Infrastructures of empire: towards a critical geopolitics of media and information studies

Abstract

The Arab Uprisings of 2011 can be seen as a turning point for media and information studies scholars, many of whom newly discovered the region as a site for theories of digital media and social transformation. This work has argued that digital media technologies fuel or transform political change through new networked publics, new forms of connective action cultivating liberal democratic values. These works have, surprisingly, little to say about the United States and other Western colonial powers’ legacy of occupation, ongoing violence and strategic interests in the region. It is as if the Arab Spring was a vindication for the universal appeal of Western liberal democracy delivered through the gift of the Internet, social media as manifestation of the ‘technologies of freedom’ long promised by Cold War. We propose an alternate trajectory in terms of reorienting discussions of media and information infrastructures as embedded within the resurgence of idealized liberal democratic norms in the wake of the end of the Cold War. We look at the demise of the media and empire debates and ‘the rise of the BRICS’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as modes of intra-imperial competition that complicate earlier Eurocentric narratives media and empire. We then outline the individual contributions for the special collection of essays.

Digital media infrastructures: pipes, platforms, and politics

“…This phase of market-oriented growth was defined by the thoroughgoing financialization of every economic and cultural sector across the world, and led to the emergence of what Appadurai (1990) famously called a disjunctive mediascape. While grappling with the complex and still unfolding effects of these transitions on the development of media infrastructures is beyond the scope of this article, we raise these issues to underscore the importance of situating the geopolitical power of platforms in relation to distinct cultures of capitalism and formations of empire (Bratton, 2016;Chakravartty and Aouragh, 2016;Rossiter, 2017;Sparks and Roach, 1990).…”

The dynamics and potentials of big data for audience research

“…There are equally important challenges to be faced when it comes to the geography of big data. We should not be inattentive to the complex interplay of imperial infrastructures, multi-national corporations and putatively sovereign states that determines the geopolitics of information (see Aouragh and Chakravartty, 2016). The contours of the digital divide may have changed a good deal over the past decade but the world is not flat when it comes to Internet access.…”

Palestinian State Maps and Imperial Technologies of Staying Put

“…The study of stasis enables an understanding of the role of geographic context in shaping science and technology, and it is thus central to understandings of modern knowledge far beyond the West Bank and Gaza Strip and far beyond cartography. It is particularly relevant in the broader context of the enforced mobilities that are an integral part of global capitalism and in the ongoing relationships between media, knowledge, and empire (Aouragh and Chakravartty 2016). By seeing the act of "staying put" as the goal of a relational process of interacting with the landscape, rather than an obvious fact, it is possible to outline specific ways that imperial forms of control continue to limit alternative knowledges and more imaginative maps.…”

“…Instead, it is emblematic of digi tal practices more broadly. For despite broad rhetoric about their emancipatory potential, digital and social media are by no means exempt from systemic power and injustice, including racism and orientalism (Aouragh 2015a(Aouragh , 2015bAouragh and Chakravartty 2016). To understand why requires delving into the technical details of cartography, to pinpoint how empirical practices are embedded within landscapes of power.…”