Last month NYU’s New Everyday project published a collection of articles on the new politics, discussing Anonymous, WikiLeaks, the Arab Spring and the potential for ‘net freedom’ according to Hillary Clinton. I have an article included, which builds on some of the thinking I’ve been doing, in part on this blog, about Wikileaks and media power.
The New Everyday is meant to be something between a blog and a journal, a space for what editor Nick Mirzoeff calls ‘slow thinking.’ I think that this cluster provides good evidence of this space. The pieces work with each other, revealing the nuances in the shifting terrain of power and politics over the past few months. Biella Coleman describes how Anonymous has moved from involving hackers ‘for the lulz’ towards a new form of collective action. I work through a theorization of media power and WikiLeaks, while Finn Brunton speculates that the future of online dropboxes will be more distributed, and Chris Anderson investigates the personality cult of Julian Assange. Looking more broadly, Jack Bratish untangles the relationships between ‘state-friended’ social media and the organization and framing of Egyptian opposition movements. Finally, Jillian C York identifies the paradoxical relationship between the US State Department’s policies of ‘Net Freedom’ and its coordinated corporate/governmental response to WikiLeaks.
It’s a pleasure to contribute to a collection that is as timely, as thoughtful and as relevant as this one. Well done, Biella and all!