SOC/POLS 465

DIGITAL POLITICS
CRNs: 38490/38491/37103/37441
ON CAMPUS

Instructor: Atef Said

Class days: M/W
Time: 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Location: Room 389 BSB
Email: atefsaid@uic.edu
Office: 4146A (BSB)
Drop-in Hours: Monday 11:30- 1:00 and by appointment 1

DESCRIPTION
From the Cambridge Analytica scandal (where an estimated 87 million Facebook users’
information was leaked to lobbying firms) to Trump’s ban from social media, through engaging
in online protests and being subjected to constant surveillance, our political and digital lives have
become intimately intertwined. In this context, where humans have become mere data bodies,
where did our political agency go? And how do we undertake political sociology in such a highly
digitized society? Political sociology is conventionally understood as the field of study of who
governs, who is governed, and methods of governing, among other things. But what does a
political sociology of the digital, or digital politics, look like?

Our aim in this class is to explore answers to these questions. This class is an advanced
introduction to the new emerging field of digital politics. It is interdisciplinary in nature, with
much focus on readings from sociology, communication, political sciences and digital
humanities. Most of the readings are scholarly, complemented by some non-academic readings
and documentaries.

In addition to an introduction and a conclusion, the class is divided into 7 sections: 1) The
Governing, 2) The Governed, 3) Digital Activism, 4) Digital Repression and Surveillance, 5)
Gender, Race and Sexualities in Digital Spaces, 6) Digital Politics is Global, and 7) Case
Studies.

CLASS OBJECTIVES:
By the end of the class, it is our goal that students will be:
- Familiar with some of the key terms related to digital politics;
- Able to apply some of these concepts to understand/explain how the political and the
digital are intertwined in today’s world;
- Able to analyze some of the key and important and timely issues through the lens of
digital politics (such as National Elections, Who governs Chicago and the Pandemic);

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Drop-in Hours will be held in person OR via zoom, depending on students’ accommodations, needs, and
convenience, while taking into considerations UIC’s ongoing health regulations in relation to the pandemic.
 - Self-reflective about the impact of algorithms and the digitally powerful over their self
and agency.

CLASS STRUCTURE:
The course will be seminar-style, and discussion-based. The structure of every class, unless we
are watching movies/documentaries, is as follows:
• Two students will share with the rest of the class specific tik-talks or materials from the
digital world, which involve politics, explicitly or implicitly. We then discuss these
materials with the rest of the class. 10-15 minutes
• Class Discussion of the readings and questions posted on BB. 15-20 minutes
• The instructor will deliver a short lecture to provide a background to the week’s readings
and explain key concepts in these. 20-30 minutes
• Class questions and discussions of the lecture. 5-10 minutes

Please note that the materials you will share, your readings, and your questions (posted on BB)
are the most critical components for the success and fruitfulness of the conversation and learning
in this class. Note that we have several weeks with no assigned readings, during which we will
be watching important movies.

COURSE MATERIALS:
All class materials will be made available to you on BB. When the readings are available online,
I will indicate this in the syllabus.

UIC PANDEMIC GUIDANCE:

Our class is conducted in person on campus. I am committed as an instructor to following UIC’s
most recent pandemic guidance and I will continue to do so throughout the semester. Please read
and make yourself familiar with this info in this link:
https://provost.uic.edu/guidance-for-fall-2021/

As an instructor, I am very flexible and I will do my very best effort to accommodate students in
relation to the pandemic. However, please know that while social distancing is not required in
the classroom at this point, UIC still requires all of us (instructors and students) to wear masks in
classroom. UIC guidance’s states that “masks covering both the mouth and nose must be worn at
all times by all students, faculty, and staff while on campus and inside any building regardless of
vaccination status.” I hate to act as a police officer (especially in a class on political sociology),
but UIC is requiring me to ask students to leave the classroom if they are not wearing masks
properly.

