Information, Power, and Politics: Technological and Institutional Mediations

by Sarita Albagli, Maria Lucia Maciel, César Bolaño, Yann Moulier Boutang, Sandra Braman University of Wisconsin-M

Overview

With the spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs) comes the potential both for new social and economic equalities and new forms of inequalities. Information, Power, and Politics: Technological and Institutional Mediations demonstrates that ICTs can act as an impetus for democratizing information and knowledge, while at the same time new institutional frameworks can limit one's use of and access to strategic information and knowledge. The volume's contributors address ways to strengthen and affirm the socially marginalized as well as suggest how best to incorporate (semi)peripheral countries and regions into the international system. Information, Power, and Politics offers a refreshing and timely perspective on the ever-evolving relationship between information, knowledge, and communication.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739148358
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	11/29/2010
Series:	Critical Media Studies
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Sarita Albagli is a senior researcher at the Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT), Ministry of Science and Technology.

Maria Lucia Maciel is a senior lecturer in the postgraduate political science program at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

1 Information, Power, and Politics: From the South, Beyond the South Sarita Albagli Maria Lucia Maciel 1

2 The Representational Economy and the Global Information Policy Regime Sandra Braman 27

3 Wikipolitics and the Economy of the Bees: Information, Power, and Politics in a Digital Society Yann Moulier Boutang 47

4 Information, Knowledge, and Power: From the Point of View of Relations between Politics, Economics, and Language Maria Nélida González de Gómez 79

5 The Crisis of Cognitive Capitalism from the Point of View of Amerindian Perspectivism Giuseppe Cocco 103

6 Digital Capitalism in Crisis Dan Schiller 133

7 Productive Restructuring, Subsumption of Intellectual Labor, and the Contradictory Dynamics of Development César Bolaño 147

8 Knowledge, Information, and Intellectual Property Rights: An Institutionalist Analysis of the Different Governance Modalities Alain Herscovici 169

9 Digital Democracy: Beyond the Idea of Distributive Justice Jonatas Ferreira Maria Eduarda da Mota Rocha 189

Index 207

About the Contributors 221

Editorial Reviews

This volume presents a penetrating analysis of key contradictions in the nexus of information, knowledge and power within 21st century capitalism. Through their appropriation of digital technologies, forces of resistance may lead to a deepening of democracy or, alternatively, dominant actors may succeed in institutionalising new means of control through their appropriation of the means of communication. The authors offer much needed critical assessments of alternative cultural, social and economic positionings as viewed from the 'South.'

Robin Mansell

This volume presents a penetrating analysis of key contradictions in the nexus of information, knowledge and power within 21st century capitalism. Through their appropriation of digital technologies, forces of resistance may lead to a deepening of democracy or, alternatively, dominant actors may succeed in institutionalising new means of control through their appropriation of the means of communication. The authors offer much needed critical assessments of alternative cultural, social and economic positionings as viewed from the 'South.'--Robin Mansell, London School of Economics and Political Science

From the Publisher