the Phillipines, who ensure your feeds are “clean” of porn, beheadings, and other #NSFW matter. These last concerns, then, mean we also have to think about what Žižek calls the “undoing of the Event” of the Internet, the betrayal of the Internet, its diseventalization. Clint Burnham teaches in the department of English at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of more than a dozen books of criticism, poetry, and fiction, including The Jamesonian Unconscious: The Aesthetics of Marxist Theory (1995), The Only Poetry that Matters: Reading the Kootenay School of Writing (2011), editor (with Lorna Brown) of the public art catalogue Digital Natives (2011), and editor (with Paul Budra) of From Text to Txting: New Media in the Classroom (2012). His essay “Slavoj Žižek as Internet Philosopher” is in the recent Palgrave collection Žižek and Media Studies (eds. Matthew Flisfeder and Louis-Paul Willis), and he is currently writing a book on Žižek and digital culture called Does the Internet have an Unconscious? In the winter of 2014-15 he is living and working in Vienna as part of a residency with the Urban Subjects collective. Forthcoming talks (open for registration) Feb 4: Marisol Sandoval - From Corporate to Social Media: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility in Media and Communication Industries http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/marisol-sandoval-from-corporate-to-social-media-critical-perspectives-on-corporate-social-responsibility-in-media-and-communication-industries Feb 11: Justin Lewis - Beyond Consumer Capitalism: A Movie Screening and QA with Justin Lewis http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/justin-lewis-beyond-consumer-capitalism-a-movie-screening-and-q-and-a-with-justin-lewis -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] CAMRI Research Seminars spring 2015 preview: World War I, Žižek, CSR=ideology, consumer capitalism movie, Occupy, fetishism, neoliberal technology/university
CAMRI Research Seminars Spring 2015 University of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute Overview: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars Programme: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/CAMRIspring2015.pdf Time: Wednesdays, 14:00-16:00 University of Westminster, Harrow Campus, Room A7.01 Registration for specific events: e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at Peter Goodwin (University of Westminster) Media, Art and Politics: The Centenary of the First World War in Britain January 21, 2015 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/peter-goodwin-media,-art-and-politics-the-centenary-of-the-first-world-war-in-britain Clint Burnham (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada) The Subject Supposed to LOL: Slavoj Žižek and the Event of the Internet January 28, 2015 www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/clint-burnham-the-subject-supposed-to-lol-slavoj-iek-and-the-event-of-the-internet Marisol Sandoval (City University London) From Corporate to Social Media: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility in Media and Communication Industries http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/marisol-sandoval-from-corporate-to-social-media-critical-perspectives-on-corporate-social-responsibility-in-media-and-communication-industries February 4, 2015 Beyond Consumer Capitalism: A Movie Screening and QA with Justin Lewis (Cardiff University) February 11, 2015 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/justin-lewis-beyond-consumer-capitalism-a-movie-screening-and-q-and-a-with-justin-lewis Anastasia Kavada (University of Westminster) Communicating Protest Movements: The Case of Occupy February 25, 2015 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/anastasia-kavada-communicating-protest-movements-the-case-of-occupy Des Freedman (Goldsmiths College) Media Policy Fetishism March 11, 2015 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/des-freedman-media-policy-fetishism Richard Hall (De Montfort University) Against Educational Technology in the Neoliberal University March 25, 2015 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/richard-hall-against-educational-technology-in-the-neoliberal-university -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call Critical Media Sociology Today ESA 2015 Conference Prague: RN18 stream
http://fuchs.uti.at/1338/ Call: RN18 Panel “Critical Media Sociology Today” 12th Conference of the European Sociological Association August 25-28, 2015. Prague ESA Research Network 18 – Sociology of Communications and Media Research Abstract submission (max. 250 words): Deadline February 1, 2015 Submission: http://esa12thconference.eu/abstract-submission Please indicate the session number to which you submit (see below, e.g. RN18_1) and provide one session number only for this purpose. Critical Media Sociology Today We live in times of ongoing crisis, the extension and intensification of inequalities concerning class, gender, and race, a return of the importance of the economy and political economy, a lack of imaginations of alternatives to neo-liberalism and capitalism, an intensification of right-wing extremism and fascism all over Europe, a lack of visions and power of the political Left, an intensification and extension of extremely repressive forms of state power such as communications surveillance conducted by secret services, ideological scapegoating conducted by conservative and far-right parties, and law and order-politics. Left-wing movements and parties have in some countries emerged or been strengthened, but the crisis has overall brought a further political shift towards the right and an intensification of capitalism and inequality. We today require politically a renewal of the Left. For critical media sociology this means that it needs to ask questions, theorise, and conduct critical analysis of media and communications in the context of capitalism, class, ideologies, racism, fascism, right-wing extremism, gender, state power, activism and social movements, challenges for public service, media reforms, crisis, globalisation, the rise of China, digitalisation, consumer and advertising culture, information/cultural/media work, digital labour, the new international division of cultural and digital labour, warfare and military conflicts, the new imperialism, financialisation, etc. ESA RN 18 calls for contributions that shed new light on questions that Critical Media Sociology needs to ask today and on theoretical and analytical insights that help to shape Critical Media Sociology in the 21st Century. RN18’s panel at the ESA 2014 Prague Conference “Differences, Inequalities and contributions are organised in the form of specific session topics. ESA RN18 calls for contributions to the following sessions: RN18_1: Critical Media Sociology and Karl Marx Today: What is the role and legacy of Karl Marx’s works and Marxist theory for critical media sociology today? RN18_2: Critical Media Sociology and Capitalism Today: How does capitalism shape media and communications today? RN18_3: Critical Media Sociology and Critical Theory Today: What is a critical theory of 21st century society? What role do communication, media and culture play in such a theory? RN18_4: Critical Media Sociology and Stuart Hall Today: How do Stuart Hall’s works, projects, and collaborations matter for critical media sociology today? RN18_5: Critical Media Sociology and Cultural Materialism Today: How does Raymond Williams’ approach of cultural materialism matter today for understanding the sociology of media and communications? RN18_6: Critical Media Sociology, Patriarchy and Gender Today: What is the role of and relationship of identity politics and anti-capitalism for feminist media sociology today? RN18_7: Critical Media Sociology and the Critique of the Political Economy of the Internet and Social Media: How does capitalism shape the Internet and social media? RN18_8: Critical Media Sociology and Ideology Critique Today: What are the main forms of ideology today and how do they operate in the media? Which forms and approaches of ideology critique do we need to understand them? RN18_9: Critical Media Sociology, Right-Wing Extremism and Fascism Today: What is the relationship of far-right movements and parties, the media and communication? RN18_10: Critical Media Sociology and Digital Labour Today: What forms of digital labour and digital class struggles are there and how can they best be theorised, analysed, and understood? RN18_11: Critical Media Sociology and the Left: How could a 21st century Left best look like and what is the role of media and communications for such a Left? What is the historical, contemporary, and possible future relationship of critical media sociology to the Left? What is the role of media, communications, the Internet, and social media in left-wing movements? What problems do such movements face in relation to the media, communications, the Internet, and social media? RN18_12: Critical Media Sociology and China: How can critical media sociology understand the media in China and the role of China and Chinese media in global capitalism? What are differences and commonalities between European and Chinese media understood
[liberationtech] Vince Miller on his forthcoming book about presence, crisis and culture (CAMRI seminar 10/12)
The Crisis of Presence in Contemporary Culture Vince Miller (Univ of Kent) Wed, Dec 10 14:00 UNiv of Westminster Harrow Campus Room A7.01 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/the-crisis-of-presence-in-contemporary-culture Registration: e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at In this presentation, Vince Miller problematises the notion of presence within a contemporary culture in which social life is increasingly lived and experienced through networked digital communication technologies alongside the physical presence of co-present bodies. Using the work of Heidegger, Levinas, Bauman, Rotman (and others), he suggests that the increasing use of these technologies and our increasing presence in online environments challenges our tendencies to ground moral and ethical behaviours in face-to-face or materially co-present contexts. Instead, the mediated presences we can achieve amplify our cultural tendency to objectify the social world and weaken our sense of moral and ethical responsibility to others. Such a disjuncture manifests itself in a number of popular contemporary concerns over privacy, ‘anti-social’ behaviour, and the problems of free speech and inappropriate disclosure. Vince Miller will suggest that the solution of overcoming such problems lies not in increasing regulation, but in more scrutiny paid to the software architecture of social media as the medium by which humans are ‘made present’ online, as well as an expansion of the notion of being/presence to include virtual data/presences, so that these may gain ‘ethical weight’. Vincent Miller is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Cultural Studies at the University of Kent, where he has research interests in digital culture and urban sociology. He is author of ‘Understanding Digital Culture’ (Sage) and is currently writing ‘The Crisis of Presence in Contemporary Culture: Ethics, Privacy and Disclosure in Mediated Social Life’, also for Sage. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call: 5th ICTs and Society-Conference: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory.