GRADE DISTRIBUTION:
10 % Attendance
30 % Participation (5 % Participation in class + 10 % Posting Questions on BB before class + 15
% Bring Social Media Materials to discuss in class)
60 % Research Papers (Two Short Papers, or One Long Paper)

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Attendance and participation:

Since this class is really based on discussion, with the lectures also being very important, it is
expected that students attend all classes. Students are allowed two excused absences. Beyond
these, students who miss classes without a documented pandemic-related excuse will be
penalized.

As indicated above, participation includes three things: 1) posting questions on BB before the
class, 2) participating in class discussion, 3) and sharing 5 social media items with the class over
the semester.

Paper Assignments:

Students have the option of writing two short papers (10-12 pages each), or one longer paper (20
pages average). These papers to be double-spaced,12-point font, and using some of the
references from the course materials, plus other relevant materials (Please note other
recommended references at the end of this syllabus).

Here are some suggested topics for your papers:

1- Governing the digital space: Who governs it, who is being governed, how and why?
2- Who owns (the) digital space(s)?
3- The relationship between social media and election.
4- Trump’s ban from social media: what do you think?
5- Human agency vs. algorithmic agency, which is more powerful, and why?
6- Digital activism, its pros and limitations?
7- Digital repression
8- Digital surveillance
9- Does the internet promote democracy or harm it?
10- The digital gap and its implications on politics and the practice of democracy
11- What is a trend in social media? (politically, socially)
12- Cybersecurity: whose security?
13- The role of trolls in politics
14- Digital feminism
15- Black Twitter
16- Who is the influencer/who is being influenced?
17- Analyze/content analysis of movements, organizations and key political actors (NRA,
NAACP, politicians, activists), and or compare two politicians or organizations.
18- Other topics of your suggestion, with instructor’s approval.

Deadlines to submit these papers are the following:

• Short paper 1 -Wednesday October 20, 2021 at 5:00 PM in safe assign BB
• Short paper 2 - Monday December 6, 2021 at 5:00 PM in safe assign BB
• Long paper- Monday December 6, 2021 at 5:00 PM in safe assign BB

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In addition to the above two options (two shorter papers or one long paper), I am open to other
ideas such as:

Reflection Papers:
Write Five Reflection Papers on the tension between agency and algorithms (5 x 12 %)= 60 %

These will be journal style/free reflections on the topic of how you think of and experience
algorithms as human agency. More details to follow, but in general, students are encouraged to
write about different aspects of their lives, with a specific focus on the tension between human
agency and algorithmic agency. Each reflection should be an average of 5 pages, double spaced,
12-point font.

Or, either individually or in groups, you can do one of the following, or feel free to be creative
and submit ideas to the instructor for approval.

1) Design a social media campaign for a political organization, using social media platform,
while being aware of its limitations.
2) Create two Tik Talks against Tik Talk
3) Design/write a manual for protest (where online and offline are connected)
4) Design/write a manual for fair election (as a candidate or a voter) in the age of mis-
information
5) Design/write booklet for reclaiming your political agency against the algorithm

Deadlines and Instructions about these assignments will be announced shortly.

A Note About Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a serious violation to academic integrity. It constitutes

academic theft. Assignments will be submitted via Safe Assign in Blackboard. It is your
responsibility to familiarize yourself with the UIC guidelines and penalties for academic
dishonesty, which are described in the UIC Student Handbook and the UIC Undergraduate
Catalog – available here: http://www.uic.edu/ucat/catalog/GR.shtml

EMAIL POLICY:
Please give me 24 hours to respond to your emails; I will respond as soon as I can within this
window. During particularly busy times of the semester, however, my response may take up to
48 hours.

ACCOMODATIONS:
If you need any accommodation, whether or not related to COVID-19, please notify me as soon
as you can. The University of Illinois at Chicago is committed to maintaining a barrier-free
environment so that students with disabilities can fully access programs, courses, and activities.
You may contact DRC at 312-413-2183 (v) or 312-413-0123 (TTY) or consult the following:
https://drc.uic.edu/students-2/new-to-drc/.

