Policy Press

Algorithms and the End of Politics

How Technology Shapes 21st-Century American Life

By Scott Timcke

Published

Feb 15, 2021

Page count

198 pages

ISBN

978-1529215311

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Feb 15, 2021

Page count

198 pages

ISBN

978-1529215335

Dimensions

Imprint

Bristol University Press
Algorithms and the End of Politics
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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.

Scott Timcke studies the politics of race, class, and social inequality as they are mediated by digital infrastructures.

Introduction: The Great Simplification

Algorithms and The Critical Theory of Technology

The One Dimensionality of Data

Reactionary Tendencies in the Ruling Class

Platforms of Power

The Whiteness of Communication Studies

Misinformation and Ideology

Testbeds for Authoritarianism

Conclusion: The Fatal Abstractions of Capitalist Rule