5th ICTs and Society-Conference: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory. http://icts-and-society.net/events/5th-icts-and-society-conference/ Part of the ISIS Summit Vienna 2015: Information Society at the Crossroads: Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information. Vienna University of Technology. Vienna, Austria June 3-7, 2015. The information society has come with the promise to restore information as a commons. The promise has not yet proven true. Instead, we face trends towards the commercialisation and commoditisation of all information; towards the totalisation of surveillance and the extension of the battlefield to civil society through information warfare; towards disinfotainment overflow; towards a collapse of the technological civilisation itself. The Vienna Summit is a multi-conference and is at the same time the 5th ICTs and Society-Conference: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory. Given that the information society and the study of information face a world of crisis today and are at a crossroads, also the future of the Internet and social media are in question. The 5th ICTs and Society Conference therefore wants to focus on the questions: What are the main challenges that the Internet and social media are facing in capitalism today? What potentials for an alternative, commonist Internet are there? What are existing hindrances for such an Internet? What is the relationship of power structures, protest movements, societal developments, struggles, radical reforms, etc. to the Internet? How can critical political economy and critical theory best study the Internet and social media today? Presentations and submissions are organised in the form of 23 panel topics (ICTS1-ICTS23; please indicate the panel identification number to which you submit in your submisison): * ICTS1 The Internet and Critical Theory: What does it mean to study the Internet, social media and society today in a critical way? What are Critical Internet Studies, Critical Political Economy and Critical Theories of Social Media? * ICTS2 The Internet, Karl Marx, and Marxist Theory: How can classical forms of critical theory and critical political economy – e.g. the works of e.g. Karl Marx, the Frankfurt School, Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication, Critical and Marxist Cultural Studies, Socialist Feminism, Theories of Imperialism, Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, etc – be used for understanding the Internet and social media today? * ICTS3 The Internet, Commodities and Capitalism: What is the role of the Internet and social media in the context of the commodity logic in contemporary capitalism? * ICTS4 The Political Economy of Online Advertising How can we best critically understand, analyse and combat the role of advertising on the Internet and the role of online advertising in capitalism? What are the problems of online advertising culture? How would a world without advertising and an advertising-free Internet look like? * ICTS5 The Internet and Power: How do power structures, exploitation, domination, class, digital labour, commodification of the communication commons, ideology, and audience/user commodification, and surveillance shape the Internet and social media? What is the relationship of exploitation and domination on the Internet? * ICTS6 Raymond Williams’ Cultural Materialism and the Internet: How can we use theoretical insights from Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism for critically understanding the Internet and social media today? * ICTS7 Dallas Smythe and the Internet: How can we use insights from Dallas Smythe’s political economy of communication for critically understanding the Internet and social media today? * ICTS8 Critical Cultural Studies Today: Stuart Hall, Richard Hoggart and the Internet: What is the legacy of Stuart Hall and Richard Hoggart’s versions of cultural studies for critically understanding the Internet? What kind of cultural studies do we need in the 21st century? And what is in this context the relationship of culture and capitalism and the relationship of critical cultural studies to Marxist theory? * ICTS9 The Frankfurt School and the Internet: How can insights of various generations of the Frankfurt School be used for critically theorising the Internet? What are commonalities and differences between a Frankfurt School approach and other forms of critical theory for understanding the Internet? * ICTS10 Marxist Semiotics, Marxist Linguistics, Critical Psychology, Marxism and the Internet: How can Marxist semiotics and Marxist theories of language, information, psychology and communication (e.g. Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Valentin Voloshinov, Klaus Holzkamp, Georg Klaus, Lev Vygotsky,
[liberationtech] Michael Wayne on his new book Red Kant: Aesthetics, Marxism and the Third Critique (CAMRI Seminar, Nov 19)
Kant’s Aesthetics and Marxism Talk by Michael Wayne CAMRI Seminar Wed Nov 26, 14:00 University of Westminster Harrow Campus Room A7.01 Registration is possible by e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at until November 17. http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/kants-aesthetics-and-marxism The contest between a sociology of culture and a philosophy of the aesthetic often resolves itself into an unsatisfactory antinomy between a reduction of the aesthetic to its conditions of production or a transcendence of the aesthetic from those selfsame social conditions. Suspicion of the ideology of the aesthetic has led materialists of various stripes to embrace the former, while an idealist celebration of transcendence has often drawn on Kant’s aesthetic philosophy. In this talk on the subject of his new book 'Red Kant: Aesthetics, Marxism and the Third Critique' (Bloomsbury 2014) Michael Wayne argues that Kant’s aesthetic turn represents a break from the problems which his philosophy encountered in the first and second Critiques. Through the aesthetic Kant begins to develop ideas that will be important to Marxist philosophy, but more importantly can help us think about the specificity and significance of the aesthetic today as a special kind of cognition, with the potential to re-wire our affective responses to the world, expand our imaginations, articulate utopian desires and retain a special connection to our materialist conditions of existence. Michael Wayne is a Professor of Screen Studies at Brunel University. He has written widely on Marxist theory. His books include 'Political Film: the dialectics of Third Cinema' (2001), 'Marxism and Media Studies: Key Concepts and Contemporary Trends' (2003), 'Marx’s Das Kapital For Beginners' (2012) and 'Red Kant: Aesthetics, Marxism and the Third Critique' (2014). -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Walter Benjamin and the media today: A talk by Jaeho Kang (CAMRI Seminar, Oct 29)
Phantasmagoria of Urban Spectacle: Walter Benjamin and Media Theory Today Jaeho Kang Wed, Oct 29, 14:00 University of Westminster Harrow Campus Room A7.01 Registration is possible per email to christian.fu...@uti.at until Oct 27 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/phantasmagoria-of-urban-spectacle-walter-benjamin-and-media-theory-today Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is one of the most original and perceptive German literary and cultural critics, but his unique insight into the profound impact of the media on modernity has received a good deal less attention. Based on his book 'Walter Benjamin and the Media: The Spectacle of Modernity' (2014), Jaeho Kang will talk about Benjamin’s critical and provocative writings on the intersection between media and modern experience with particular reference to phantasmagoria, aesthetic public space, and urban spectacle. In so doing, he will clarify Benjamin’s distinctive and enduring contribution to contemporary media studies. Before joining SOAS in 2012, Jaeho Kang taught as Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies and Film at the New School in New York (2005-2012) and was the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in the Institut für Sozialforschung at the University of Frankfurt (2004-2005). He received his PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge (2003). He has tried to bring theoretical contributions of critical theory to the development of East Asian media and cultural studies and published a number of articles on critical theory of media and political communication in English, Korean, German, and Portuguese. His research has recently focused more attention on the East Asian context of media culture with particular reference to media spectacle, urban space and screen culture. The book 'Walter Benjamin and the Media: The Spectacle of Modernity' (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014) came out in summer 2014. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Reflections on Slavoj Žižek’s book Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism“
Fuchs, Christian. 2014. The dialectic: Not just the absolute recoil, but the world’s living fire that extinguishes and kindles itself. Reflections on Slavoj Žižek’s version of dialectical philosophy in “Absolute recoil. Towards a new foundation of dialectical materialism“. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique 12 (2): 848-875. http://triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/640 Abstract Slavoj Žižek shows in his book Absolute Recoil (and previous Hegelian works such as Less than Nothing) the importance of repeating Hegel’s dialectical philosophy in contemporary capitalism. Žižek contributes especially to a reconceptualisation of dialectical logic and based on it the dialectic of history. The reflections in this paper stress that the dialectic is only the absolute recoil, a sublation that posits its own presuppositions, by working as a living fire that extinguishes and kindles itself. I point out that a new foundation of dialectical materialism needs a proper Heraclitusian foundation. I discuss Žižek’s version of the dialectic that stresses the absolute recoil and the logic of retroactivity and point out its implications for the concept of history as well as Žižek’s own theoretical ambiguities that oscillate between postmodern relativism and mechanical materialism. I argue that Žižek’s version of the dialectic should be brought into a dialogue with the dialectical philosophies of the German Marxists Hans Heinz Holz and Herbert Hörz. Žižek’s achievement is that he helps keeping alive the fire of dialectical materialism in the 21st century. Such a dialectical fire is needed for a proper revolutionary theory. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Jim McGuigan on Raymond Williams (CAMRI Seminar Oct 15)
It is reasonable to see many dangers in the years towards 2000, but it is also reasonable to see many grounds for hope. -- Raymond Williams (1983): Towards 2000 The Work of Raymond Williams Jim McGuigan CAMRI Seminar Wed, October 15, 2014 14:00-16:00 Univ. of Westminster Harrow Campus Room A7.01 Registration: per e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at until Oct 13 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/the-work-of-raymond-williams In Towards 2000, Raymond Williams took a look back at the 20th century and a look forward at possible futures in the 21st century, discussing aspects of society, culture, the media, politics, labour, democracy, technology, class, and warfare. Above all, Towards 2000 is guided by a quest for socialism. In the CAMRI seminar on October 15th, Jim McGuigan - one of the leading Raymond Williams experts - will talk about the forthcoming re-publication of Towards 2000 (2014) that he edited, the collected volume Raymond Williams on Culture Society: Essential Writings (2013) that he also edited, as well as the relevance of Raymond Williams' works today. In this session, Jim McGuigan will survey Williams’s work and its enduring relevance to media and cultural analysis and why Williams’ 1983 book was mistakenly entitled 'Towards 2000', since it is as fresh and relevant to understanding the world now as it was when originally published. Jim has recently edited a collection of writings for Sage selected from the whole of Raymond Williams’s career, 'Raymond Williams on Culture and Society'. He has also edited and added to Williams’s 'Towards 2000', originally published in 1983, to be republished this year with the new title, 'A Short Counter-Revolution – Towards 2000 Revisited', also by Sage. Jim has also written several critical appreciations of Williams’s work, some of which have appeared in recent issues of 'Keywords', the journal of the Raymond Williams Society, and 'The Sociological Review'. His previous book publications include 'Cultural Populism' (1992), 'Culture and the Public Sphere' (1996), 'Modernity and Postmodern Culture' (1999, 2006), 'Rethinking Cultural Policy' (2004), 'Cool Capitalism' (2009) and 'Cultural Analysis' (2010). He is currently writing a book for Palgrave Macmillan to be entitled, 'Neoliberal Culture'. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] CAMRI Seminar Oct 1: Jenny Chan - Dying for an iPhone: The Labour Struggle of China’s New Working Class
Dying for an iPhone: The Labour Struggle of China’s New Working Class Jenny Chan CAMRI Research Seminar Wednesday, October 1, 2014 University of Westminster Harrow Campus, 14:00-16:00 Room A7.01 Attendance: register per e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at until Monday, Sep 30, 20:00 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/dying-for-an-iphone-the-labour-struggle-of-chinas-new-working-class CAMRI Research Seminars – Autumn 2014 programme: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars This sociological research analyzes the ways in which the integration of the electronics manufacturing industry in global supply chains has intensified labour conflicts and class antagonism. The Taiwanese transnational corporation Foxconn Technology Group holds more than 50 percent of market share in global electronics manufacturing. Its 1.4 million employees in China far exceed its combined workforce in 28 other countries that comprise its global empire. I assess the conditions of a new generation of Chinese workers on the basis of the intertwined policies and practices of Foxconn, international brands (notably Apple), and the local government, as well as the diverse forms of collective actions workers deploy to defend their rights and interests. Within the tight delivery deadlines, some Foxconn workers leveraged their power to disrupt production to demand higher pay and better conditions. While all of these labor struggles were short-lived and limited in scope to a single factory, protestors exposed the injustice of “iSlavery,” garnering wide media attention and civil society support. Contradictions of state-labor-capital relations, however, remain sharp. In the authoritarian regime, notwithstanding the resilience of the Chinese state in the face of sustained popular unrest over the last two decades, my ethnographic study highlights the unstable nature of precarious labor in its hundreds of millions. Jenny Chan was Chief Coordinator of SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior) http://sacom.hk/ between 2006 and 2009. Educated at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong, she went on to pursue her doctorate in sociology and labour studies as a Reid Research Scholar at University of London. She was awarded the Great Britain-China Educational Trust for dissertation writing (PhD diss. 2014). On September 1 2014 she joined the University of Oxford as Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese Studies, the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies. Her recent articles have appeared in Current Sociology, Modern China, The Asia-Pacific Journal, The South Atlantic Quarterly, Global Labour Journal, New Labor Forum, Labor Notes, New Internationalist and New Technology, Work and Employment. http://www.ccsp.ox.ac.uk/dr-jenny-chan -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Win a copy of “OccupyMedia! The Occupy Movement and Social Media in Crisis Capitalism”
