[Air-L] Social media and Political Horizons: Israel/Palestine, the Middle East and Beyond

[Adi Kuntsman]

Social
media and Political Horizons: Israel/Palestine, the Middle East and Beyond
14 June 2013  1-5pm  Venue TBC
Organised by: Adi Kuntsman, The University of Manchester
and Rebecca L. Stein, Duke University
At the core of this workshop is a rethinking of the
so-called ‘digital democracy’ proposition – that is, an argument about the ways
that digital technologies, chiefly social media, can advance pro-democracy
politics.  In the last few years, this
popular proposition has come under increasing criticism from scholars who have
reminded us of the flexible nature of digital technologies, including the ways
they have been employed by dictators and police states as public relations
platforms, tools for tracking and monitoring political dissidents, and means of
counter-insurgency more generally. What has emerged in the scholarly literature
is something of a dichotomy – digital democracy posited against digital
dictatorship.  The event takes a more
complex approach to the politics of digital technology, through a discussion of
the ways that social media can be employed on both sides of this political
divide.  More specifically, the
discussion will approach social media both as tools of warfare, military
occupation, and authoritarian rule, and as means to subvert and resist
such political regimes. Contra most of the literature on digital democracy and
digital dictatorship alike, our discussion will focus on questions of everyday
culture and language as they emerge where politics and social media meet.

Programme
9.30 -10.00 Registration
 
10.00-12.00 Roundtable discussion
Simon Faulkner, Manchester Metropolitan University
Adi Kuntsman, The University of Manchester and Rebecca L.
Stein, Duke U  
Miriyam Aouragh, Oxford University
Yasmin Ibrahim, Queen Mary
Farida Vis, Sheffield University
 
12.00-1.00 Lunch
 
1.00-2.30  Public
lecture
Theresa Senft, NYU
‘My Body Belongs to Me? On Global Spheres, Networked Nudity
and Feminist Activism’
 
 
Attendance is free but
registration is required. Please email naveeda.raoufi at student.manchester.ac.uk   to register 
Registration deadline:
1 June 2013
 
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Dr Adi Kuntsman
https://sites.google.com/site/adikuntsman/