Full Description
This edited collection analyzes the role of digital technology in contemporary society dialectically. While many authors, journalists, and commentators have argued that the internet and digital technologies will bring us democracy, equality, and freedom, digital culture often results in loss of privacy, misinformation, and exploitation. This collection challenges celebratory readings of digital technology by suggesting digital culture's potential is limited because of its fundamental relationship to oppressive social forces.
The Dialectic of Digital Culture explores ways the digital realm challenges and reproduces power. The contributors provide innovative case studies of various phenomenon including #metoo, Etsy, mommy blogs, music streaming, sustainability, and net neutrality to reveal the reproduction of neoliberal cultural logics. In seemingly transformative digital spaces, these essays provide dialectical readings that challenge dominant narratives about technology and study specific aspects of digital culture that are often under explored.
Contents
Introduction: The Logic of Digital Culture
David Arditi and Jennifer Miller
Part I. Power in the Digital Era
Chapter One: Digital Hegemony: Net Neutrality, the Value Gap, and Corporate Interests
David Arditi
Chapter Two: Dialectics of Degrading Datafication: The Cultural Politics of Ecological Footprints in Earth System Governance
Timothy W. Luke
Chapter Three: Government vs. Corporate Surveillance: Privacy Concerns in the Digital World
Brian Connor and Long Doan
Part II. Politics in the Digital Era
Chapter Four: Digital Culture, Media Spectacle, and the Trump Presidency
Douglas Kellner
Chapter Five: The (Digital) Future is Female: Between Individuality and Collectivity in Online Feminist Practices
Ariella Horwitz and Lisa Daily
Chapter Six: Queering the Straight World?: Mommy Blogs, Queer Kids, and the Limits of Digital Advocacy
Jennifer Miller
Part III. Culture in the Digital Era
Chapter Seven: On the Cultural Power of the "Marianas Web" Meme
Robert W. Gehl
Chapter Eight: Photography, Bibliography, Digitality, Paradox
Timothy Morris
Chapter Nine: The New Old: Vinyl Records after the Internet
Michael Palm
Part IV. Being Human in the Digital Era
Chapter Ten: Digitized Music and the Aesthetic Experience of Difference
Nancy Weiss Hanrahan
Chapter Eleven: Keeping Commerce Human: Contradictions of Digital Economy Platforms
Michele Krugh
Chapter Twelve: From the Wild West to Silicon Valley: Shifting Models of Reproductive Medicine in North America
Amy Speier
Conclusion: Avoiding Digital Disaster
David Arditi
