Henry Farrell

New Problems, New Publics? Dewey and New Media

This is a response to the article by Ethan Zuckerman “New Media, New Civics?” published in this issue of Policy & Internet (2014: vol. 6, issue 2). Dissatisfaction with existing governments, a broad shift to “post-representative democracy” and the rise of participatory media are leading toward the visibility of different forms of civic participation. Zuckerman’s article offers a framework to describe participatory civics in terms of theories of change used and demands places on the participant, and examines some of the implications of the rise of participatory civics, including the challenges of deliberation in a diverse and competitive digital public sphere. Henry Farrell responds.

Henry Farrell (2014), “New Problems, New Publics? Dewey and New Media,” Policy & Internet, 6, 2:176-191.

Other Writing:

Essay

Behold the AI shoggoth – with Cosma Shalizi

June 21, 2023 machine learning as social information processing The Economist
Artificial intelligence is a familiar-looking monster The academics argue that large language models have much older cousins in markets and bureaucracies An internet meme keeps on turning up in debates about the large language models (llms) that power services such Openai’s Chatgptand the newest version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine. It’s the “shoggoth”: an amorphous monster ...
Read Article
Essay

Into the Breach: China Miéville’s Other Reality

April 1, 2011 Book review Criticism Fiction
When Granta compiled its decennial list of the best young British writers ten years ago, it did not include China Miéville, thank to his well-known connections to fantasy and science fiction. Yet it paid him the even greater compliment of including him by name in its salon des refusés. Miéville is unabashedly a writer of ...
Read Article
Browse the Archives