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Algorithms and the End of Politics: How Technology Shapes 21st-Century American Life

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Timcke, Scott
2021
Published by: Bristol University Press
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EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. As the US contends with issues of populism and de-democratization, this timely study considers the impacts of digital technologies on the country’s politics and society.

Timcke provides a Marxist analysis of the rise of digital media, social networks and technology giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. He looks at the impact of these new platforms and technologies on their users who have made them among the most valuable firms in the world.

Offering bold new thinking across data politics and digital and economic sociology, this is a powerful demonstration of how algorithms have come to shape everyday life and political legitimacy in the US and beyond.

Table of Contents

open access

Cover

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

pp. i-iv

Table of contents

pp. v

Acknowledgments

pp. vi-viii

Introduction: The Great Simplification

pp. 1-20

1. Algorithms and the Critical Theory of Technology

pp. 21-42

2. The One-Dimensionality of Data

pp. 43-60

3. Reactionary Tendencies in the Ruling Class

pp. 61-74

4. Platforms of Power

pp. 75-96

5. The Whiteness of Communication Studies

pp. 97-110

6. Misinformation and Ideology

pp. 111-126

7. Testbeds for Authoritarianism

pp. 127-150

Conclusion: The Fatal Abstractions of Capitalist Rule

pp. 151-156

References

pp. 157-186

Index

pp. 187-190

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