This thesis develops an intersectional, critical analysis of the field of practice known as Civic Tech and highlights other relevant community-organizing and activist practices that utilize technology as a central component.
Everything is Awful: Snark as Ritualized Social Practice in Online Discourse
Snark can adopt a pro-social role in online environments whose architecture tends to reward vapid or deceptive content.
Frontlines of Crisis, Forefront of Change: Climate Justice as an Intervention into (Neo)colonial Climate Action Narratives and Practices
Radical media strategies, on the streets and on the airwaves, are central to the articulation of climate justice and the contestation of hegemonic meanings of climate action that legitimise colonial violence.
Podcast: Nick Couldry, “The Mediated Construction of Reality: From Berger and Luckmann to Norbert Elias”
Nick Couldry addressed the challenges of social analysis in the face of datafication through the use of materialist phenomenology, particularly the concept of figurations.
Podcast: Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll, “Platforms in the Public Interest: Lessons from Minitel”
Systems like Amazon, Google, and Facebook are so massive that it’s easy to forget that the digital world was not always like this. Kevin Driscoll, ’09, and Indiana University’s Julien Mailland discuss how France’s Minitel offers a wealth of data for thinking about internet policy and an alternative model for the internet’s future: a public platform for private innovation.
GDC video with T.L. Taylor: “How Game Communities Built an eSport Scene from the Ground Up”
“In this 2017 GDC talk, MIT professor TL Taylor explains why developers hoping to break into the esports scene can benefit from understanding and integrating expert and enthusiast communities into their initiatives.”
Podcast: Walter Menendez, “Engineering Virality: BuzzFeed’s Scientific Approach To Creating Content”
BuzzFeed’s Walter Menendez: “This talk will detail how BuzzFeed thinks about and creates content, highlighting our paradigms for the function and role of our content.”
