Information Politics: Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital Society

Description

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. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Series Preface......Page 7 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Introduction: Information as a Politics......Page 10 Part I: Theory of Information Power......Page 36 1. Recursion......Page 38 2. Technologies' Embrace......Page 54 3. Network and Protocol Theory: Dis/Organising Information Power......Page 73 Part II: Platforms......Page 90 4. Clouds......Page 92 5. Securitisation of the Internet......Page 107 6. Social Media Networks......Page 129 Part III: Battlegrounds......Page 150 7. Battlegrounds and the iPad......Page 152 8. Death and Gaming......Page 169 9. Hacktivism: Operation Tunisia, Modular Tactics and Information Activism......Page 185 Conclusion: Information Exploitation and Information Liberation......Page 201 Bibliography......Page 227 Index......Page 239