http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/22 You can win one of 20 copies of Christian Fuchs’ new book “OccupyMedia! The Occupy Movement and Social Media in Crisis Capitalism” http://fuchs.uti.at/books/occupymedia-the-occupy-movement-and-social-media-in-crisis-capitalism/ by participating in tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique’s (http://www.triple-c.at) commonist social media contest: Send tripleC a self-made picture (jpg format) as well as a 500 word short text that symbolises and deals with the following two questions: What’s wrong with capitalism and capitalist social media such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, etc. ? How would a commonist social media world look like? Send your picture (just one), text (500 words, not more), and postal address until Saturday Sep 27 to the tripleC office: off...@triple-c.at The books will be given to the senders of the first 20 submissions (submissions affirmative of capitalism and opposed to commonism are excluded from winning because they contradict question #1). Only one submission per person is possible. By participating you agree that your picture and text will be published together with other submissions in a blog post on http://fuchs.uti.at/blog (if you don’t want to have your name mentioned, then say so in your submission) Zero Books will publish the book at the end of October 2014, so the winners will be among the first getting to read the book. About the book: The Occupy movement has emerged in a historical crisis of global capitalism. It struggles for the reappropriation of the commodified commons. Communications are part of the commons of society. Yet contemporary social media are ridden by an antagonism between private corporate control (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and self-managed, commons-based activist media. In this work, Christian Fuchs analyses the contradictory dialectic of social media in the Occupy movement. Drawing on a political economy framework and interpretation of the results of the OccupyMedia! Survey, in which more than 400 Occupy activists reported on their social media use, OccupyMedia! The Occupy Movement and Social Media in Crisis Capitalism shows how activists confront the contradictions of capitalism and communication in the age of crisis and social media. The book discusses the contradiction between commercial and alternative social media and argues that the existence of a surveillance-industrial complex expressed in the PRISM system shows the urgent necessity to create social media beyond Facebook and Google. Table of Contents 1. Introduction: The Crisis of Capitalism 2. Protests in Crisis Capitalism 3. Occupy and Digital Media 4. Research Method: The OccuyMedia! Survey 5. Results of the OccupyMedia! Survey 5.1. Analysis of the Respondents’ Demographic Data 5.2. Defining the Occupy Movement 5.3. Occupy and Social Media 5.4. Communicating Activism 5.5. Corporate and Alternative Social Media 6. Interpreting the Data: Social Movement Media in Crisis Capitalism 6.1. Defining the Occupy Movement 6.2. Occupy and Social Media 6.3. Communicating Activism 6.4. Corporate and Alternative Social Media 7. Alternatives 8.Conclusion: Activism and the Media in a World of Antagonisms -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] tripleC: Theorising Digital Labour and Virtual Work - Philosophers of the World Unite!: Special issue
Special issue: Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorising Digital Labour and Virtual Work - Definitions, Dimensions and Forms Edited by Marisol Sandoval, Christian Fuchs, Jernej A. Prodnik, Sebastian Sevignani, Thomas Allmer in context of the COST Action Dynamics of Virtual Work http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com/ tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique 12 (2): 464-801 (pdf and html) http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/issue/current This special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique aims to contribute to building a theoretical framework for the critical analysis of digital labour, virtual work, and related concepts that can initiate further debates, inform empirical studies, and inspire social struggles connected to work and labour in and beyond digital capitalism. The papers collected in this special issue (a) provide systematic definitions of digital labour, (b) analyse its specific dimension, and (c) discuss different forms of digital labour. The papers collected in this special issue theorise digital labour as a multifaceted field characterised by exploitation, alienation, precariousness, power, inequality, ideology, and struggle. These problems of digital labour are however not inherent to digital technology as such but result from its inclusion and application in capitalist relations of production. Theorising digital labour, as labour that produces or makes use of digital technologies, can help to understand its problems, limits, potentials, and contradictions. It can therefore highlight the need for social change and inspire political action. However, the act of freeing digital technology from being an instrument for the domination of labour requires to go beyond just interpreting the world and to engage in social struggles that want to change it. TOC: Introduction: Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorising Digital Labour and Virtual Work—Definitions, Dimensions, and Forms/ Marisol Sandoval, Christian Fuchs, Jernej A. Prodnik, Sebastian Sevignani, Thomas Allmer/ Work and Labour as Metonymy and Metaphor/ Olivier Frayssé/ Digital Workers of the World Unite! A Framework for Critically Theorising and Analysing Digital Labour /Christian Fuchs, Marisol Sandoval / Circuits of Labour: A Labour Theory of the iPhone Era /Jack Linchuan Qiu, Melissa Gregg, Kate Crawford / Concepts of Digital Labour: Schelling's Naturphilosophie /Kevin Michael Mitchell// / Digital Labour and the Use-value of Human Work. On the Importance of Labouring Capacity for understanding Digital Capitalism /Sabine Pfeiffer / The Ideological Reproduction: (Free) Labouring and (Social) Working within Digital Landscapes /Marco Briziarelli / Alienation and Digital Labour—A Depth-Hermeneutic Inquiry into Online Commodification and the Unconscious /Steffen Krüger, Jacob Johanssen / Production Cultures and Differentiations of Digital Labour /Yujie Chen / Digital Labour in Chinese Internet Industries /Bingqing Xia /Will Work For Free: The Biopolitics of Unwaged Digital Labour// /Brian Brown / Toward a Political Economy of ‘Audience Labour’ in the Digital Era /Brice Nixon / Playing, Gaming, Working and Labouring: Framing the Concepts and Relations /Arwid Lund / -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Call ESA RN18: Media and Communication in and after the Global Capitalist Crisis: Renewal, Reform, or Revolution? (Deadline July 1)
Media and Communication in and after the Global Capitalist Crisis: Renewal, Reform or Revolution? European Sociological Association - Research Network 18 (Sociology of Communications and Media Research) 2014 Conference University of Bucharest, Romania October 17-18, 2014 Submission deadline: July 1, 2014 Submission per e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at (Abstracts as txt or doc file including a title, contact email, affiliation, 250-500 word abstract) RN18 covers the conference fee and accomodation in Bucharest for 6 participants (3 nights each, single room). If you want to apply for such financial assistance (e.g. because you are a PhD student without travel funds or because your university does not provide assistance for conference attendance), then please indicate this circumstance in your submission. Please note that this support excludes travel costs. The world has experienced a global crisis of capitalism that started in 2008 and is continuing until now. It has been accompanied by a crisis of the state and a general crisis of legitimation of dominant ideologies such as neoliberalism. Responses to the crisis have been variegated and have included austerity measures of the state that have hit the weakest, an increased presence of progressive protests, revolutions and strikes that have made use of digital, social and traditional media in various ways, the rise of far-right movements and parties in many parts of Europe and other parts of the world, the Greek state’s closing down of public service broadcaster ERT and increased commercial pressure on public service broadcasting in general, new debates about how to strengthen public service media, increased socio-economic and class inequality in many parts of the world and at a global level, precarious forms of work in general and in the media and cultural industries in particular, the emergence of new media reform movements, an extension and intensification of the crisis of newspapers and the print media, an increasing shift of advertising budgets to targeted ads on the Internet and along with this development the rise of commercial “social media” platforms, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the existence of a global surveillance-industrial complex that operates a communications surveillance system called “Prism” that involves the NSA and media companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, Skype, Apple and Paltalk; discussions about the power and freedom of the press in light of the Levenson inquiry, shifting geographies of the political and media landscape that have to do with the economic rise of countries such as China and India. Given this context, the main questions that ESA RN18’s 2014 conference asks and to which it invites contributions are: How has the crisis affected the media and communication landscape in Europe and globally and what perspectives for the future of media and communications are there? What suggestions for media reforms are there? How feasible are they? What kind of media policies and reforms do we need today? Which ones should be avoided? Are we in this context likely to experience a renewal of neoliberalism or something different? Plenary sessions: 1) Keynote Talk: Prof. Peter Ludes (Jacobs University Bremen, Germany): Wanted: Critical Visual Theories! 2) Special Session: Public Media and Alternative Journalism in Romania With Dr. Raluca Petre (‘Ovidius’ University Constanta, Romania): On the Distinction between State and Public Media: Re-Centering Public Options; Dr. Antonio Momoc (University of Bucharest, Romania): Alternative Media as Public Service Journalism; Costi Rogozanu (journalist and media activist, criticatac.ro) – Is Alternative Media an Alternative? ESA RN18 welcomes submissions of abstracts for contributions. Questions that can for example be addressed include, but are not limited to the following ones: * Media and capitalism: How have capitalism and the media changed in recent years? Are there perspectives beyond capitalism and capitalist media? How can we best use critical/Marxist political economy and other critical approaches for understanding the media and capitalism today? What is the role of media and communication technologies in the financialization, acceleration, and globalization of the capitalist economy? What are the conditions of working in the media, cultural and communication industries in the contemporary times? What is the role of Marx today for understanding crisis, change, capitalism, communication, and critique? * Media reform and media policy in times of crisis: How do the media need to be reformed and changed in order to contribute to the emergence of a good society? Which media reform movements are there and what are their goals? What have been policy ideas of how to overcome the crisis and deal with contemporary changes in relation to European media and communication industries? What can we learn from
[liberationtech] Call: RESPECT 2nd Policy Workshop Barcelona Sep 17-18, 2014
Call for Abstracts Technology and Crime: Law, Privacy and Policy in the Era of Big Data RESPECT 2nd Policy Workshop Barcelona September 17-18, 2014 http://respectbarcelona.eu/ For years, information about crimes has been collected. However, the use of data to contribute to public safety as well as to prevent and solve crimes has changed significantly with the proliferation of data-mining devices and processes. In the era of big data, analysing and understanding is more of a challenge than simply gathering data. At the same time, the existence of large-scale surveillance programmes and the routine collaboration between the public and private sector raise concerns about the space for law and privacy in these new practices. This all poses a challenge to policymaking, where the demands for increased security, privacy, transparency and accountability need to be negotiated and acted upon. At this crucial moment for the intersection between security, law and technology, we are seeking papers that address any of the topics mentioned above, as well as contributions presenting new approaches to the issues at stake. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (including authors, affiliation, contact details and at least 3 keywords should be sent before June 30th via https://www.easychair.org. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Thomas Piketty, Karl Marx and the Internet
