Synopses & Reviews
Conflict over information has become a central part of twenty-first century politics and culture. Currents of liberation and exploitation course through the debates about Edward Snowden and surveillance, Anonymous, the Arab Spring, search engines, and social media. In
Information Politics, Tim Jordan confronts contemporary panic about whether we are being controlled by digital systems, such as social networks, iPhones, and Google. He approaches these issues in relation to the information politics that have emerged with the rise of mass digital cultures and the internet. Within our modern world, he argues for possibilities of rebellion and liberation interwoven among social and political conflicts including gender, class, and ecology.
The first of Pluto Press’s new Digital Barricades series, focusing on ground-breaking critical explorations of resistance within the digital world, Information Politics explores the exploitations both facilitated by, and contested through, increases in information flows; the embedding of information technologies in daily life; and the intersection of network and control protocols. Anyone hoping to get to grips with the rapidly changing terrain of digital culture and conflict should start here.
Review
“A must read for those seeking to understand the impact of digital culture and their attendant communication technologies on our quest for liberty and equality.”
Review
“A determined philosophical inquiry into the nature of information politics, from the abstraction of the cloud to the battlegrounds of hactivists, to identify the forms of exploitation and liberation endemic to the recursive movement of information. This book offers rich philosophical grounding for current and future studies of new media.”
Review
“Tim Jordan has yet again produced a compelling and incisive account of fundamental developments in our increasingly digital world. His sophisticated theoretical analysis is clearly articulated and is based on a thorough grasp of both the technical and the social. He brilliantly avoids both cultural pessimism and techno-utopianism in his presentation of ‘political antagonisms.’”
Synopsis
Conflict over information has become a central part of modern politics and culture. The sites of struggle are numerous, the actors beyond count. Currents of liberation and exploitation course through the debates about Edward Snowden and surveillance, Anonymous, search engines and social media. In Information Politics, Tim Jordan identifies all these issues in relation to a general understanding of the nature of an information politics that emerged with the rise of mass digital cultures and the internet. He locates it within a field of power and rebellion that is populated by many interwoven social and political conflicts including gender, class and ecology. The exploitations both facilitated by, and contested through increases in information flows; the embedding of information technologies in daily life, and the intersection of network and control protocols are all examined. Anyone hoping to get to grips with the rapidly changing terrain of digital culture and conflict should start here.
About the Author
Tim Jordan is the author of Internet, Society and Culture,Hacking, and Hacktivism and Cyberwars. He is professor and head of the School of Media, Film and Music at the Univeristy of Sussex.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1: Information as a Politics
Part 1 Theory of Information Power
2: Recursion
3: Technologies' Embrace
4: Network and Protocol Theory: Dis/Organising Information Power
Part 2 Platforms
5: Clouds: Platform 1
6: Securitisation of the Internet: Platform 2
7: Social Media Networks: Platform 3
Part 3 Battlegrounds
8 Battlegrounds
9 Information Exploitation and Information Liberation
Bibliography
Index