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THE CLASSROOM AS A COMMUNITY:
This class is aimed to encourage students’ critical thinking about the materials. We may engage
in some heated debates. It is our shared responsibility as instructor and students to make sure that
the class is a safe space for every student. Everyone has the right to express their opinion in a
respectful and productive manner without being interrupted or distracted.

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

Monday 8/23 First class—Syllabus and Introduction

Introduction:
The Digital and the Political

Wednesday 8/25
Watching and discussing the documentary: The Digital Nation: PBS Production (2010)
Available at this link
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/digitalnation/

Monday 8/30
Readings:
Marres, Noortje. Digital sociology: The reinvention of social research. John Wiley & Sons,
2017. (Introduction) (BB)

Redshaw, Tom. "What is digital society? Reflections on the aims and purpose of digital
sociology.” Review Essay. Sociology. (2020): 425-431. (BB)

Wednesday 9/1: Watching and discussing the documentary, The Social Dilemma: Netflix
Production (2020)

Monday 9/6 Labor Day. No Class

Wednesday 9/8
Readings:
Janoski, Thomas, Cedric de Leon, Joya Misra, and Isaac William Martin, eds. The New
handbook of political sociology. Cambridge University Press, 2020. Introduction, pp 1-32 (BB)

Monday 9/13
Readings:
Coleman, Stephen, and Deen Freelon. "Introduction: conceptualizing digital politics." In
Handbook of digital politics. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015. pp 1-14 (BB)

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 Section 1:
The Governing of the Digital World (State, Capital and Algorithm)

Wednesday 9/15
Readings:
BBC News (Reality Check Team). Social Media: How do other governments regulate it? 12
February, 2020. Available at this link:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47135058
Henman, Paul. "Government and the Internet: evolving technologies, enduring research themes."
In The Oxford handbook of Internet studies. 2013. (BB)
Siripurapu, Anshu, and William Merrow. "Social Media and Online Speech: How Should
Countries Regulate Tech Giants." Council on Foreign Relations. February 9, 2021
Available at this link:
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/social-media-and-online-speech-how-should-countries-regulate-
tech-giants

Monday 9/20
Readings:
Pace, Jonathan. "The concept of digital capitalism." Communication Theory 28, no. 3 (2018):
254-269. (BB)

Staab, Philipp, and Oliver Nachtwey. "Market and labour control in digital capitalism." tripleC:
Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable
Information Society 14, no. 2 (2016): 457-474. (BB)

Optional:
Betancourt, Michael. The critique of digital capitalism: an analysis of the political economy of
digital culture and technology. punctum books, 2016. Introduction, pp i-xi

Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, The University of Chicago Booth
School of Business. “Stigler Committee on Digital Platforms.” 2019. Full Report. Available at
this link:
https://www.publicknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stigler-Committee-on-Digital-
Platforms-Final-Report.pdf
(Read Introduction, Summary and Policy Recommendations)

Watching Recorded Lecture, by Philipp Staab, “The crises of digital capitalism,” part of lecture
series: Making Sense of the Digital Society May 4, 2020, Organized by the Alexander on
Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. Available at this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_c6pgpP98

Wednesday 9/15
Readings:
Beer, David. "The social power of algorithms." Information, Communication & Society (2017):
vol 20: 1 pp 1-13 (BB)

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Curchod, Corentin, Gerardo Patriotta, Laurie Cohen, and Nicolas Neysen. "Working for an
algorithm: Power asymmetries and agency in online work settings." Administrative Science
Quarterly 65, no. 3 (2020): 644-676. (BB)

Optional:
Walker, Mike. "Competition policy and digital platforms: six uncontroversial propositions."
European Competition Journal 16, no. 1 (2020): 1-10.