Fuchs, Christian. 2014. Thomas Piketty’s Book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, Karl Marx and the Political Economy of the Internet. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique 12 (1): 413-430. http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/575 Abstract Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has resulted in a sustained political and academic debate about capitalism in the 21st century. This article discusses the relevance of the book in the context of Karl Marx’s works and the political economy of the Internet. It identifies 3 common reactions to Piketty’s book: 1) dignification; 2) denigration of the work’s integrity; 3) the denial of any parallel to Marx. I argue that all three reactions do not help the task of creating a New Left that is urgently needed in the situation of sustained capitalist crisis. Marxists will certainly view Piketty’s analysis of capitalism and political suggestions critically. I argue that they should however not dismiss them, but like Marx and Engels aim to radicalise reform suggestions. In relation to the Internet, this paper discusses especially how insights from Piketty’s book can inform the discussion of tax avoidance by transnational Internet companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. For establishing an alternative, non-commercial, non-capitalist Internet one can draw insights about institutional reforms and progressive capital taxation from Piketty that can be radicalised in order to ground radical-reformist Internet politics. “The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the social democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal-the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor. Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the social democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim” (Rosa Luxemburg 1899, 41). -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Workshop: Marx’s Labour Theory of Value in the Digital Age
Workshop: Marx’s Labour Theory of Value in the Digital Age COST Action IS1202 “Dynamics of Virtual Work”, http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com/ The Open University of Israel. June 15-17, 2014. Recent developments in digital technology, from “social media”/”web 2.0” such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Weibo, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare, etc to mobile devices, have spurred new forms of production. A variety of terms has been used to describe new production practices and new products enabled by the Internet: participatory culture, co-creation, mass collaboration, social production, commons-based peer production, mass customization, prosumption, produsage, crowdsourcing, open source, social production, user-generated content, user participation, folksonomics, wikinomics, collaborative innovation, open innovation, user innovation. These terms and debates are often over-optimistic, celebratory and lack a critical understanding of “social media” – they do not engage with the social problem-dimension of the “social”. The multiplicity of neologisms is also a symptom of a “technologistic” outlook, which assumes that each technical innovation brings about a paradigmatic change in culture and in society and more democracy and a better society. While such multiplicity of terms attests to a phenomenology of technological innovation and diversity, it is also an analytical and theoretical liability. Concurrent with this dominant approach, there have been attempts for a systematic critical analysis of new forms of online production, digital labour and commodification on social media through the prism of the labour theory of value. Such theoretical approaches attempt to apply a unified conceptual framework in order to gain better understanding of the socio-economic foundations of digital media and the social relations, power relations and class relations that they facilitate. They also help to connect these new productive practices with a longstanding theoretical tradition emerging from Marxian political economy. The role of Marx’s labour theory of value for understanding the political economy of digital and social media has been a topic of intense work and debates in recent years, particularly concerning the appropriateness of using Marxian concepts, such as: value, surplus-value, exploitation, class, abstract and concrete labour, alienation, commodities, the dialectic, work and labour, use- and exchange-value, General Intellect, labour time, labour power, the law of value, necessary and surplus labour time, absolute and relative surplus value production, primitive accumulation, rent, reproductive labour, formal and real subsumption of labour under capital, species-being, collective worker, etc. The critical conceptualization of digital labour has been approached from a variety of critical approaches, such as Marx’s theory, Dallas Smythe’s theory of audience commodification, Critical Theory, Autonomous Marxism, feminist political economy, labour process theory, etc. In this workshop we explore current interventions to the digital labour theory of value. Such interventions propose theoretical and empirical work that contributes to our understanding of the Marx’s labour theory of value, how the nexus of labour and value are transformed under virtual conditions, or they employ the theory in order to shed light on specific practices. The Israeli location will provide an opportunity to explore some issues pertinent to digital technology in the local context, including a lecture on the Palestinian Internet and a tour exploring techniques of separation and control along the separation wall in Jerusalem. Keynote talks: Noam Yoran: The Labour Theory of Television, or, Why is Television Still Around Christian Fuchs: The Digital Labour Theory of Value and Karl Marx in the Age of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Weibo Anat Ben David: The Palestinian Internet The programme features the following talks: * Andrea Fumagalli: The concept of life subsumption in cognitive bio-capitalism: valorization and governance * Bingqing Xia: Marx's in Chinese online space: some thoughts on the labour problem in Chinese Internet industries * Brice Nixon: The Exploitation of Audience Labour: A Missing Perspective on Communication and Capital in the Digital Era * Bruce Robinson: Marx's categories of labour, value production and digital work * Eran Fisher: Audience labour: empirical inquiry into the missing link of subjectivity * Frederick Harry Pitts: Form-giving fire: creative industries as Marx’s ‘work of combustion’” * Jakob Rigi: The Crisis of the Law of Value? The Marxian Concept of Rent and a Critique of Antonio Negri`s and his Associates` Approach Towards the Marxian Law of Value * Jernej Prodnik: Media products and (digital) labour in global capitalist accumulation: A preliminary study * Kylie Jarrett: The Uses of Use-Value: A Marxist-Feminist contribution to understanding digital
[liberationtech] Digital Labour and Karl Marx (Christian Fuchs): New paperback
Digital Labour and Karl Marx (Christian Fuchs): New paperback Fuchs, Christian. 2014. Digital Labour and Karl Marx. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-71615-4. More information about the book: http://fuchs.uti.at/books/digital-labour-and-karl-marx/ Participate in the journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique (http://www.triple-c.at)’s Karl Marx-lottery and win one of 6 copies of the book (see the instructions at the end of this e-mail) How is labour changing in the age of computers, the Internet, and “social media” such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Weibo and Twitter? In Digital Labour and Karl Marx, Christian Fuchs attempts to answer that question, crafting a systematic critical theorisation of labour as performed in the capitalist ICT industry. The book ''Digital Labour and Karl Marx'' shows that labour, class and exploitation are not concepts of the past, but are at the heart of computing and the Internet in capitalist society. It argues that we therefore need an engagement with Karl Marx’s theory to understand digital and social media today. The work argues that our use of digital media is grounded in old and new forms of exploited labour. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Weibo and other social media platforms are the largest advertising agencies in the world. They do not sell communication, but advertising space. And for doing so, they exploit users, who work without payment for social media companies and produce data that is used for targeting advertisements. The book presents case studies that show that users’ activities on corporate social media is just one form of digital labour. Their usage is enabled by the labour of slaves and other highly exploited workers extracting minerals in developing countries, hardware assemblers in China, California and other parts of the world who face extremely hard working conditions that remind us of the industrial labour that Karl Marx described in 19th century Britain, low paid software engineers and information service workers in developing countries who provide labour for transnatio nal ICT companies in the West, highly paid and highly stressed software engineers at Google and other Western ICT companies, or e-waste workers who disassemble computers under toxic conditions. The case studies in Fuchs’ book show that the profitability of ICT companies is built on the lives and deaths of a global class of exploited workers whose labour is anonymously connected an international division of digital labour. Christian Fuchs, ''Production and use of digital media are embedded into multiple forms of exploitation. The information society is first and foremost a capitalist class society. The only solution is that we become conscious as a new working class and find ways to overcome the realities of exploitation''. CONTENTS PART I Theoretical Foundations of Studying Digital Labour 1. Introduction 2. An Introduction to Karl Marx’s Theory 3. Contemporary Cultural Studies and Karl Marx 4. Dallas Smythe and Audience Labour Today 5. Capitalism or Information Society? PART II Analysing Digital Labour: Case Studies 6. Digital Slavery: Slave Work in ICT-Related Mineral Extraction 7. Exploitation at Foxconn: Primitive Accumulation and the Formal Subsumption of Labour 8. The New Imperialism’s Division of Labour: Work in the Indian Software Industry 9. The Silicon Valley of Dreams and Nightmares of Exploitation: The Google Labour Aristocracy and Its Context 10. Tayloristic, Housewifized Service Labour: The Example of Call Centre Work 11. Theorizing Digital Labour on Social Media PART III Conclusion 12. Digital Labour and Struggles for Digital Work:The Occupy Movement as a New Working-Class Movement? Social Media as Working-Class Social Media? 13. Digital Labour Keywords Participate in the journal tripleC’s (http://www.triple-c.at) Karl Marx-lottery and potentially win one of 6 copies of “Digital Labour and Karl Marx”: send the 2 answer of the following 2 questions, your name and postal address to off...@triple-c.at How often can the term “means of communication” be found in a) Marx’s “Capital, Volume 1” (excluding the index, the editor’s and translator’s introductions, as well as excluding the “Results of the Immediate Process of Production” included in some editions; including footnotes) and b) Marx’s “Grundrisse” (including the table of contents and footnotes; excluding the index, editor’s or translator’s introductions, including footnotes) Closing date: Thursday, May 15. 18:00 BST The winners will be drawn among the correct answers. If less than 6 sent-in answers are correct, then those answers whose guess is closest will be considered. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa
[liberationtech] New paperback: Critique, Social Media and the Information Society (ed. Christian Fuchs, Marisol Sandoval)
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 -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Sign the Freedom of Information and Expression-Declaration!
, the potentials created by access to information and public knowledge are hampered. In many countries and at a transnational level we lack adequate laws for the transparency of corporate and state power and citizens’ access to information about it in order to hold those in power accountable. A particularly alarming development of the limitation of freedom of information can be found in the world of libraries: large corporate publishers tend to license access to academic and literary works only in expensive bundles and make the access to easy-to-use e-books difficult and expensive. The result is a limit of public access to cultural works so that people have more and more to rely on purchasing books and articles, which is a matter of purchasing power that disadvantages many citizens. The corporate power of publishing houses thereby limits the public’s right to inform itself. We consider that the right of access to information can promote citizens’ civic and political participation by raising their levels of trust in political and policy-making institutions, while it can fight phenomena such as lobbying and corruption. Open access to public and digitised knowledge and scholarly research is also crucial for the continuous education of the broader public and professionals, the promotion of cultural production and diversity and the preservation of the historic and collective memory. New social media, libraries and archives can and should play an important role in this field. We are convinced that freedom of information is a value worth struggling for and that the current framework and developments strongly threaten freedom, democracy and basic civil liberties. A free culture, a free economy of information and a free polity of information are possible! First signees: Antonis Broumas (Attorney at law, Digital Liberation Network, Greece) Arne Hintz (Lecturer, University of Cardiff, UK) Augustine Zenakos (Journalist, UNFOLLOW magazine, Greece) Barbara Trionfi (Press Freedom Manager, International Press Institute) Christian Fuchs (Professor of Social Media, University of Westminster, UK) Dimitris Tsapogas (Researcher, University of Vienna, Austria) Gerfried Sperl (Journalist, PHOENIX, Austria) Gill Phillips (Director of Editorial Legal Service, The Guardian, United Kingdom) Joachim Losehand (Scholar, VIBE!at, Austria) Kostas Arvanitis (Journalist and Director, Sto Kokkino Radio, Greece) Kostas Efimeros (Publisher, The Press Project, Greece) Lisa Schilhan (VÖB, University of Graz, Austria) Mariniki Alevizopoulou (Journalist, UNFOLLOW magazine, Greece) Minas Samatas (Professor, University of Crete, Greece) Miyase Christensen (Professor, Stockholm University, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, London School of Economics, UK) Nikolaus Hamann (Vienna Public Libraries, KRIBIBI, Austria) Paloma Fernández de la Hoz (Catholic Social Academy, Austria) -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
Re: [liberationtech] Sign the Freedom of Information and Expression-Declaration!
