(Re)Inventing The Internet Critical Case Studies
Although it has been in existence for over three decades, the Internet remains a contested technology. Its governance and role in civic life, education, and entertainment are all still openly disputed and debated. The issues include censorship and network
- PDF / 1,079,386 Bytes
- 141 Pages / 325.984 x 491.932 pts Page_size
- 98 Downloads / 190 Views
(RE)INVENTING THE INTERNET
Critical Case Studies
Edited by
Andrew Feenberg Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada Norm Friesen Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6091-732-5 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6091-733-2 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6091-734-9 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands www.sensepublishers.com
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2012 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
vii
I. Code and Communication
1
1. Introduction: Toward a critical theory of the Internet Andrew Feenberg
3
II. Play and School Online
19
2. Rationalizing play: A critical theory of digital gaming Sara M. Grimes and Andrew Feenberg
21
3. Alternative rationalisations and ambivalent futures: A critical history of online education Edward Hamilton and Andrew Feenberg
43
III. The Civic Internet
71
4. Experiencing surveillance: A phenomenological approach Norm Friesen, Andrew Feenberg, Grace Smith, and Shannon Lowe
73
5. Subactivism: Lifeworld and politics in the age of the Internet Maria Bakardjieva
85
6. Hacking for social justice: The politics of prefigurative technology Kate Milberry
v
109
PREFACE The Internet, as Though Agency Mattered
The critique of technological determinism is something of an chapter of faith in studies of communication technologies today, thanks to two key developments dating from the early days of new media research. The first was a shift toward constructivist views of technology, borrowed from science and technology studies and cultural analyses of media in the work of Raymond Williams and others. The second was the turn toward subjectivist epistemologies and qualitative fieldwork methods that transformed communication and mass media research in the 1980s, and which encouraged a reorientation of media studies toward the “domestic” and “everyday life” contexts of media use. Since that time, media studies, cultural studies, and new media scholars have routinely disavowed the channel-centric, powerful-effects view of communication technology that pervaded so much of mass media research through the 20th century, in favour of culturally-situated, subjectively-experienced accounts of media development and use. But if new media scholarship eschews powerful technologies, the field still clings to a widespread, if implicit, belief in powerful media representations, content and institutions. Producers and owners of media programs and systems (including new media) are assumed to wield globalized, hegemonic, and disproporti
Data Loading...
