New paperback: Fuchs, Christian and Marisol Sandoval, eds. 2014. Critique, Social Media and the Information Society. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-72108-0. http://fuchs.uti.at/books/critique-social-media-and-the-information-society/ This book is an outcome of the 4th ICTs and Society Conference “Critique, Democracy, and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society: Towards Critical Theories of Social Media” (May 2-4, 2012, Uppsala Univeristy, Sweden) Read the introduction: Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval - Critique, Social Media and the Information Society in the Age of Capitalist Crisis http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/intro.pdf In times of global capitalist crisis we are witnessing a return of critique in the form of a surging interest in critical theories (such as the critical political economy of Karl Marx) and social rebellions as a reaction to the commodification and instrumentalization of everything. On one hand, there are overdrawn claims that social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc) have caused uproars in countries like Tunisia and Egypt. On the other hand, the question arises as to what actual role social media play in contemporary capitalism, crisis, rebellions, the strengthening of the commons, and the potential creation of participatory democracy. The commodification of everything has resulted also in a commodification of the communication commons, including Internet communication that is today largely commercial in character. This book deals with the questions of what kind of society and what kind of Internet are desirable, how capitalism, power structures and social media are connected, how political struggles are connected to social media, what current developments of the Internet and society tell us about potential futures, how an alternative Internet can look like, and how a participatory, commons-based Internet and a co-operative, participatory, sustainable information society can be achieved. With contributions by Andrew Feenberg, Catherine McKercher, Christian Fuchs, Graham Murdock, Gunilla Bradley, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Margareta Melin, Marisol Sandoval, Mark Andrejevic, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Peter Dahlgren, Robert Prey, Sebastian Sevignani, Thomas Allmer, Tobias Olsson, Verena Kreilinger, Vincent Mosco, Wolfgang Hofkirchner. Contents 1. Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval Introduction: Critique, Social Media and the Information Society in the Age of Capitalist Crisis Part I: Critical Studies of the Information Society 2. Christian Fuchs Critique of the Political Economy of Informational Capitalism and Social Media 3. Wolfgang Hofkirchner Potentials and Risks for Creating a Global Sustainable Information Society 4. Sebastian Sevignani, Robert Prey, Marisol Sandoval, Thomas Allmer, Jernej Amon Prodnik and Verena Kreilinger Critical Studies of Contemporary Informational Capitalism: The Perspective of Emerging Scholars 5. Gunilla Bradley Social Informatics and Ethics: Towards the Good Information and Communication Society Part II: Critical Internet- and Social Media-Studies 6. Andrew Feenberg Great Refusal or Long March: How to Think About the Internet 7. Graham Murdock Producing Consumerism: Commodities, Ideologies, Practices 8. Marisol Sandoval Social Media?: The Unsocial Character of Capitalist Media 9. Nick Dyer-Witheford The Global Worker and the Digital Front 10. Mark Andrejevic Alienation’s Returns 11. Peter Dahlgren Social Media and Political Participation: Discourse and Deflection 12. Tobias Olsson “The Architecture of Participation”: For Citizens or Consumers? Part III: Critical Studies of Communication Labour 13. Catherine McKercher Precarious Times, Precarious Work: A Feminist Political Economy of Freelance Journalists in Canada and the United States 14. Margareta Melin Flight as Fight: Re-Negotiating the Work of Journalism 15. Vincent Mosco Marx is Back, But Will Knowledge Workers of the World Unite?: On the Critical Study of Labour, Media and Communication Today