[P2P-F] New paperback: Critique, Social Media and the Information Society (ed. Christian Fuchs, Marisol Sandoval)

[Christian Fuchs]

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