Digital Politics

Sorry for the poor sound quality on the recording here – we’ve figured out the technical causes and should be back to normal next week!

You should be able to find a video you can watch at http://www.antiuniversity.org/Culture-Power-Politics-course-2019

As the world moves online, politics does too. Despite anxieties about the dangers and limitations of ‘clicktivism’,  online organising has become an indispensable tool for actors on every part of the political spectrum: from independent activists to major political parties. Hacking, open-source development, mobile telephony, piracy and cryptography are indispensable tools for activists all over the world, and for individuals and communities facing power-imbalances of any kind.  What are the implications for democracy and citizenship in the 21st century, and what should we be doing about it? 

We discuss  all this with Alex Worrad-Andrews, software-engineer and founder member of Common Knowledge (a workers cooperative dedicated to building digital infrastructure for grassroots non-representational politics), Paolo Gerbaudo, author of The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy and Amit S. Rai, author of Jugaad Time: Ecologies of Everyday Hacking in India.