Naeem Mohaiemen on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:26:26 +0100 (CET)


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<nettime-ann> One Nation Under Google


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CKUT presents:
One Nation Under Google: Citizenship in the Technological Republic

A public talk by Professor Darin Barney
Canada Research Chair in Technology & Citizenship, McGill University.

Friday, March 14, 2008
Arts W-215, 853 Sherbrooke Street West, McGill University
18h30, free


Does more technology equal more freedom? While the nuts and bolts of
technological progress - computers, cellphones, internet access wired
and wireless - become accessible to more and more people, the promise of
increased civic engagement enabled by these gadgets seems to have eluded
our wired society. There's a lot more to technology, and to democracy,
than wires and buttons, and it has a much deeper affect on our lives
than simply being tools we can use well or badly.

In Dr. Barney's words, "technology is, at once, irretrievably political
and consistently depoliticizing. It is at the centre of this
contradiction that the prospects for citizenship in the midst of
technology lie." Presenting a range of examples from YouTube to the
hidden networks of food production and government bureaucracy, Barney
contests the common notion that technology necessarily leads to enhanced
freedom and improved civic engagement. One Nation Under Google examines
the challenge of citizenship in a technological society, and asks
whether the demands of technology are taking over the practice of
democracy.

Presented in collaboration with CKUT 90.3FM


About Professor Darin Barney
Darin Barney is a professor of Communication Studies at McGill
Universitywhere he holds a Canada Research Chair in Technology and
Citizenship. Working at the crossroads of social sciences and the
humanities, Barney's interdisciplinary research focuses on the
relationship between technology and citizenship.He is the author of The
Network Society (Polity Press 2004), Communication Technology: The
Canadian Democratic Audit (UBC Press 2005), and Prometheus Wired: The
Hope for Democracy in the Age of Network Technology (UBC/University of
Chicago Press/University of New South Wales Press 2000).


About CKUT
CKUT 90.3FM is Montreal's english-language campus/community radio
station based at McGill University. For twenty years CKUT has provided
students and members of the greater Montreal community with alternative
news, music and arts programming, and the opportunity to participate in
democratic grassroots media. Dr. Barney's talk kicks off CKUT's spring
training days on March 15 and 16.


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Darin Barney can be reached for interviews at (514) 398-5683 or at
darin.barney@mcgill.ca

For more information cont
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