The Internet and Politics: Citizens, Voters and Activists (2006)

Changes in the media landscape present new challenges for scholars interested in the relationship between the mass media and civil society. Notably, the explosion of the Internet in advanced industrial democracies and its more limited introduction in other types of regimes has provided new pathways for communication.

This volume explores the nature of the Internet’s impact on civil society, addressing the following central questions:
· Is the Internet qualitatively different from the more traditional forms of the media?
· Has the Internet demonstrated real potential to improve civil society through a wider provision of information, an enhancement of communication between government and citizen or via better state transparency?
· Alternatively, does the Internet pose a threat to the coherence of civil society as people are encouraged to abandon shared media experiences and pursue narrow interests?
· In authoritarian states, does the Internet function as a beacon for free speech or another tool for propaganda?

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Internet and civil society.

Editors Sarah Oates, Diana Marie Owen, Rachel Kay Gibson
Publisher Routledge, 2006
ISBN 041534784X, 9780415347846
228 pages

Keywords and phrases
Countryside Alliance, mass media, Yabloko, NGOs, Pew Research Center, social capital, Hizbollah, Ukraine Without Kuchma, United Russia, Cumbria, However, Ukrainska Pravda, cyber-terrorism, civil society, Republican Sinn Fein, Ukrainian, GreenNet, Ulster Loyalist, Russian parties, 2004 presidential election

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Donna J. Haraway: When Species Meet (2008)

“In 2006, about 69 million U.S. households had pets, giving homes to around 73.9 million dogs, 90.5 million cats, and 16.6 million birds, and spending over $38 billion dollars on companion animals. As never before in history, our pets are truly members of the family. But the notion of “companion species”—knotted from human beings, animals and other organisms, landscapes, and technologies—includes much more than “companion animals.”

In When Species Meet, Donna J. Haraway digs into this larger phenomenon to contemplate the interactions of humans with many kinds of critters, especially with those called domestic. At the heart of the book are her experiences in agility training with her dogs Cayenne and Roland, but Haraway’s vision here also encompasses wolves, chickens, cats, baboons, sheep, microorganisms, and whales wearing video cameras. From designer pets to lab animals to trained therapy dogs, she deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal-human encounters.

In this deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work, Haraway develops the idea of companion species, those who meet and break bread together but not without some indigestion. “A great deal is at stake in such meetings,” she writes, “and outcomes are not guaranteed. There is no assured happy or unhappy ending—socially, ecologically, or scientifically. There is only the chance for getting on together with some grace.”

Ultimately, she finds that respect, curiosity, and knowledge spring from animal-human associations and work powerfully against ideas about human exceptionalism.”

Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2008
ISBN 0816650462, 9780816650460
360 pages

Reviews: Margrit Shildrick (Society and Animals, 2008), Ivan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. (Humanimalia, 2010).

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Fred Turner: Burning Man at Google: A Cultural Infrastructure for New Media Production (2009)

Every August for more than a decade, thousands of information technologists and other knowledge workers have trekked out into a barren stretch of alkali desert and built a temporary city devoted to art, technology and communal living: Burning Man. Drawing on extensive archival research, participant observation, and interviews, this paper explores the ways that Burning Man’s bohemian ethos supports new forms of production emerging in Silicon Valley and especially at Google. It shows how elements of the Burning Man world – including the building of a socio-technical commons, participation in project-based artistic labor, and the fusion of social and professional interaction – help shape and legitimate the collaborative manufacturing processes driving the growth of Google and other firms. The paper thus develops the notion that Burning Man serves as a key cultural infrastructure for the Bay area’s new media industries. (Abstract)

Key Words: peer production, counterculture, cultural economy, art and technology, cultural infrastructure, free labor.

Published in New Media & Society 11, 2009

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