Section 2:
The Governed in the Digital World (Citizen, Worker/Consumer or mere data
body)

Wednesday 9/22
Readings:
Schou, Jannick, and Morten Hjelholt. "Digital citizenship and neoliberalization: governing
digital citizens in Denmark." Citizenship Studies 22, no. 5 (2018): 507-522.

Mossberger, Karen. "Toward digital citizenship. Addressing inequality in the information age."
Routledge handbook of Internet politics (2009): 173-185.

Optional:
Choi, Moonsun. "A concept analysis of digital citizenship for democratic citizenship education
in the internet age." Theory & research in social education 44, no. 4 (2016): 565-607.

Sullivan, Clare. "Digital citizenship and the right to digital identity under international law."
Computer Law & Security Review 32, no. 3 (2016): 474-481.

Monday 9/27
Andrejevic, Mark. "Estranged free labor." In Scholz, Trebor, ed. Digital labor: The internet as
playground and factory. Routledge, 2012 pp. 157-172. (BB)

Scholz, Trebor. "Introduction: Why does digital labor matter now?" In Scholz, Trebor, ed.
Digital labor: The internet as playground and factory. Routledge, 2012. pp. 9-18. (BB)

Optional:
Postigo, Hector. "The socio-technical architecture of digital labor: Converting play into YouTube
money." New media & society 18, no. 2 (2016): 332-349.

Wednesday 9/29
Readings:
Strang, Kenneth David, and Zhaohao Sun. "Hidden big data analytics issues in the healthcare
industry." Health informatics journal 26, no. 2 (2020): 981-998. (BB)

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Zuboff, Shoshana. The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new
frontier of power. Profile books, 2019. Chapter 8, the Rendition: From Experience to Data, pp
232-253 (BB)

Optional:
Amoore, Louise. "Algorithmic war: Everyday geographies of the war on terror." Antipode 41,
no. 1 (2009): 49-69.

Couldry, Nick. "The myth of ‘us’: digital networks, political change and the production of
collectivity." Information, Communication & Society 18, no. 6 (2015): 608-626.

Matzner, Tobias. "Beyond data as representation: The performativity of Big Data in

surveillance." Surveillance & Society 14, no. 2 (2016): 197-210.

Patel, Devansh, Dhwanil Shah, and Manan Shah. "The intertwine of brain and body: a
quantitative analysis on how big data influences the system of sports." Annals of Data Science 7,
no. 1 (2020): 1-16. (BB)

Tanner, Adam. Our bodies, our data: how companies make billions selling our medical records.
Beacon Press, 2017. Introduction, pp 1-4

Section 3:
Digital Activism (Organizing in the Digital age)

Monday 10/4
Readings:
Ince, Jelani, Fabio Rojas, and Clayton A. Davis. "The social media response to Black Lives
Matter: How Twitter users interact with Black Lives Matter through hashtag use." Ethnic and
racial studies 40, no. 11 (2017): 1814-1830. (BB)

Leong, Carmen, Shan L. Pan, Shamshul Bahri, and Ali Fauzi. "Social media empowerment in
social movements: power activation and power accrual in digital activism." European Journal of
Information Systems 28, no. 2 (2019): 173-204. (BB)

Optional:
Suwana, Fiona. "What motivates digital activism? The case of the Save KPK movement in
Indonesia." Information, Communication & Society 23, no. 9 (2020): 1295-1310.

Wednesday 10/6
Readings:
Tufekci, Zeynep. Twitter and tear gas. Yale University Press, 2017. Introduction and Chapter 6,
Platforms and Algorithms, respectively, pp xi-xxxi and pp 132-163 (BB)

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Monday 10/11
Readings:
Earl, Jennifer, Jayson Hunt, R. Kelly Garrett, and Aysenur Dal. "New technologies and social
movements." The Oxford handbook of social movements (2015): 355-366.

