Langdon Winner, a celebrated political theorist and professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, kicked off the Society for the Studies of New and Emerging Technologies (S.NET) annual conference with a keynote on technology and democracy. Winner’s talk, The Majesty of the Technosphere and the Twilight of Democracy, discussed the enduring promise of new technology for American democracy and the messy reality that technology creates.
As the Internet reshapes public participation, Winner asks “Who are we on the Internet, especially as we imagine ourselves as political beings?” He sees a number of problems affecting modern political action online and on social media, including the clustering of individuals into like-minded groups, the toxic incivility of trolls and harassers, and the rapid spread of misinformation and propaganda.
Winner noted the possibility of government regulation of online political forums, as well as self regulation by technology giants like Google and Facebook. For example, Facebook says its attempting to build standard practices and soft law approaches around big data and political communication. Ultimately, Winner hopes to see a resurgence of in-person political participation, “I would hope face-to-face public gatherings will come back in style.”
This year’s S.NET conference is supported in part by ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and is lead by S.NET President and ASU Researcher Michael Bennett and Center Faculty Fellow and Associate Dean for International Engagement Diana Bowman.