Thanks for the collection. On the one hand I do not see why one should stop declaring and petitioning as long as the world is bad and the Internet endangered. On the other hand there is a qualitative difference between neoliberal declarations that want to fully open up the Internet to corporate domination (e.g. Toffler...) and others that try to save it from such control... Cheers, CF On 03/04/2014 19:27, Jillian C. York wrote: Just out of curiosity, why another Declaration? Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any harm here, but there are at least half a dozen similar projects, most of which have been done in the past few years. See: 1994: http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/futureinsights/fi1.2magnacarta.html 1996: https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html 2001: http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/libertarian-vision-telecom-hightechnology 2009: http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/ 2012: http://www.internetdeclaration.org/ 2012: http://declarationofinternetfreedom.org/ 2013: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9236603/A_Declaration_of_the_Interdependence_of_Cyberspace On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Christian Fuchs christian.fu...@uti.at mailto:christian.fu...@uti.at wrote: The information society, the Internet and the media are today largely controlled by large corporations such as Google and Facebook and a state-industrial complex. The control mechanisms unveiled by Edward Snowden, the closure of and attack against public service media, repression against critcal journalists, online platforms and activists, and a highly centralised Internet and media economy are characteristic for this situation. We live in an unfree information society with limits to expression and an unfree Internet. Sign the Freedom of Information and Expression Declaration that demands a free Internet, free media and a free information society! The 2014 Vienna Declaration on Freedom of Information and Expression Sign: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/__petition/The_2014_Vienna___Declaration_on_Freedom_of___Information_and_Expression___Petition/ https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_2014_Vienna_Declaration_on_Freedom_of_Information_and_Expression_Petition/ More information and videos of talks from the Freedom of Information Conference: http://freedom-of-information.__info/ http://freedom-of-information.info/ https://www.youtube.com/user/__transformeurope/feed https://www.youtube.com/user/transformeurope/feed --- The 2014 Vienna Declaration on Freedom of Information and Expression This petition can be signed online at https://secure.avaaz.org/en/__petition/The_2014_Vienna___Declaration_on_Freedom_of___Information_and_Expression___Petition/ https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_2014_Vienna_Declaration_on_Freedom_of_Information_and_Expression_Petition/ We, the speakers of the Vienna 2014 International Conference “Freedom of Information Under Pressure. Control – Crisis – Culture” (comprised of international academics, media practitioners, librarians, experts of open culture and public space, activists, critical citizens, lawyers and policy makers), sign the following Declaration on Freedom of Information and Expression: Having met in Vienna of Austria on 28 February and 1 March 2014 and having discussed the challenges of freedom of information in the light of the recent surveillance revelations and the increase in censorship and prosecutions of media, journalists and whistle-blowers in Europe and beyond, we express our deep concern and appeal for public vigilance to defend freedom of information and expression as key democratic rights. We consider Edward Snowden’s revelations as a wake up call. His story is not about one man leaking classified information; rather it is about privacy, civil liberties, power and democracy. But also about the future of the Internet itself, the nature of democratic oversight - and much more. We condemn the existence of a surveillance-industrial complex, in which the American, British and other European states’ intelligence services conduct mass surveillance of the Internet, social media, mobile and landline telephones, in co-operation with communications corporations such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Skype, Yahoo!, Aol as well as private security firms. We express our solidarity and support to whistle-blowers, journalists and organisations, including Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian and others, for their efforts towards fostering transparency and public accountability. We denounce their oppression and prosecution that we consider as a major threat to freedom of information. We observe a great paradox of the media
[liberationtech] CAMRI Seminar: Jörg Becker on journalism and media/communication studies under Hitler and the example of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
CAMRI Seminar Jörg Becker: Journalism and media/communication studies under Hitler: The example of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann University of Westminster Harrow Campus (tube stop: Northwick Park, Metropolitan Line) Wed, April 2, 2014 14:00-16:00 Room A6.08 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/journalism-and-mediacommunication-studies-under-hitler-the-example-of-elisabeth-noelle-neumann-her-nazi-ideology-and-the-spiral-of-silence Registration at latest until Monday, March 31, by e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at It is generally known that propaganda played a crucial role in Germany under Hitler. Concrete examples of journalism and media studies conducted during this time in Nazi Germany are however far less known and have hardly been analysed. In this talk, Jörg Becker sets out the context of media and communications in Nazi Germany and discusses the example of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, who during the Nazi time was both a media and public opinion researcher as well as a journalist. Noelle-Neumann (1916-2010) has internationally mainly become known in Media and Communication Studies for her approach of the spiral of silence. The role she played in National Socialism has long been a blind spot of research and public attention. New evidence shows that she was much more involved in different Nazi activities as publicly known. Her engagement with the Nazis had many consequences for the post World War II situation. Until the early 1950s the US Government refused to grant her an entry visa into the US but changed this negative attitude towards her when they changed their politics from anti-Fascism to anti-Communism. Inside Germany Noelle-Neumann's former Nazi-involvement had two different results after 1945: * With the support of her old Nazi network she was able to start her new privately owned Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research; * Old social-Darwinist and Nazi ideas from her 1940 PhD dissertation could survive in her book on the spiral of silence in 1980. In this talk, Jörg Becker analyses and uncovers the ideological underpinnings of a person who was an important part of and major influential figure in German and international Media and Communication Studies after 1945. Summary and review of Jörg Becker's German book about Noelle-Neumann: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/489 Biography Professor Dr Jörg Becker has taught at the Departments of Political Science at the University of Marburg in Germany and the University of Innsbruck in Austria. He studied German, political science and pedagogy in Marburg, Bern and Tübingen and obtained his PhD in 1977 and his habilitation in 1981. In 1987 he became honorary professor at the University of Marburg. He held a Heisenberg scholarship of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1987 until 1992. His fields of teaching and research are international, comparative and German media-, communication and cultural studies, technology assessment, peace research. He has published numerous works in more than 10 languages. Example publications are the monograph “Communication and Conflict. Studies in International Relations. Preface by Johan Galtung” (2005) and the collected volumes “Information Technology and a New International Order” (1984), “Communication and Domination. Essays to Honor Herbert I. Schiller” (1986), “Transborder Data Flow and Development” (1987), “Europe Dpeaks to Europe. International Information Flows between Eastern and Western Europe. With a preface by Willy Brandt” (1989), “Internet in Asia” (2001), “Internet in Malaysia” (2001), “Internet in Malaysia and Vietnam” (2002). -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] CAMRI Seminar: Jonathan Hardy on his forthcoming book Critical Political Economy of the Media: An Introduction
Critical Political Economy of Communications – A Mid-Term Report: The First Fifty Years and the Future Jonathan Hardy University of Westminster Harrow Campus (tube stop: Northwick Park, Metropolitan Line) Wed, March 26. !4:00-16:00 Room A6.08 Registration at latest until Monday, March 24, per e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at Abstract If we take the late 1960s as a starting point an explicitly defined ‘critical political economy of communications’ is fifty years old. How salient today are the core concerns that shaped this tradition? What are the emergent themes in contemporary critical media studies? Jonathan Hardy will discuss his book-length review of critical political economists’ work (Hardy, Jonathan. Critical Political Economy of Media: An Introduction. London: Routledge.), and reflect on what their approaches can offer for contemporary investigations into the problems of the media. Biography Dr Jonathan Hardy is Reader in Media Studies at the University of East London and teaches political economy of media at Goldsmiths College, London. He is the author of Critical Political Economy of Media: An Introduction (Routledge, forthcoming; Cross-Media Promotion (Peter Lang, 2010), Western Media Systems (Routledge, 2008) and writes on media, marketing communications, regulation and policy. He is Secretary of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, a UK media reform group. -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Media and Communication in and after the Global Capitalist Crisis: ESA RN18 2014 Conference Call
Media and Communication in and after the Global Capitalist Crisis: Renewal, Reform or Revolution? ESA RN18 Mid-Term Conference 2014 University of Bucharest, Romania October 17-18, 2014 Full Call Text and additional information: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/RN18_2014.pdf Call for Participation and Abstracts European Sociological Association, Research Network 18: Sociology of Communications and Media Research http://www.europeansociology.org/research-networks/rn18-sociology-of-communications-and-media-research.html Submission deadline for abstracts: July 1st, 2014. Submission per e-mail to christian.fu...@uti.at Abstracts should be written in a word processor, have 250-500 words, and contain title, author name(s), email address(es), institutional affiliations, the suggested presentation’s abstract. The world has experienced a global crisis of capitalism that started in 2008 and is continuing until now. It has been accompanied by a crisis of the state and a general crisis of legitimation of dominant ideologies such as neoliberalism. Responses to the crisis have been variegated and have included austerity measures of the state that have hit the weakest, an increased presence of progressive protests, revolutions and strikes that have made use of digital, social and traditional media in various ways, the rise of far-right movements and parties in many parts of Europe and other parts of the world, the Greek state’s closing down of public service broadcaster ERT and increased commercial pressure on public service broadcasting in general, new debates about how to strengthen public service media, increased socio-economic and class inequality in many parts of the world and at a global level, precarious forms of work in general and in the media and cultural industries in particular, the emergence of new media reform movements, an extension and intensification of the crisis of newspapers and the print media, an increasing shift of advertising budgets to targeted ads on the Internet and along with this development the rise of commercial “social media” platforms, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the existence of a global surveillance-industrial complex that operates a communications surveillance system called “Prism” that involves the NSA and media companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, Skype, Apple and Paltalk; discussions about the power and freedom of the press in light of the Levenson inquiry, shifting geographies of the political and media landscape that have to do with the economic rise of countries such as China and India. Given this context, the main questions that ESA RN18’s 2014 conference asks and to which it invites contributions are: How has the crisis affected the media and communication landscape in Europe and globally and what perspectives for the future of media and communications are there? What suggestions for media reforms are there? How feasible are they? What kind of media policies and reforms do we need today? Which ones should be avoided? Are we in this context likely to experience a renewal of neoliberalism or something different? Plenary sessions: 1) Keynote Talk: Prof. Peter Ludes (Jacobs University Bremen, Germany): Wanted: Critical Visual Theories! 2) Special Session: Public Media and Alternative Journalism in Romania With Dr. Raluca Petre (‘Ovidius’ University Constanta, Romania): On the Distinction between State and Public Media: Re-Centering Public Options; Dr. Antonio Momoc (University of Bucharest, Romania): Alternative Media as Public Service Journalism; Costi Rogozanu (journalist and media activist, criticatac.ro) – Is Alternative Media an Alternative? Call for Papers ESA RN18 welcomes submissions of abstracts for contributions. Questions that can for example be addressed include, but are not limited to the following ones: * Media and capitalism: How have capitalism and the media changed in recent years? Are there perspectives beyond capitalism and capitalist media? How can we best use critical/Marxist political economy and other critical approaches for understanding the media and capitalism today? What is the role of media and communication technologies in the financialization, acceleration, and globalization of the capitalist economy? What are the conditions of working in the media, cultural and communication industries in the contemporary times? What is the role of Marx today for understanding crisis, change, capitalism, communication, and critique? * Media reform and media policy in times of crisis: How do the media need to be reformed and changed in order to contribute to the emergence of a good society? Which media reform movements are there and what are their goals? What have been policy ideas of how to overcome the crisis and deal with contemporary changes in relation to European media and communication industries? What can we learn from recent discussions about the