Optional:
Byrd, W. Carson, Keon L. Gilbert, and Joseph B. Richardson Jr. "The vitality of social media for
establishing a research agenda on black lives and the movement." Ethnic and Racial Studies 40,
no. 11 (2017): 1872-1881.

Earl, Jennifer, Rina James, Elliot Ramo, and Sam Scovill. "Protest, activism, and false
information." In The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism, pp. 290-301.
Routledge, 2021.

Kaun, Anne, and Emiliano Treré. "Repression, resistance and lifestyle: charting (dis) connection
and activism in times of accelerated capitalism." Social Movement Studies 19, no. 5-6 (2020):
697-715.

Kaun, Anne, and Julie Uldam. "Digital activism: After the hype." New Media & Society 20, no. 6
(2018): 2099-2106.

Section 4:
Digital Repression and Surveillance

Wednesday 10/13 (Plan to submit your short paper 1 in the following week)
Readings:
Feldstein, Steven. "The road to digital unfreedom: How artificial intelligence is reshaping
repression." Journal of Democracy 30, no. 1 (2019): 40-52.
Optional:
Frantz, Erica, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, and Joseph Wright. "Digital repression in autocracies."
Varieties of Democracy Institute Users Working Paper (27) (2020).

Monday 10/18
Readings:
Tufekci, Zeynep. Twitter and tear gas. Yale University Press, 2017. Chapter 9, Governments
Strike Back, pp 223-260 (BB)

Wednesday 10/20 (DEADLINE TO SUBMIT SHORT PAPER 1)

Watching and Discussing the Documentary: Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism | VPRO
Documentary, available at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw

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Reading:
Zuboff, Shoshana. The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new
frontier of power. Profile Books, 2019. Chapter 3, the Discovery of the Behavioral Surplus, pp
63-97

Optional:
Elsafoury, Fatma. "Teargas, Water Cannons and Twitter: A case study on detecting protest
repression events in Turkey 2013." In Text2Story@ ECIR, pp. 5-13. 2020.

Gunitsky, Seva. "Corrupting the cyber-commons: Social media as a tool of autocratic stability."
Perspectives on Politics 13, no. 1 (2015): 42-54.

Kendall-Taylor, Andrea, Erica Frantz, and Joseph Wright. "The digital dictators: How
technology strengthens autocracy." Foreign Aff. 99 (2020): 103.

Qiang, Xiao. "The road to digital unfreedom: President Xi's surveillance state." Journal of
Democracy 30, no. 1 (2019): 53-67.

Section 5:
Gender, Race, and Sexualities in Digital Spaces

Monday 10/25
Readings:
Baer, Hester. "Redoing feminism: Digital activism, body politics, and neoliberalism." Feminist
media studies 16, no. 1 (2016): 17-34. (BB)

Nichols, Erin, Adele Pavlidis, and Raphaël Nowak. "“It’s like Lifting the Power”: Powerlifting,
Digital Gendered Subjectivities, and the Politics of Multiplicity." Leisure Sciences (2021): 1-20.
(BB)

Optional:
Duffy, Brooke Erin, and Urszula Pruchniewska. "Gender and self-enterprise in the social media
age: A digital double bind." Information, Communication & Society 20, no. 6 (2017): 843-859.

Wednesday 10/27
Readings:
Browne, Simone. Dark matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press, 2015.
Introduction, and Other Dark Matters, pp 1-30 (BB)

McMillan Cottom, Tressie. "Where platform capitalism and racial capitalism meet: the sociology
of race and racism in the digital society." Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 6, no. 4 (2020): 441-
449. (BB)

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Monday 11/1
Readings:
Cover, Rob. Emergent identities: New sexualities, genders and relationships in a digital era.
Routledge, 2018. Introduction and chapter 1, pp 1-13 and 14-49 respectively (BB)

Optional:
Ortiz, Jose, Amber Young, Michael D. Myers, Rudolph T. Bedeley, Donal Carbaugh, Hameed
Chughtai, Elizabeth Davidson et al. "Giving voice to the voiceless: The use of digital
technologies by marginalized groups." Communications of the Association for Information
Systems 45, no. 1 (2019): 2.

