Full Description
All of the short essays in this volume look past the rhetoric of technological determinism and reliance on the natural logic of the market to consider the power of law and policy to steer new media in one direction or another. Many of the essays look backwards through history or outwards across national borders. They all look forward to how today's policies will shape the future of the internet and society.
A particular focus of interest for some of the contributors is the revelations that followed Edward Snowden's mass disclosure of classified documents in 2013, which revealed the U.S. National Security Agency's systematic and longstanding program of monitoring global communications. Some chapters consider different countries' varying approaches to regulating the proliferation of online communication, while others assess the current state of digital technology. They all call for policy interventions to solve market failures. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.
Contents
Introduction: Internet Policy Crises Part I: The Pre-History of Internet Policy 1. The Air Belongs to the People 2. Infrastructure in the Air Part II: The Future of Internet Policy 3. Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible: Three Radically Democratic Internet Policies 4. Hyper-power and Private Monopoly: The Unholy Marriage of (Neo)corporatism and the Imperial Surveillance State 5. The Return of Ideology and the Future of Chinese Internet Policy 6. The US Digital Divide: A Call for a New Philosophy 7. Crypto War II 8. Persistent Pursuit of Personal Information: A Historical Perspective on Digital Advertising Strategies 9. The Media Policy Tower of Babble: A Case for ''Policy Literacy Pedagogy'' 10. Utopian Games 11. Fair Use Goes Global 12. The Great Evasion: Confronting Market Failure in American Media Policy 13. The Death and Life of a Great American Agency 14. "What is wrong cannot be made right" - Why has media reform been sidelined in the debate over "social justice" in Israel?
