Faust, Freud, machine: encounters and performance

Journal of Social Policy, 2022

We undoubtably live in a digitally infused world. From government administrative processes to financial transactions and social media posts, digital technologies automatically collect, collate, combine and circulate digital traces of our actions and thoughts, which are in turn used to construct digital personas of us. More significantly, government decisions are increasingly automated with real world effect; companies subvert human workers to automated processes; while social media algorithms prioritise outrage and ‘fake news’ with destabilizing and devastating effects for public trust in social institutions. Accordingly, what it means to be a person, a citizen, and a consumer, and what constitutes society and the economy in the 21st century is profoundly different to that in the 20th century.

What unites the authors of these three titles is a quest to discover whether or not a form of 'communicative action' is at this time evident in disparate online spaces and, more importantly, beyond. At its most rudimentary, they share this concern: are ever-expanding discursive spaces having the anticipated spill-over into public life and can we find evidence to link online association with events and shifts in the wider realm of civic engage-ment? These questions, being as old as the Internet itself, are by now almost hackneyed. What each of these authors achieves – in very different ways – builds into a series of re-energised perspectives, delivered alongside substantive and frequently convincing findings. Thus, on deeper analysis, the overarching message, I suggest, is that we are compelled to revise our understanding of what 'civic' and 'political' actually mean now, in light of the relationships between emergent forms of affiliation, mediatised discourse and tangible global events. Equally, we need to step away from supposition and conjecture , and instead road-test varied methods to pin down answers to ongoing and developing concerns in these areas. Papacharissi is a veteran of online communications theory, particularly as it relates to the political. In the current work, she achieves two highly significant feats. First, she draws together strands of abstract thinking on affect and sentiment that have long circulated among theorists within disciplines such as cyberpsychology (see Sherry Turkle, for instance). Transposing them firmly into the field of political philosophy, she advances a highly convincing case for the re-evaluation of this area by challenging the credo of rationality as a lynchpin of both political engagement and the public sphere. Second, she meticulously examines the phenomenon of Twitter use by movements such as Occupy and during the so-called Arab Spring. She moves away from the enthusiastic popular

Academia Letters, 2021

The Internet has revolutionized the way we interact globally. As the world turned out to be a 'global village' marked by the economic, cultural and political interconnectedness of people across the world by using digital social platforms as public spheres, it is a fundamental necessity to redefine the term of the Public Sphere coined by Jürgen Habermas, on which public opinion can be formed after public discussions dealing with social and political affairs (Habermas, 1974). The Public Sphere (Öffentlichkeit) is a confidential space which is sterilized from authorities and enables the bourgeois society to hold political debates. Yet, participation in these debates extends beyond the bourgeoisie to all kinds of citizens, who can now access social platforms along with the World Wide Web and find their voices within these spaces. It is, however, inevitable to question whether digital public spheres are becoming less democratic as users today are surveilled and controlled with sophisticated technologies. Citizens who are gravitating to online social platforms as alternative public spheres are concerned about the future of democracy as authorities enforce surveillance policies, especially during Covid-19. Especially social media users complain about their continuous watching by authorities to gather data on online platforms. However, this statement is objected by governments and law enforcement agencies since the surveillance is implemented for the purpose of security and public peace. This paper focuses on how democratic and efficient digital platforms as public spheres are for each citizen to express their views and shape public opinion whilst advanced surveillance technologies are misemployed by such authorities as governments, policymakers, intelligence agencies, etc. This paper relies on fundamentally qualitative methods to explore concepts and theories in depth. This is an interdisciplinary paper within the scope of Sociology, Media Studies and Surveillance Studies. In this research, social platforms as global public spheres are evaluated

2017

2008

Since the 1990s, the world is spinning in a digital mode. The way citizens work, live and communicate is going through profound changes.

SEER, 2017

The world is rapidly entering a digital era that will fundamentally change not only the way that production operates, but also a way of life. The new industrial revolution will bring many positive changes while the introduction of the 'smart factory' and the digitisation of industry as a whole, or its individual sectors, will inevitably lead to changes in the labour market and in methods of work, as well as the transformation of the character of work and employment. At the same time, social polarisation and marginalisation, as well as business networking and the 'flexibilisation' of labour, is generating a weakening of social organisations, especially trade unions. After determining the semantic and epistemological characteristics of the key terms and concepts, this article principally examines the social impacts of the digital transformation of society. Special attention is paid to an understanding of the position of workers, their social status and general positioning in the emerging and future conditions, in addition to a visualisation of the accompanying phenomena and by-products carried by digital transformation.