[liberationtech] Univ of Westminster: MA in Social Media
If you have 3rd year bachelor students interested in Social Media and studying in London, please point them towards the MA in Social Media at the University of Westminster. The programme focuses on the theoretical, critical and practical skills of social media research and use. Thank you. Christian Fuchs The MA in Social Media offers a flexible interdisciplinary exploration of key contemporary developments in the networked digital media environment. It will benefit those seeking to develop their understanding of contemporary communication and its societal, political, regulatory, industrial and cultural contexts. The MA in Social Media provides students with the opportunity to focus at postgraduate level on: * Studying the ways in which social media and the Internet shape and are shaped by social, economic, political, technological and cultural factors, in order to equip students to become critical research-oriented social media experts. * Developing reflective and critical insights into how social media and the Internet are used in multiple contexts in society, and into which roles social media can play in various forms of organisations that are situated in these societal contexts. The aim is that students are equipped to become reflective and critical social media practitioners. * Gaining in-depth knowledge and understanding of the major debates about the social and cultural roles of social media and the Internet. * Acquiring advanced knowledge and understanding of the key categories, theories, approaches and models of social media's and the Internet's roles in and impacts on society and human practices. * Obtaining advanced insights into practical activity and practice-based work that relate to how social media and the Internet work and which implications they have for social and cultural practices. More information: Full time (1 year): http://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/subjects/journalism-and-mass-communication/postgraduate-courses/full-time/p09fpsom-social-media-ma Part time (2 years): http://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/subjects/journalism-and-mass-communication/postgraduate-courses/part-time-day/p09ppsom-social-media-ma -- Christian Fuchs Professor of Social Media University of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute, Centre for Social Media Research http://fuchs.uti.at, http://www.triple-c.at http://www.westminster.ac.uk/csmr @fuchschristian c.fu...@westminster.ac.uk +44 (0) 20 7911 5000 ext 67380 -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Conference Freedom of Information Under Pressure: Feb 28/March 1
International Conference Freedom of Information Under Pressure Control – Crisis - Culture 28th of February and 1st of March 2014, Vienna, Austria The University of Vienna, the transform!at Association and the Critical Librarians Association (KRIBIBI) are pleased to invite you to the International Conference on Freedom of Information under Pressure. Control - Crisis - Culture, which will take place in Vienna on the 28th of February and 1st of March 2014 at the Kuppelsaal of the Vienna Univesity of Technology, which is situated at the centre of Vienna at Karlsplatz 13, 1040. This conference will gather more than 30 international speakers (academics, media practitioners, librarians, experts of open culture and public space, activists and policy makers) from Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom and will call for an open discussion on the challenges of freedom of information in the light of the recent surveillance revelations and the increase in censorship and prosecutions of media, journalists and whistle-blowers in Europe and beyond. The event has been endorsed and supported by the Mayor and Governor of the city of Vienna, as well as by a number of organisations and institutions, such as the Association of European Journalists, the Centre for Freedom of the Media of the University of Sheffield, the International Press Institute and the University of Westminster. Keynote and plenary speakers include: Gill Phillips (Director of Editorial Legal Service, The Guardian, United Kingdom)Augoustine Zenakos (Investigative Journalist, UNFOLLOW magazine, Greece) Mariniki Alevizopoulou (Investigative Journalist, UNFOLLOW magazine, Greece) Christian Fuchs (Professor of Social Media, University of Westminster, United Kingdom) Joachim Losehand (Scholar, VIBE!at, Austria) George Katrougalos (Professor, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece) Wolfgang Hofkirchner (Professor, Vienna University of Technology, Austria) Erich Möchel (Journalist, ORF, Austria The event is public, open to everyone and free, but registration is essential. If you would like to attend, you can register here: http://freedom-of-information.info/en/28-registration/18-registration-form Light lunch, coffee and refreshments will be provided. The official language of the conference will be English with simultaneous interpretation to German. The conference will be also streamed online by The Press Project. Main sponsors: transform European Network, Karl Renner Institute, The Press Project, City of Vienna, Grüne Bildungswerkstatt, ORF (Austrian PSB), Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) Supporters and collaborators: University of Westminster, Vienna University of Technology, University of Sheffield, Association of European Journalists, International Press Institute, International Society for Information Studies, ICTs-and-Society Network, Netzwerk Soziale Verantwortung, Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare, Evangelische Akademie Wien, Katholische Sozialakademie Österreichs, Österreichische Liga für Menschenrechte and Technisches Museum Wien For more information, please visit the conference website: http://freedom-of-information.info/ -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
Re: [liberationtech] RiseUp
Hello Sahar, I am interested in the political economy of digital media and am author of a forthcoming book about Occupy and social media. Alternative media and technologies are facing the challenge of acquiring resources for being run. I am wondering how at RiseUp you organized the necessary resources (working time, people, software development and upgrade, system administration etc) and what your experiences were with voluntary donations? I would be interested to hear how well the donation system works? Thanks a lot. Best wishes, Christian -- Christian Fuchs Professor of Social Media University of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute, Centre for Social Media Research http://fuchs.uti.at, http://www.triple-c.at http://www.westminster.ac.uk/csmr @fuchschristian c.fu...@westminster.ac.uk +44 (0) 20 7911 5000 ext 67380 On 18/10/2013 19:53, Sahar Massachi wrote: As Elijah wrote, the point of riseup is to serve a specific constituency. The point is not to help the general public encrypt their email. On Oct 18, 2013 1:30 PM, Jonathan Wilkes jancs...@yahoo.com mailto:jancs...@yahoo.com wrote: On 10/15/2013 06:47 PM, elijah wrote: On 10/15/2013 03:07 PM, Yosem Companys wrote: If you have any thoughts about Riseup, whether security/privacy-related or otherwise, I'd love to hear them. I think I am the only person from the Riseup collective who is subscribed to liberationtech, so I will reply, although what follows is not an official position or response from the collective. We started when it was impossible to get even simple IMAP service that was affordable. Very early on, it became apparent that one of the primary issue facing our constituency (social justice activists) was the rapid rise in abusive surveillance by states and corporations. Riseup does the best it can with antiquated 20th century technology. Without getting into any details, we do the best that can be done, particularly when both sender and recipient are using email from one of service providers we have special encrypted transport arrangements with. Admittedly, the best we can do is not that great. And, of course, our webmail offering is laughably horrible. Riseup is not really a US email provider. The great majority of our users live outside the United States, and email is just one of many services we provide. There has been much discussion on the internets about the fact that Riseup is located in the US, and what possible country would provide the best jurisdictional arbitrage. Before the Lavabit case, the US actually looked pretty good: servers in the US are not required to retain any customer data or logs whatsoever. The prospect of some shady legal justification for requiring a provider to supply the government with their private TLS keys seems to upend everything I have read or been told about US jurisprudence. Unfortunately, no consensus has emerged regarding any place better than the US for servers, despite notable bombast the the contrary. As a co-founder of Riseup, my personal goal at the moment is to destroy Riseup as we know it, and replace it with something that is based on 21st century technology [1]. My hope is that this transition can happen smoothly, without undo hardship on the users. As evidence by the recent traffic on this list, many people are loudly proclaiming that email can never be secure and it must be abandoned. I have already written why I feel that this is both incredibly irresponsible and technically false. There is an important distinction between mass surveillance and being individually targeted by the NSA. The former is an existential threat to democracy and the latter is extremely difficult to protect against. It is, however, entirely possible to layer a very high degree of confidentially, integrity, authentication, and un-mappability onto email if we allow for opportunistic upgrades to enhanced protocols. For example, we should be able to achieve email with asynchronous forward secrecy that is also protected against meta-data analysis (even from a compromised provider), but it is going to take work (and money) to get there. Yes, in the long run, we should all just run pond [2], but in the long run we are all dead. The first thing you should do is remove the social contract from your registration page. It's creepy and (should be) completely at odds with your privacy policy. (That is, it should read
[liberationtech] CAMRI Seminar (Sep 25): Vincent Mosco on the Political Economy of Cloud Computing and Big Data
To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World September 25, 2013 02:00pm-04:00pm Room A7.03, Harrow Campus, University of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), London: Northwick Park tube station (Metropolitan Line) Full information: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/camri/seminars/camri-seminar-calendar/2013/to-the-cloud-big-data-in-a-turbulent-world Opening talk of this autumn’s CAMRI Research Seminar Series (announcement of further dates/events will follow) Participation Participation is free and everyone is welcome. Please register at latest until 22 September by sending an email to Christian Fuchs: christian.fu...@uti.at. Abstract This presentation offers an account of the political, economic, social and cultural issues emerging from the growth of cloud computing. It starts by situating cloud computing as a major force in the globalisation of informational capitalism and in the advance of a particular way of knowing, what I call digital positivism. It proceeds to examine the origins of cloud computing in the movements that arose in the pre-internet era to create an information utility. The presentation then defines cloud computing, describes its major characteristics, and identifies the leading corporate, and government cloud players. In doing so, it describes the battles for market power among a handful of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Rackspace, the rapid and, for some, worrisome, expansion of the government cloud, the internationalisation of cloud computing, and the emergence of bottom-up community cloud projects. Next, it considers how the cloud is being marketed and mythologised through advertising, social media, corporate and government research, industry lobbying, and marketing events. Massive promotion is essential because dark clouds are gathering over the industry including the environmental problems created by data centres; concerns over privacy, security, and surveillance; and labour issues, particularly the impact on IT departments, and more generally on knowledge workers whose jobs are threatened by the cloud. The presentation concludes by offering a technical and a cultural critique of big data, digital positivism, and the cloud’s “way of knowing.” Biography Dr Vincent Mosco is Professor Emeritus, Queen's University, Canada. He is formerly Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society and Professor of Sociology. He is author of many works, including The Political Economy of Communication, second edition (Sage, 2009), The Laboring of Communication: Will Knowledge Workers of the World Unite (co-authored with Catherine McKercher, Lexington Books, 2008), and The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2004). -- Christian Fuchs Professor of Social Media University of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute http://fuchs.uti.at, http://www.triple-c.at @fuchschristian +44 (0) 20 7911 5000 ext 67380 -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
