CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Toni, Zachary |
|---|---|
| Title | Surveillance Capitalism and Democracy: Intersections of Epistemic Injustice |
| Summary | The pervasiveness of Big Data has become inescapable and in the 21st century it has become the magnum opus of surveillance and surveillance capitalism. With the omnipresence of datafication and dataveillance today, algorithms have become a new form of informational power facilitating the shift from enclosed structures to entangled systems of knowledge, power, and authority. Accordingly, how does the capitalist surveillant-assemblage affect democracy in the context of changing identities and digitized class relations? The objective of this paper is to analyze how sweeping engagement with search engines and social media alters individual and group identities and agency; and to uncover how these alterations establish new forms of epistemic injustice, particularly in relation to democracy. For liberal democracy to flourish there must be a network of intermediary institutions which enable individuals to get information and inform their judgement. However, the current operational design of social media databases deteriorates and fragments such institutions, making it more difficult to understand both ourselves, others, and a common world. Overall, the status quo of algorithmic social profiling by social media poses a serious threat to citizens' ability to freely interpret political realities and their ability to understand a reasonably common political world. |
| Supervisor | Miklosi, Zoltan |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/toni_zachary.pdf |
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