Section 6:
The Digital is Global

Wednesday 11/3
Readings:
Geelan, Torsten, and Andy Hodder. "Enhancing transnational labour solidarity: the unfulfilled
promise of the Internet and social media." Industrial Relations Journal 48, no. 4 (2017): 345-
364.

Wukich, Clayton, Michael D. Siciliano, Jason Enia, and Brandon Boylan. "The formation of
transnational knowledge networks on social media." International Public Management Journal
20, no. 3 (2017): 381-408.

Monday 11/8
Readings:
Suh, Chan S., Ion Bogdan Vasi, and Paul Y. Chang. "How social media matter: Repression and
the diffusion of the Occupy Wall Street movement." Social science research 65 (2017): 282-293.
(BB)

Feldstein, Steven. The global expansion of AI surveillance. Vol. 17. Washington, DC: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 2019. (BB)

Optional:
Budnitsky, Stanislav, and Lianrui Jia. "Branding Internet sovereignty: Digital media and the
Chinese–Russian cyberalliance." European Journal of Cultural Studies 21, no. 5 (2018): 594-
613.

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 Section 7:
Case Studies

Wednesday 11/10: The Digital Politics of the 2020 Election

Readings:
Ferrara, E., Chang, H., Chen, E., Muric, G., & Patel, J. (2020). “Characterizing social media
manipulation in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.” First Monday, 25(11).
https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i11.11431 (BB)

Yerlikaya, Turgay, and Seca Toker Aslan. "Social Media and Fake News in the Post-Truth Era."
Insight Turkey 22, no. 2 (2020): 177-196. (BB)

Optional:
Goodwin, Anastasia, K. Jossef, and Samuel Woolley. "Social Media Influencers and the 2020
US Election: Paying ‘Regular People’ for Digital Campaign Communication." Center for Media
Engagement.
https://mediaengagement. org/research/social-media-influencers-and-the-2020-electi on (2020).

Karpf, David. "Digital politics after Trump." Annals of the International Communication
Association 41, no. 2 (2017): 198-207.

Watching the Documentary: The Great Hack (Netflix, 2019). A documentary on Cambridge
Analytica and the 2016 U.S Election.

Monday 11/15: Who Rules Chicago “Digitally,” and for Who?

Readings:
Rezende, Denis Alcides. "Digital city projects: information and public services offered by
Chicago (USA) and Curitiba (Brazil)." In Open Government: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools,
and Applications, pp. 1452-1468. IGI Global, 2020. (BB)

Optional:
Patton, Desmond U., Jeffrey Lane, Patrick Leonard, Jamie Macbeth, and Jocelyn R. Smith Lee.
"Gang violence on the digital street: Case study of a South Side Chicago gang member’s Twitter
communication." new media & society 19, no. 7 (2017): 1000-1018.

The City of Chicago Technology Plan. 2013, Issued under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Available at
this link:
https://techplan.cityofchicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/cityofchicago-techplan.pdf

Chicago Connected: An Initiative to Provide Free High-Speed Internet for Families in Need.
Initiative by Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot. Read basic info in the following link:
https://www.cps.edu/strategic-initiatives/chicago-connected https://www.cps.edu/strategic-
initiatives/chicago-connected

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Visit Digital Summit Chicago (website). “Where Marketers Stay on Top of Their Game,”
Chicago, IL-October 27-28, 2021. More info in this link:
https://chicago.digitalsummit.com/
(It is highly recommended to register for the conference and observe if you plan to write a paper
about Chicago’s digital politics)

Wednesday 11/17 The Digital Politics of the Pandemic

Readings:
Hunsinger, Jeremy. "On the Current Situation: Normal Violences, Pandemics, Emergencies,
Necropolitics, Zombies, and Creepy Treehouses." Fast Capitalism 17, no. 2 (2020). (BB)

Sandset, Tony. "The necropolitics of COVID-19: Race, class and slow death in an ongoing
pandemic." Global Public Health (2021): 1-13. (BB)

Optional:
Altheide, David L. "Pandemic in the Time of Trump: Digital Media Logic and Deadly Politics."
Symbolic Interaction, (2020): 514-540.

