Season’s greetings and all that jazz!
I’m deep in my readings and measurables these days, getting weirder and more academically specialized by the day and just LOVE to have intellectual conversation with my colleagues and friends.
Currently working on my literature review and just realized I haven’t posted links to provide context and invite more people into the conversation.
I am testing Zuboff’s claims that Surveillance capitalism could spell the end of Democracy as theorized in her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (525p) and academic articles that summarize her main point and conclusions. This is some of the best analysis I’ve seen of our modern societies, some have called her “Karl Marx of our times” but I’m more inclined to call her the Max Weber or Émile Durkheim of our times.
- Surveillance Capitalism or Democracy? The Death Match of Institutional Orders and the Politics of Knowledge in Our Information Civilization (58pages you won’t regret reading)
- Surveillance Capitalism and the Challenge of Collective Action (15p text)
Not to leave out Mark Warren’s framework to clarify the functions of Democracy
- A Problem-Based Approach to Democratic Theory (13 pages worth the read)
Warren’s framework was first used to analyze mass-trends in Cyberspace in a report by Tenove, Buffie et. al.
Digital Threats to Democratic Elections: How Foreign Actors Use Digital Techniques to Undermine Democracy
Research Report, Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, University of British Columbia
And I also used in my 2019 MA thesis Cyber-threats to Democracies, Constructed Threats to Democratic Processes where I used Constructivism and English School theory to argue for the power of ideas and propaganda. The PhD research leans away from Constructivism into Discursive-Cognitive English-School strands where human limits and cognitive biases are used to manipulate people in a global battle for power.
Thora's blog - Thorlaug Borg Ágústsdóttir 