Social Media, Politics and the State

Announcement of a forthcoming collected volume (2014): Social Media, Politics and the State: Protests, Revolutions, Riots, Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Edited by Daniel Trottier and Christian Fuchs New York: Routledge http://www.routledge.com This book is the essential guide for understanding how state power and politics are contested and exercised [...]

Collected volume “Critique, Social Media & the Information Society” (ed. Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval)

Critique, Social Media & the Information Society
Edited by Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval
Routledge
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415841856/
The critical guide to social media and the information society in turbulent times!

Forthcoming Book: Digital Labour and Karl Marx

Christian Fuchs
Digital Labor and Karl Marx
Routledge

This books advances a Marxist theory of digital labour

How Ideology is Policing the Crisis of European Capitalism

The current political and ideological situation in Europe precisely resembles the situation that Hall described for the 1970s. The objects of contemporary moral panics in the crisis, the contemporary ideological demons and ideological devils are immigrants, the unemployed, Southern Europeans and the European Union. Crisis ideologies displace the causes of the crisis of capitalism into particularism. Ideology is policing the crisis today: it aims at installing an even more brutal capitalist system and making people believe that this is necessary and will help overcome and avoid future crisis. The opposite is true: The cause of the crisis is prescribed as its solution, which can only result in even worse crises in the future if these politics and ideologies are successfully implemented.

New MA in Social Media, University of Westminster

The University of Westminster has announced a new MA programme in Social Media.
The programme’s task is that students acquire the skills for becoming critical and reflective social media experts that can work as social media researchers or social media professionals.

Facebook’s New Data Use Policy (December 11th, 2012) – What Has Changed and What Do These Changes Mean?

So overall, how can Facebook’s new privacy policy best be characterised? Exploitation of users, increased complexity, violation of privacy in the context of the processing of sensitive personal data.

Call: European Sociological Association (ESA) 2013 Conference: RN18 – Sociology of Communications and Media Research: Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change

Communication, Crisis, Critique and Change: ESA RN18 focuses in its conference stream on the discussion of how crisis, critique and societal changes shape the study of media, communication & society today.

Why Social Media Research Matters for Occupy

Do social media really with necessity result in more democracy and a better society? What is the And if such states of society are achieved, are they then the result of technology or of the struggles of humans who take risks in activism? What is the relationship of technology and society? What is the relationship between the opportunities and risks of “social media“? The Internet researcher Manuel Castells has in his recently published book “Networks of outrage and hope: social movements in the Internet age“ voiced a view that is quite similar to the one by Shirky.

The Right-Wing European Mainstream Media Campaign against Syriza and the Need to End Neoliberalism

I have taken a look at the European media coverage of Syriza one day before the Greek election that takes place today, June 17th, 2012. European mainstream media simply ignore alternative voices that suggest a different path for Europe and Greece, namely the end of neoliberalism. Such voices exist, especially among intellectuals, but hardly make their way into the European mainstream media.

A new publication about Marx and Communication, edited by C. Fuchs & Vincent Mosco, 29 articles, 500+ pages: Marx is back – The importance of Marxist theory and research for Critical Communication Studies today

A new publication about Marx and Communication, edited by C. Fuchs & Vincent Mosco, 29 articles, 500+ pages: Marx is back – The importance of Marxist theory and research for Critical Communication Studies today