Coeckelbergh, Mark. "The postdigital in pandemic times: A comment on the Covid-19 crisis and
its political epistemologies." Postdigital Science and Education 2, no. 3 (2020): 547-550.

Wamsley, Dillon, and Benjamin Chin-Yee. "COVID-19, digital health technology and the
politics of the unprecedented." Big Data & Society 8, no. 1 (2021): 20539517211019441.

Conclusion:
Digital Politics Now and in the Future

Monday 11/ 22
Students Presentations, Reflections and General Discussion-1

Wednesday 11/24
Students Presentations, Reflections and General Discussion-2

Thanksgiving Break- November 25–26, Th–F

Monday 11/29 ((Plan to submit your short paper 2 in the following week)
Students Presentations, Reflections and General Discussion-3

Wednesday 12/1 Last class and celebrating our journey together

Readings:
Dufva, Tomi, and Mikko Dufva. "Grasping the future of the digital society." Futures 107 (2019):
17-28. (BB)

Monday December 6, 2021 Deadline to submit short paper 2 (and long paper for those who
chose to write a long paper)

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 RECOMMENDED REFERENCES:

Betancourt, Michael. The critique of digital capitalism: an analysis of the political economy of
digital culture and technology. punctum books, 2016.

Browne, Simone. Dark matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press, 2015.

Castells, Manuel. Communication power. OUP Oxford, 2013.

Castells, Manuel. The rise of the network society. Vol. 12. John wiley & sons, 2011.

Coleman, Stephen, and Deen Freelon, eds. Handbook of digital politics. Edward Elgar
Publishing, 2015.

Couldry, Nick, and Ulises A. Mejias. The Costs of Connection: How Data Are Colonizing
Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Stanford University Press. 2019

Cover, Rob. Emergent identities: New sexualities, genders and relationships in a digital era.
Routledge, 2018.

Dutton, William H. A Research Agenda for Digital Politics. 2020. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Fuchs, Christian, and Vincent Mosco. Marx in the age of digital capitalism. Brill, 2015.

Fuchs, Christian. Rereading Marx in the age of digital capitalism. Pluto Press, 2019.

Howard, Philip N., and Muzammil M. Hussain. Democracy's fourth wave?: digital media and
the Arab Spring. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Marres, Noortje. Digital sociology: The reinvention of social research. John Wiley & Sons,
2017.

Mills, Kathy A., and Amanda Godley. "Race and racism in digital media: What can critical race
theory contribute to research on techno-cultures?" Routledge, 2017.

Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of oppression. New York University Press, 2018.

O'neil, Cathy. Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens
democracy. Crown, 2016.

Schradie, Jen. The Revolution That Was Not: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives.
Harvard University Press, 2019.

Selwyn, Neil. What is digital sociology?. John Wiley & Sons, 2019.

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Scholz, Trebor, ed. Digital labor: The internet as playground and factory. Routledge, 2012.

Tufekci, Zeynep. Twitter and tear gas. Yale University Press, 2017.

Whitehead, Neil L., and Michael Wesch, eds. Human no more: Digital subjectivities, unhuman
subjects, and the end of anthropology. University Press of Colorado, 2012.

Wills, Jocelyn. Tug of War: Surveillance Capitalism, Military Contracting, and the Rise of the
Security State. Vol. 242. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2017.

Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, Maria Petrova, and Ruben Enikolopov. "Political effects of the internet
and social media." Annual Review of Economics 12 (2020): 415-438.

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