Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Capitalism, Labour and Politics in the Age of Big Data

David Chandler
University of Westminster Press
2019-01-29

<p>This volume explores activism, research and critique in the age of digital subjects and objects and Big Data capitalism after a digital turn said to have radically transformed our political futures. Optimists assert that the ‘digital’ promises: new forms of community and ways of knowing and sensing, innovation, participatory culture, networked activism, and distributed democracy. Pessimists argue that digital technologies have extended domination via new forms of control, networked authoritarianism and exploitation, dehumanization and the surveillance society. Leading international scholars present varied interdisciplinary assessments of such claims – in theory and via dialogue – and of the digital’s impact on society and the potentials, pitfalls, limits and ideologies, of digital activism. They reflect on whether computational social science, digital humanities and ubiquitous datafication lead to digital positivism that threatens critical research or lead to new horizons in theory and society.</p><p>An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and details about KU’s Open Access programme can be found at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/">www.knowledgeunlatched.org</a>.</p>

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Keywords

  • HM851.D54
  • Cultural studies
  • History of ideas
  • Information technology
  • Media studies
  • Media studies
  • Political Science and Theory
  • Political structure and processes
  • Social Theory
  • Big Data
  • digital capitalism
  • digital democracy
  • digital labour
  • digital politics
  • posthuman

Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Capitalism, Labour and Politics in the Age of Big Data

David Chandler

University of Westminster Press

2019-01-29

CC BY-NC-ND

<p>This volume explores activism, research and critique in the age of digital subjects and objects and Big Data capitalism after a digital turn said to have radically transformed our political futures. Optimists assert that the ‘digital’ promises: new forms of community and ways of knowing and sensing, innovation, participatory culture, networked activism, and distributed democracy. Pessimists argue that digital technologies have extended domination via new forms of control, networked authoritarianism and exploitation, dehumanization and the surveillance society. Leading international scholars present varied interdisciplinary assessments of such claims – in theory and via dialogue – and of the digital’s impact on society and the potentials, pitfalls, limits and ideologies, of digital activism. They reflect on whether computational social science, digital humanities and ubiquitous datafication lead to digital positivism that threatens critical research or lead to new horizons in theory and society.</p><p>An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and details about KU’s Open Access programme can be found at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/">www.knowledgeunlatched.org</a>.</p>

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Topics

  • HM851.D54
  • Cultural studies
  • History of ideas
  • Information technology
  • Media studies
  • Media studies
  • Political Science and Theory
  • Political structure and processes
  • Social Theory
  • Big Data
  • digital capitalism
  • digital democracy
  • digital labour
  • digital politics
  • posthuman