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:

Chapter in an Edited Volume

“The Political Economy of the Internet and E-Commerce,” in Political Economy and the Changing Global Order (third edition) – eds. Richard Stubbs and Geoffrey R.D. Underhill

September 1, 2005 eds. Richard Stubbs and Geoffrey R.D. Underhill Oxford: 2005
How have new information technologies affected international political economy? In the heady years of the dot com bubble, many academics and commentators predicted that the Internet and e-commerce would empower private actors and weaken states. Indeed, some libertarians hoped that the Internet would lead to a collapse in state authority. However, these predictions have not ...
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Essay

Silicon Valley’s Reading List Reveals Its Political Ambitions

February 21, 2025 Bloomberg featured pin
In 2008, Paul Graham mused about the cultural differences between great US cities. Three years earlier, Graham had co-founded Y Combinator, a “startup accelerator” that would come to epitomize Silicon Valley — and would move there in 2009. But at the time Graham was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which, as he saw it, sent a different message ...
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