[liberationtech] Submission reminder - CfP: Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorizing Digital Labour and Virtual Work: Definitions, Forms and Transformations
CfP: Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorizing Digital Labour and Virtual Work: Definitions, Forms and Transformations Special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JULY 31, 2013 CfP: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/14 Supported by COST Action IS1202 “Dynamics of Virtual Work”-Working Group 3 “Innovation and the Emergence of New Forms of Value Creation and New Economic Activities“ (http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com, http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com/wg3/), tripleC (http://www.triple-c.at): Communication, Capitalism Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Editors: Marisol Sandoval, Christian Fuchs, Jernej A. Prodnik, Sebastian Sevignani, Thomas Allmer In 1845, Karl Marx (1845, 571) formulated in the 11th Feuerbach Thesis: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. Today, interpretation of the world has become an important form of labour that is expressed on and with the help of digital media. It has therefore become common to talk about digital labour and virtual work. Yet the changes that digital, social and mobile media bring about in the world of labour and work have thus far only been little theorized and theoretically interpreted. In order to change the information society to the better, we first have to interpret digital labour with the help of critical theories. Theorists of the world from different fields, backgrounds, interdisciplines, transdisciplines and disciplines have to unite for this collective philosophical task. The overall task of this special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism Critique is to gather contributions that help to an understanding of how to critically theorize digital labour, virtual work and related concepts. Theorizing digital labour requires us to provide grounded 1) definitions of digital labour and virtual work, 2) systematic distinctions and typologies of forms of digital labour and 3) theorizing the transformations that digital labour is undergoing. All submitted papers should be theoretical and profoundly engage with the meanings of various concepts. Rather than presenting case studies, papers should focus on fundamental theoretical concepts and discuss definitions. They can also explore the relations between concepts, the historical development of these concepts, typologies and the relevance of different theoretical approaches. The special issue is interested in theorizing the broader picture of digital labour. We welcome submissions that cover one or more of the following or related questions. 1) Concepts of Labour * How should concepts such of work and labour be defined and what are the implications of these definitions for understanding digital labour and virtual work? * Which theoretical or philosophical definitions of work and labour exist and which of them are meaningful for understanding virtual work and digital labour? * What is the difference between labour and digital labour? What is part of digital labour and what is not? Which online, offline, knowledge, physical, industrial, agricultural etc forms of work are part of it or not part of it? Is digital labour only knowledge labour that happens online or do we have to extend the concept to the offline realms and physical labour? Where is the demarcation line? Is digital labour also labour where digital technologies are of vast importance or not? Does digital labour involve the physical forms of work necessary for producing digital labour? * Is there a difference between 'work' and 'labour' and if so, how does it matter for the discussion of digital labour and virtual work? * What is the role of Karl Marx’ theory of labour and surplus value for understanding digital labour and virtual work? * Is the traditional distinction between the material base and superstructure in the realm of social media and digital labour still valid or does it become blurred or undermined? Are new information and communication technologies and social media, their production and use (n)either part of the base (n)or the superstructure or are they part of both? *If in the agricultural and industrial age land and nature have been the traditional objects of labour, how do the objects of labour and productive forces look like in the world of digital media and digital labour and how are these productive forces linked to class relations? * What is meant by concepts such as digital labour, telework, virtual work, cyberwork, immaterial labour, knowledge labour, creative work, cultural labour, communicative labour, informational work, digital craft, service work, prosumption, consumption work, online work, audience labour, playbour (play labour) in the context of digital media? How should they be defined? How are they related? How have they developed historically? How are these concepts related
[liberationtech] Review of Jörg Becker's book Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Pollster between Nazi-Ideology and Conservatism
Fuchs, Christian. 2013. Review of Jörg Becker’s Book “Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Pollster between Nazi-Ideology and Conservatism (Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Demoskopin zwischen NS-Ideologie und Konservatismus). tripleC 11 (2): 310-317. http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/489 Abstract This paper reviews Jörg Becker’s book “Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Demoskopin ziwischen NS-Ideologie und Konservatismus” (Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Pollster between Nazi-Ideology and Conservatism). It presents some of the basic content, gives an overview of the book’s resonance in German media and contextualizes it in the structure of German Media and Communication Studies. -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
[liberationtech] CfP Critical Visual Theory - Deadline June 15
Call for Papers for a special issue of tripleC (http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/index): Communication, Capitalism Critique: Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society on the general topic of Critical Visual Theory Detailed Information/CfP: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/CfP_VisualCommunication.pdf Edited by Peter Ludes, Mass Communication, Jacobs University Bremen, Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Media Studies, Hamburg University, and Winfried Nöth, Cognitive Semiotics, São Paulo Catholic University. The overall task of this special issue is to combine critical insights into current economic, technical, political, cultural, and ecological dimensions of transnational and global visual communication. The papers to be included in this issue should make use of critical theories to advance a better understanding of visual information technologies in general and of strategies of veiling financial, military, economic, religious interests in particular. A special focus will be on current forms of surveillance of public and private life. The editors invite contributions to topics such as: * Visual humanities and social sciences: concepts, methods, and theories * Visual data and semiotics: networks and analyses * Visual hegemonies: image- and profit-making * Veiling: Key Invisibles * Visual culture zones: Africa, Arab countries, China, Europe, India, Japan, Latin and North America Preliminary time schedule June 15, 2013: Abstract submission, via email to p.lu...@jacobs-university.de, kathrin.fahlenbr...@uni-hamburg.de, and no...@uni-kassel.de . July 15, 2013: Feedback to authors about acceptance or rejection of abstract September 15, 2013: Submission of full papers to the editors via http://www.triple-c.at via the electronic submission system: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions . Guidelines for formatting and style: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/about/submissions#authorGuidelines http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/tripleC_2013.dot tripleC – Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society is a journal that is specialising in publishing articles that focus on critical studies of media, communication and digital media in the context of the information society. It is indexed in Scopus and Communication Mass Media Complete. -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
[liberationtech] MA in Social Media @ University of Westminster
MA in Social Media, University of Westminster Dear colleagues, The University of Westminster has announced a new MA in Social Media that is now open for application. The goal is that students acquire skills and knowledge for being critical and reflective social media experts in research and working life. If you know students or others, who are interested in social media or such a degree, then it were great if you could forward them the announcement. http://www.westminster.ac.uk/courses/subjects/journalism-and-mass-communication/postgraduate-courses/full-time/p09fpsom-social-media-ma https://www.facebook.com/MASocialMedia If they have further questions, they can contact either me or my fellow Course Leader, Prof. Graham Meikle (g.mei...@westminster.ac.uk). Best, Christian Fuchs -- Christian Fuchs Professor of Social Media University of Westminster Communication and Media Research Institute c.fu...@westminster.ac.uk Tel +44 (0) 20 7911 5000-7380 http://fuchs.uti.at -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
[liberationtech] Deadline (Feb 15): ESA 2013 Conference, RN18 panel on Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change
Dear colleagues, This is a brief reminder that the deadline for abstract submissions for the European Sociological Association's bi-annual conference is this Friday, February 15th. Best, Christian Fuchs Chair, ESA RN18: Sociology of Communications and Media Research http://esa11thconference.eu/call-for-papers/research-networks/RN18 Deadline: February 15th European Sociological Association 2013 Conference Crisis, Critique and Change University of Torino, Italy August 28-31, 2013 The ESA 2013 conference asks the overall questions: What is behind the crisis? Which crisis is it? Whose critique is required? What changes are needed? RN18 - Sociology of Communications and Media Research: Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change Call for Abstracts Submission: http://esa11thconference.eu/call-for-papers/research-networks/RN18 (click on panel titles for submission...) ESA RN18 focuses in its conference stream on the discussion of how crisis, critique and societal changes shape the study of media, communication society today. The overall questions we want to address are: Which crises (including the financial and economic crisis of capitalism, global wars and conflicts, ecological crisis, the crisis of democracy, legitimation crisis, etc) are we experiencing today and how do they influence media and communication in contemporary society? What are the major changes of society, the media, and communication that we are experiencing today? What forms of political critique (political movements) and academic critique (critical studies, critical media sociology, critical theory, etc) are emerging today and are needed for interpreting and changing media, communication and society? ESA RN18 is calling for both general submissions on “Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change” that address these questions as well as more specific submissions that address a number of specific session topics. Sessions 01RN18 Capitalism, Communication, Crisis Critique Today 02RN18 Communication, Crisis and Change in Europe 03RN18 Knowledge Labour in the Media and Communication Industries in Times of Crisis 04RN18 Critical Social Theory and the Media: Studying Media, Communication and Society Critically 05RN18 Sociology of Communications and Media Research (open) Joint Sessions 06JS18 - Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication in Times of Capitalist Crisis and Change Joint session with RN06 - Critical Political Economy Chairs: Ian Bruff Christian Fuchs 18JS29 - Social Theory and Media Sociology Today Joint session with RN29 - Social Theory Chairs: George Pleios and Csaba Szalo -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
[liberationtech] Reminder: ESA 2013 RN18 Call: Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change
http://esa11thconference.eu/call-for-papers/research-networks/RN18 Deadline: FEBRUARY 1st European Sociological Association 2013 Conference Communication, Crisis and Change University of Torino, Italy August 28-31, 2013 The ESA 2013 conference asks the overall questions: What is behind the crisis? Which crisis is it? Whose critique is required? What changes are needed? RN18 - Sociology of Communications and Media Research: Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change Call for Abstracts One of several semi-plenaries at the ESA 2013 conference will focus on Critical Political Economy of Media and Communications in Times of Capitalist Crisis and will feature Graham Murdock (Loughborough University) and Bob Jessop (Lancaster University) as speakers. Submission: http://esa11thconference.eu/call-for-papers/research-networks/RN18 (click on panel titles for submission...) ESA RN18 focuses in its conference stream on the discussion of how crisis, critique and societal changes shape the study of media, communication society today. The overall questions we want to address are: Which crises (including the financial and economic crisis of capitalism, global wars and conflicts, ecological crisis, the crisis of democracy, legitimation crisis, etc) are we experiencing today and how do they influence media and communication in contemporary society? What are the major changes of society, the media, and communication that we are experiencing today? What forms of political critique (political movements) and academic critique (critical studies, critical media sociology, critical theory, etc) are emerging today and are needed for interpreting and changing media, communication and society? ESA RN18 is calling for both general submissions on “Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change” that address these questions as wellas more specific submissions that address a number of specific session topics. Sessions 01RN18 Capitalism, Communication, Crisis Critique Today 02RN18 Communication, Crisis and Change in Europe 03RN18 Knowledge Labour in the Media and Communication Industries in Times of Crisis 04RN18 Critical Social Theory and the Media: Studying Media, Communication and Society Critically 05RN18 Sociology of Communications and Media Research (open) Joint Sessions 06JS18 - Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication in Times of Capitalist Crisis and Change Joint session with RN06 - Critical Political Economy Chairs: Ian Bruff Christian Fuchs 18JS29 - Social Theory and Media Sociology Today Joint session with RN29 - Social Theory Chair: George Pleios and Csaba Szalo -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] /. ITU Approves Deep Packet Inspection
