Showing papers in "Theory, Culture & Society in 2020"
TL;DR: In this paper, the main theoretical lines of the notion of value are drawn, in order to avoid some flaws in the quantitative surveys on values as well as in some qualitative studies of value judgements.
Abstract: This paper is intended to draw the main theoretical lines of the notion of value, in order to avoid some flaws in the quantitative surveys on values as well as in some qualitative studies of value judgements. Through a number of redefinitions based on a pragmatic approach, inspired not only by Dewey's concept of 'valuation' but also by the new French pragmatic sociology and by the pragmatist trend in linguistics, it tries to specify the conditions under which sociology can address the notion of 'value' while avoiding their reduction to scholarly supports for morals or normative guides for action and evaluation. Meanwhile, it tries to construct a unified concept of value that would work for all the concerned disciplines: not only sociology but also economics, psychology, anthropology, and even philosophy.
40 citations
TL;DR: In The Media and Modernity, Thompson develops an interactional theory of communication media that distinguishes between three basic types of interaction: face-to-face interaction, mediated interactivity.
Abstract: In The Media and Modernity, Thompson develops an interactional theory of communication media that distinguishes between three basic types of interaction: face-to-face interaction, mediated interact...
38 citations
TL;DR: Alongside the robots, rockets, kitchen appliances, and other technical wonders displayed at the great expositions and world's fairs of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, visitors frequently fo...
Abstract: Alongside the robots, rockets, kitchen appliances, and other technical wonders displayed at the great expositions and world’s fairs of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, visitors frequently fo...
32 citations
TL;DR: The notion of incommensurability is mobilised to address explainability as a communicational and representational issue, which challenges phenomenological and existential modes of comparison between human and algorithmic ‘thinking’ operations.
Abstract: This article addresses computational procedures that are no longer constrained by human modes of representation and considers how these procedures could be philosophically understood in terms of ‘a...
28 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe how to expect the unexpected and to celebrate the future of the future in public managerial technologies of change (e.g., change management technologies) of change.
Abstract: Contemporary discourses of management are full of encouragements to ‘expect the unexpected’ and to celebrate ‘the future of the future’. Many new public managerial technologies of change – such as ...
27 citations
TL;DR: The authors explores histories of common salt, sodium chloride, using concepts and methods from media theory, and contributes to research on media and environment and the general'material turn' take on material turn.
Abstract: This essay explores histories of common salt, sodium chloride, using concepts and methods from media theory. It contributes to research on media and environment and the general ‘material turn’ take...
26 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the political dimension of algorithmic face recognition through the prism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's notion of faciality, and they argue that face recognition is a political problem.
Abstract: This article explores the political dimension of algorithmic face recognition through the prism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s notion of faciality. It argues that algorithmic face recogniti...
23 citations
TL;DR: The death of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked an unprecedented global wave of protests that appeared to mark a turning point in the battle against racial injustice as discussed by the authors. But protests against racism are...
Abstract: The death of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked an unprecedented global wave of protests that appeared to mark a turning point in the battle against racial injustice. But protests against racism are ...
21 citations
TL;DR: Wynter's theory of the human departed from Western bio-centric and teleological accounts of human beings as discussed by the authors. But how does this departure from the traditional view of human persons?
Abstract: How does Sylvia Wynter’s theory of the human depart from Western bio-centric and teleological accounts of the human? To grapple with this question I clarify five key concepts in her theory: the Thi...
18 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the potential role of the commons in the future transformation of digital capitalism by comparing it to the role of commons in transition to capitalism, and propose a model for the transition from the commons to the digital economy.
Abstract: This article investigates the potential role of the commons in the future transformation of digital capitalism by comparing it to the role of the commons in the transition to capitalism. In medieva...
17 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the COVID-19 crisis has combined with the vulnerabilities of global capitalism to break down social routines, and globalization is at its most disjunctive phase in human history.
Abstract: Globalization is now at its most disjunctive phase in human history. The planetary COVID-19 crisis has combined with the vulnerabilities of global capitalism to break down social routines. Yet, the...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the politics behind algorithmic ordering in social media, focusing on the advertising logic behind them, and explore a practice called rhythmedia, the way media companies render people, objects and their relations as rhythms and reorder them for economic purposes.
Abstract: This paper examines the politics behind algorithmic ordering in social media, focusing on the advertising logic behind them. This is explored through a practice I call rhythmedia – the way media companies render people, objects and their relations as rhythms and (re)order them for economic purposes. As a case study I examine the way the Facebook Immune System algorithm orchestrates people’s mediated experience towards a desired rhythm (sociality) while filtering out problematic rhythms (spam). This anti-spam algorithm shows that it is important for Facebook to understand people as rhythms and assemble a dynamic database from their mediated experiences, to convince advertisers that they know when and where people do things. People’s rhythms become a product that advertisers pay and bid for through Ad Auction to intervene in specific moments and shape people’s experience. Thus, the company can shape, manage, and filter specific rhythms to order sociality that brings more value.
TL;DR: The current epoch is often described by cultural theorists as facing an ontological turn with regard to the question of nature as discussed by the authors, where "Mother Nature" makes space for "Gaia", a nature...
Abstract: The current epoch is often described by cultural theorists as facing an ontological turn with regard to the question of nature. In the Anthropocene, ‘Mother Nature’ makes space for ‘Gaia’, a nature...
Abstract: This essay historicizes cultural and psychic economies in the postwar United States under the sign of material scarcity. It situates the proliferation of plastic flowers in domestic space within a ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors expand Michel Foucault's genealogy of liberalism and neoliberalism by analyzing the concept of competition, and address four key liberal conceptions of competition in turn.
