Your Brain on New Media: Communicative Democracy, Tyranny, and Enabling Ambivalence

The Political Economy of Democracy and Tyranny

Democracy, Political Perceptions, and New Media

The participation of citizens in a democratic government is often influenced by the media, particularly new communication technologies. The differences between mass media and new media are pertinent to understanding how each works to shape our opinions and perceptions. Students need to understand the role of both traditional mass media outlets and new media in shaping public participation in ou...

Lightness, wildness, and ambivalence: China and new media studies

China was linked to the internet in 1994. In 1997, there were only about 670,000 users. By June 2011, China had over 485 million internet users, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the population. The rapid diffusion of the internet has had profound influences on all aspects of Chinese life. Scholars both in China and outside have responded to these new developments by producing a large amount ...

Social Media and Experiential Ambivalence

At once fearful and dependent, hopeful and distrustful, our contemporary relationship with technology is highly ambivalent. Using experiential accounts from an ongoing Facebook-based qualitative study (N = 231), I both diagnose and articulate this ambivalence. I argue that technological ambivalence is rooted primarily in the deeply embedded moral prescription to lead a meaningful life, and a re...

Communicative Power in Habermas’s Theory of Democracy

This article critically examines Jürgen Habermas’s theory of democracy as developed in Between Facts and Norms. In particular, it focuses on the concept of communicative power and argues that there is a crucial ambiguity in Habermas’s use of this concept. Since communicative power is the key normative resource that is supposed to counter the norm-free steering media of money and administrative ...