Title: "Weapons of the Geek: Hackers and Political Autonomy"

Abstract: While often misrepresented in popular culture as the practice of a deviant subculture, hacking has long contained small elements of protest, policy intervention, and political organization. In the past five years, these narrow engagements have swelled; politically-motivated hacking has dramatically proliferated. This paper considers the following questions: Why and how have hackers managed to preserve demographically unusual pockets of political autonomy, even as they find it easier to secure economically and socially rewarding positions? What historical, cultural, and sociological conditions have facilitated their passage into the political arena, especially in such large numbers?

About the Speaker: Gabriella (Biella) Coleman holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she researches, writes, and teaches on computer hackers and digital activism. Her first book on Free Software, Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking has been published with Princeton University Press. Her new book, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, published by Verso, has been named to Kirkus Reviews’Best Books of 2014.

Penn School of Arts and Sciences Program on Democracy, Citizenship and Constitutionalism and the Annenberg School for Communication presents the Digital Media and the Future(s) of Democracy Lecture Series.

The long-term impacts of disruptive new technologies are always difficult to predict. This is particularly true for the emergence, spread and evolution of digital media over the last several decades. Do web-based, mobile, and social media provide unprecedented opportunities to democratize the production of news and public information, or do they only weaken the authority and legitimacy of professional journalists? Do they improve the efficiency and accountability of governments and businesses, or do they provide new tools for government and corporate surveillance? Do they enable democratic movements against repressive regimes, or do they provide these regimes greater means of repression? Do they facilitate and even redefine the nature of civic and political engagement, or do they divert attention from public life and issues? Do they contribute to new forms of citizenship and identity that cross national and social boundaries, or do they harden national, ethnic, religious and social divides? Do they serve as public spaces for deliberation and rational discourse, or do they amplify extreme voices that contribute to the fracturing of societies along ideological lines?

As it devotes its 2015-16 year to the theme, “Digital Media and the Future(s) of Democracy,” Penn DCC seeks to assess the complex impact of the radically evolving media landscape on democratic politics, as well as on the closely related issues of citizenship and constitutional government, both in the United States and around the globe. In our faculty workshops and annual conference, we will enlist the help of an interdisciplinary group of scholars to shed light on these issues, in the hope of providing a clearer vision of future promise and peril.