Abstract: This article expands Michel Foucault's genealogy of liberalism and neoliberalism by analysing the concept of competition. It addresses four key liberal conceptions of competition in turn: the idea ...
TL;DR: The consequences of ubiquitous online reputation calculation to lead not to more precise expressions of reputation capital but, rather, to greater reputational instability have been explored in this article, where the authors consider the consequences of the tendency for ubiquitous reputation calculation for online reputation.
Abstract: What are the consequences of the tendency for ubiquitous online reputation calculation to lead not to more precise expressions of reputation capital but, rather, to greater reputational instability...
TL;DR: During India's Emergency, anti-state poetry of a decidedly amateurish quality proliferated as discussed by the authors, which did little to bring about the restoration of democracy, nor could it have reasonabl...
Abstract: During India’s Emergency, anti-state poetry of a decidedly amateurish quality proliferated. Anti-Emergency poetry did little to bring about the restoration of democracy, nor could it have reasonabl...
TL;DR: This article argued that pastoralism continues to operate in the algorithmic register of governmentality and the nature of secularization by arguing that it can be traced back to the genealogy of governmental history.
Abstract: This paper contributes to inquiries into the genealogy of governmentality and the nature of secularization by arguing that pastoralism continues to operate in the algorithmic register. Drawing on A...
TL;DR: The authors argues that our entering the Anthropocenic climate change is a watershed moment and that essential political aspects of the climatic situation remain unexplored, and argues that "our entering the anthropocen...
Abstract: As the gravity of anthropogenic climate change is dawning on humanity, essential political aspects of the climatic situation remain unexplored. This article argues that our entering the Anthropocen...
TL;DR: The authors argue that the lived experience we, the human species, are going through in 2020 is no longer an epoch of changes but a change of epoch, arguing that the human experience we are living through in this century is not an epoch, but a transition of epoch.
Abstract: I argue that the lived experience we, the human species, are going through in 2020 is no longer an epoch of changes but a change of epoch. Post-pandemic (and any other areas of experience you could...
TL;DR: In this regard, the concept of "diplomacy" as discussed by the authors has been proposed as a way of rethinking the difference between difference and contradiction, between the affirmative and the negative, the compositional and the oppositional.
Abstract: Between the affirmative and the negative, the compositional and the oppositional, we need to rethink the difference between difference and contradiction. In this regard, the concept of ‘diplomacy’,...
TL;DR: These are the authentication devices that are read, assessed, and trusted as paper things are circulated, and they are what securely connects paper to infrastructures of mobility.
Abstract: Authentication devices transform cheap paper into legitimate documents. They are the sensory, informational, and computational features that make up valuable papers like banknotes and passports, an...
TL;DR: Since the publication of Nikolas Rose's "The Politics of Life Itself" (2001), there has been vivid discussion about how biopolitical governance has changed over the last decades.
Abstract: Since the publication of Nikolas Rose’s ‘The Politics of Life Itself’ (2001) there has been vivid discussion about how biopolitical governance has changed over the last decades. This article uses w...
TL;DR: The 30th anniversary of the Theory, Culture & Society special issue on Global Culture was celebrated in this article, and Robertson reflected on his long involvement as one of the major theoris...
Abstract: In this interview to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Theory, Culture & Society special issue on Global Culture, Roland Robertson reflects on his long involvement as one of the major theoris...
TL;DR: Low-carbon innovation is usually depicted as an exemplar of pursuit of the common good, in both mainstream policy discussion and the emerging orthodoxy of transition studies as mentioned in this paper. Yet it may emerge as a...
Abstract: Low-carbon innovation is usually depicted as an exemplar of pursuit of the common good, in both mainstream policy discussion and the emerging orthodoxy of transition studies. Yet it may emerge as a...
TL;DR: In this paper, the centrality and importance of the state from a governmentality perspective is discussed, using Giorgio A. Calabrese's work on governmentality and state theory.
Abstract: This article contributes to governmentality studies and state theory by discussing how to understand the centrality and importance of the state from a governmentality perspective. It uses Giorgio A...
TL;DR: The concept of hyperabject is a synthesis of Timothy Morton's concept of hy... as discussed by the authors, coined by Danish poet Theis Orntoftoft, and is a proper theoretical concept.
Abstract: The article develops the notion of the ‘hyperabject’ – coined by Danish poet Theis Orntoft – into a proper theoretical concept. The term hyperabject is a synthesis of Timothy Morton's concept of hy...
TL;DR: The authors reflect on the main themes of Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, where are we 30 years later? They sidestep the fine print of the 1990 conversations and...
Abstract: Here I reflect on the main themes of Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. On these themes, where are we 30 years later? I sidestep the fine print of the 1990 conversations and ...
TL;DR: It is insisted that algorithmic thought, or abstract computation, cannot be separated from its technological implementation, and ‘Radical’ media archaeology is proposed as a method for such an analysis, and the neologism of techno lógos to describe some aspects of algorithmic reason which only unfold in the moment of its techno-processual coming-into-being.
Abstract: Against a remarkable hardware oblivion in discussions of algorithmic intelligence, this article insists that algorithmic thought, or abstract computation, cannot be separated from its technological...
TL;DR: A special section on Global Culture Revisited which commemorates the 30th anniversary of the publication of the 1990 Global Culture special issue is presented in this paper, where the authors present a collection of articles from the 1990 special issue.
Abstract: This paper serves as an introduction to the special section on Global Culture Revisited which commemorates the 30th anniversary of the publication of the 1990 Global Culture special issue. It exami...