If this approval by the ITU is true - then it is no surprise at all, but what one would expect. What else has the ITU in the past ever been than an instrument that supports capitalist interests and commodification of the ICT and telecommunications industries? DPI can advance large-scale monitoring of citizens by the state-capital complex that is connected by a right-wing state ideology of fighting crime and terror by massive use of surveillance technologies and a neoliberal ideology of capitalist organisations that want to make a profit out of surveillance and want to hinder the undermining of intellectual property rights. See this: Christian Fuchs: Implications of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) Internet Surveillance for Society. http://www.projectpact.eu/documents-1/%231_Privacy_and_Security_Research_Paper_Series.pdf Best, CF Am 12/5/12 7:11 PM, schrieb Nicholas Judd: Hi list, Nick from techPresident here. If I could tap into your hive-mind intelligence for a moment to help me be more precise about explaining why this is an issue, I would appreciate it ... Governments, intelligence organizations and assorted nogoodniks already use deep-packet inspection, so the declaration of a standard for DPI comes off as vaguely Orwellian but not news. I'm searching for a way to explain the privacy-advocate position on this is both accurately and concisely. The sense I get from CDT's blog post is that there are three reasons why this is more than just creepy in principle: 1. The standard outlines ways that, in the ITU's view, ISPs should structure their operations so that highly invasive surveillance can function; 2. Under current governance, this standard could be as widely ignored as the blink tag, but ISPs could be forced to comply if the ITU becomes a must-follow standards-making body for the Internet — meaning all traffic in every ITU member state, in this extreme example, would be vulnerable by design; 3. On principle, IETF and W3C don't address standards for surveillance, highlighting another way the ITU is ideologically removed from the way the Internet is now governed. Am I on target here? On Dec 5, 2012, at 12:41 PM, Cynthia Wong wrote: The final version of the standard should show up here... eventually: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/publications/Pages/latest.aspx http://www.itu.int/dms_pages/itu-t/rec/T-REC-RSS.xml -Original Message- From: liberationtech-boun...@lists.stanford.edu [mailto:liberationtech-boun...@lists.stanford.edu] On Behalf Of Asher Wolf Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 7:38 AM To: liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu Subject: Re: [liberationtech] /. ITU Approves Deep Packet Inspection From http://committee.tta.or.kr : Revision of Y.2770 Requirements for #DPI in Next Generation Networks http://bit.ly/Yx0Sya (via @BetweenMyths) On 5/12/12 9:25 PM, Andre Rebentisch wrote: Am 05.12.2012 10:27, schrieb Eugen Leitl: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/12/05/0115214/itu-approves-deep-pack et-inspection ITU Approves Deep Packet Inspection Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 04, @08:19PM from the inspect-my-encryption-all-you'd-like dept. dsinc sends this quote from Techdirt about the International Telecommunications Union's ongoing conference in Dubai that will have an effect on the internet everywhere: The WCIT is a diplomatic conference for the rules governing the ITU, the ITRs. It seems wrong to mix that with ongoing specific standardisation work of the ITU. Anyway, interesting discussions over at circleid.com: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20121203_wcit_off_to_a_flying_start/ Apparently ITU fellows are disgruntled that they cannot control the media coverage and complain about all the misinformation. Best, André -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
[liberationtech] Dallas Smythe Today
Fuchs, Christian. 2012. Dallas Smythe Today - The Audience Commodity, the Digital Labour Debate, Marxist Political Economy and Critical Theory. Prolegomena to a Digital Labour Theory of Value. tripleC – Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society 10 (2): 692-740. http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/443 Abstract Due to the global capitalist crisis, neoliberalism and the logic of commodification of everything have suffered cracks, fissures and holes. There is a return of the interest in Marx, which requires us to think about the role of Marxism in Media and Communication Studies. This paper contributes to this task by discussing foundations of contemporary Marxist media and communication studies, including a focus on the renewed interest in Dallas Smythe’s audience commodity category as part of the digital labour debate. Dallas Smythe reminds us of the importance of engagement with Marx’s works for studying the media in capitalism critically. Both Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication have been criticized for being one-sided. Such interpretations are mainly based on selective readings. They ignore that in both approaches there has been with different weightings a focus on aspects of media commodification, audiences, ideology and alternatives. Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy are complementary and should be combined in Critical Media and Communication Studies today. Dallas Smythe’s notion of the audience commodity has gained new relevance in the debate about corporate Internet services’ exploitation of digital labour. The exploitation of digital labour involves processes of coercion, alienation and appropriation. -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
[liberationtech] CfP: Book Social Media, Politics and the State
*Call for extended abstracts for an edited collection -‐ Please circulate widely* Social Media, Politics and the State: Protest, Revolutions, Riots, Crime, and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Edited by Daniel Trottier and Christian Fuchs http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/CFP_SMPS.pdf “Social media” is a new buzzword, marketing ideology and sphere of imagination in which contemporary techno-optimistic and techno-pessimistic visions are played out. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have made a considerable impact on contemporary life. A growing corpus of research considers how these platforms have affected marketing, identity construction, social coordination and privacy. The scholarship that this collected volume addresses looks at how state power and politics are both contested and exercised on social media. Because social media are saturated in contemporary life, they have become a tool and a terrain for conflicts between states and a multitude of organized and autonomous actors. Social media are celebrated for “levelling the playing field” by empowering otherwise powerless actors. The ‘Green Movement’ during the 2009 elections in Iran was globally broadcast on Twitter. Marginalized political groups can now promote their agenda on free and easy-to-use platforms. Even rioters and other actors breaking the law can organize and discuss their exploits on these platforms. Yet in practice, social media often lead to asymmetrical power relations, as a result of asymmetrical relations of online visibility. Studying social media politics, there are on the one hand techno-optimistic approaches that claim that social media helps to revive democracy (examples of such talk include the focus on “Twitter revolutions”, “YouTube democracy”, or a “Twitter public sphere”) and on the other hand techno-pessimistic approaches that claim that social media are a new threat to democracy (examples of such talk include focus on the omnipresence of criminal threats, harassments, terrorism and violent extremism on social media, the talk about “Twitter and Blackberry riots”, the stress on the end of political activism due to the lack of real-life contacts between activists and citizens, the focus on how the police and repressive regimes monitor social media in order to repress political activism, etc). The focus of this collected volume is different in that it seeks contributions that give a realistic assessment of the relationship between various forms of collective action (e.g. the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, contemporary student protests, contemporary social movements in Greece, Spain, and other countries, Anonymous, WikiLeaks, various forms of terrorism, various forms of crime, various forms of political activism, etc) and state power (the police, various political regimes, intelligence, the state-industrial surveillance complex, the neoliberal regime of governance, etc) on social media. In the Iranian protests in 2009 just like in the Arab spring, activists have used social media as organizing and communication tool in their protests and governments have tried to censor and monitor social media, often with the help of surveillance technologies produced and exported by Western companies. WikiLeaks has tried to make the power of state actors transparent with the assistance of online leaking, and political opponents of the project have answered with boycotts and large-scale campaigns. Anonymous has advanced a networked form of political hacktivism and is facing the criminalization of distributed denial of service attacks and politically motivated cracking as well as prosecution of some of its activists. Organizations concerned about police brutality, including discriminatory and racist practices have turned to social media in order to ‘watch the watchers’ (regional CopWatch branches on Facebook, leaking personal data about abusive police officers to the public, drone and citizen journalism of police activities during political protests). However, these very sites render political activists visible to the police, and the police have developed an interest in monitoring social media and using them as surveillance tools. Social media and mobile phones have been used as communication tools in the London and Vancouver riots in 2011, to which the police answered with an offensive of policing social media, developing new social media surveillance tools, and publicly declaring the need for laws and technologies that enable the control of riots, crime and terror. Since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008, Europe has experienced an electoral shift towards the right in many countries and a growth of right-wing extremism and fascist activism that has culminated in Anders Breiviks’ mass killing of 69 people. The public and the police have since asked if Internet- and social media-monitoring and control can
[liberationtech] ESA RN18 Conference Communication, Crisis, and Critique in Contemporary Capitalism: submission deadline July 20th
European Sociological Assocation Research Network 18 - Sociology of Communications and Media Research Conference Communication, Crisis, and Critique in Contemporary Capitalism University of the Basque Country, Bilbao. October 18-20, 2011 New deadline for abstract submissions: July 20th, 2012 Keynote Talk: Prof. Peter Golding (Northumbria University, UK) – Why a Sociologist should take Communications and Media Seriously We are living in times of global capitalist crisis that require rethinking the ways we organize society, communication, the media, and our lives. In the social sciences, there is a renewed interest in critical studies, the critique and analysis of class and capitalism, and critical political economy. The overall goal of this conference is to foster scholarly presentations, networking, and exchange on the question of which transitions media and communication and media sociology are undergoing in contemporary society. The conference particularly welcomes contributions that are inspired by sociological theories, critical studies, and various strands and traditions of the critical study of media society. Submission and Participation An abstract of 200-250 words should be sent to Dr. Romina Surugiu, University of Bucharest, at the following e-mail address: bilbao.confere...@yahoo.com Please insert the words Bilbao in the subject. The deadline for abstract submission is July 20th, 2012. If you want to participate without paper presentation, then please register via e-mail to Romina Surugiu, stating that that you want to register and participate. Conference Fee For members of ESA RN18: 35 Euros For non-members of ESA RN18: 50 Euros The fee will be collected from the participants at the registration in Bilbao. You can become a member of ESA RN18 by joining the ESA and subscribing to the network. The network subscription fee is only 10 Euros for a 2-year period: http://www.europeansociology.org/member/ You can become a member of ESA and of RN18 here: http://www.europeansociology.org/member/ Christian Fuchs, Peter Golding, George Pleios (ESA RN18 Chair, Honorary Chair, Vice-Chair) ___ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click yes (once you click above) next to would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest? You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. You may ask for a reminder here: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech
