The end of politics as we know it? New Media & Political Imagination

Technical inventions have always spawned utopian visions of total social amelioration, followed closely by dystopian fears and moral panics. Digital information technologies are no different. Producing the full range of reactions—from celebrations of “networked protests” to wild accusations of “fake news”—responses to today’s media environments proclaim the end of politics as we know it. Reading works by political theorists alongside scholars of the digital, this course will question both triumphant digital utopianism and fatalist assumptions of ubiquitous manipulation, and instead engage in more complex readings of the ways media shapes and is shaped by subjects and communities alike.