Amazon - http://amzn.eu/d/i1ogXqa, 2018

One facet of identity which is currently undergoing radical transformation due to technology and specifically social media is the concept of identity politics. Identity politics describes the manner with which people’s politics are crafted by aspects of their identity through loosely correlated social entities. Digital identity politics has given rise to the emergence of concepts such as ‘alterative facts’, ‘fake news’, and ‘post truth’. This book explores how various techniques such as magical realism, gaslighting, digital rubbernecking are being used by politicians to construct digital narratives. The book also discusses how technological developments such as social media, cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence are now shaping the contours of digital politics. The book concludes with a focus on the urgent need for digital literacy which represents a Totem which every person can use to decipher fact from fiction in the emerging post-truth digital era. Awareness plays a pivotal role in this book. However, the awareness in this book is a multi-faceted concept. Awareness by each and every one of us about what is going on around us, how we are or may be manipulated and indeed how such manipulation can affect us. Awareness by various influencers in society that their actions are actually deliberate and purposeful and awareness of how we can address some of the nefarious effects of the digital world on our wellbeing.“Digital Identity Politics” proposes a definite philosophy, namely self-awareness and care of the self in society. In reading the book you will no doubt encounter what can be in equal measure familiar and worrying, yet the length of the text is such that maybe your first acts after reading it, will be to reflect and return to it again. Like with most things in life, if we are to deal with the sleight of hand that pervades our digital existence, we first need to be aware of it and I hope that this book provides a step along the path to that awareness and discovery. This book is available to purchase (ebook and paperback copies) on Amazon at the following link: Ebook/Kindle Link: http://amzn.eu/d/h87qFhB Paperback Link: http://amzn.eu/d/i1ogXqa

This issue of the Digital Culture & Society journal invites theoretical and artistic contributions on citizen engagement, digital citizenship and grassroots information politics. Today, engagement and participation are considered key when we investigate media and user practices. Participation has become a popular imperative of digital societies: “Calls for greater transparency and participation are heard not just by elected officials, but also in corporate headquarters” (Geiselhart, 2004). A number of theoretical reflections on digital societies assume that social media are becoming a dominant media channel for participatory engagement. Practices of participation and engagement are an indispensible part of our digital everyday lives: from chat rooms to community forums, from social media platforms to image boards, and from rating platforms to whistle-blowing websites. The Internet is used for a wide variety of forms of participation in culture, education, health, business and politics. On the one hand these ‘digital collectives’ are deemed the torchbearers of the coming social and political transformation or hailed as self-organized collective intelligence. On the other hand state apparatuses are asking for participative activities to increase efficiency and to avoid friction. It is argued that the use of technology fosters participation and processes of consensus-building. This discourse almost implies that these processes can be hardwired into digital technologies. The terms “cultural citizenship” and “digital citizenship” are expected to provide a broader but also a more critical approach to citizen engagement. In the meantime, there are numerous studies that examine the different forms and effects of participation on the Internet and its limitations (e.g. Fuchs, 2014; Trottier/Fuchs, 2015). Critical voices show that participation has long become a buzz word, often related to one-sided, positive perspectives: applauding the possibilities of user engagement and ignoring issues such as information politics and a digital divide, not only based on technological access but also on a lack of digital literacy (e.g. Jordan, 2015; van Dijck et al., 2017). We observe not only liberation of users based on participatory practices but exploitation at the same time. The information politics behind design decisions are a relevant topic for a deeper understanding of the interrelation of technological developments and user practices. Participation and sharing data by users also led to critical debates about surveillance (Albrechtslund, 2013; Lyon, 2017) and whether privacy matters any longer if we “have nothing to hide” . Under which circumstances do we have to consider privacy a commodity and how can we reestablish mechanisms of forgetfulness? Surveillance as observation and control from those in power has been accompanied by a discussion about “sousveillance”, a term coined by Mann, Nolan, and Wellman (2003) to describe instances in which people watch and control those in power. What tools have been developed both for collecting private data and for protecting our privacy and in how far do they challenge our platform society? In our special issue we aim at including approaches from fields such as: (digital) sociology, STS, (digital) media studies, cultural studies, political sciences and philosophy reflecting on the role of the digital citizen. We ask for the role and value of a digital sociology exploring the practices of digital citizens. We particularly welcome contributions that are critically reflective about online practices in relation to new concepts of surveillance and control society. Paper proposals may relate to, but are not limited to, the following topics: Digital citizenship, networked publics, information politics, engagement, participation and sharing, transparency, surveillance, urban informatics, citizen score, democracy as a service, participatory engineering, data commons, large scale protests and trending topics, slacktivism and clicktivism, participation divide.

Institutional Change in the Public Sphere, 2017