Digital Justice

Overview

This unit confronts students with the stark injustices in the contemporary digital world as manifested in phenomena such as the digital divide and the democratic deficit. It provides an overview of the history of the digital world and engages many of the current challenges posed by algorithmic violence, surveillance capitalism, and digital colonialism. While deeply rooted in the present and looking toward the future, the unit also takes students back a few decades the milieux and ideologies that led to the establishment of cyberspace and, later, to the ‘Internet of things’.

Learning outcomes

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Assessment

Content

• Olivetti and the first transistor electronic calculator
• The military-industrial-research complex and the development of computing technology
• The Bay countercultural movement and then the ‘Californian ideology’
• The PC
• The discovery and occupation of cyberspace
• The net
• Technological solutionism
• The intelligence corporation
• Surveillance capitalism
• Algorithmic violence
• Digital colonialism
• Digital justice