Democracy Bytes

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Description

This book is about new media, young people, the crisis of democracy and political renewal. It addresses a mixture of traditional and new questions: What is the political and political legitimacy? How do we understand politics in a 'network age'? Can we talk sensibly about the concept of a generation and generational change?

Does democracy have a future? This book offers an optimistic assessment of how digital media supports new and distinctive forms of politics. Four case studies are offered: one considers performance art and protest in Russia, another investigates new media campaigns to defend the rights to freedom of speech and copyright in America, another inquires into indigenous art and interactive cartoons as politics in outback Australia and the last explores new forms of student action in schools and in the modern university.

Review: 'In Democracy Bytes, Judith Bessant raises profound questions about the public realm, generations, neoliberal power, and the Internet. With fascinating case studies ranging from Russia's Pussy Riot, to universities, to US debates about piracy laws, to Australian indigenous art and activism, she explores how young online activists participate in struggles against power-holders, and begin to change the meaning of politics.

This is a book for everyone who is interested in democracy in a changing world'. - Raewyn Connell, University of Sydney, Australia 'With great analytic skill, vivid examples, and a very engaging and accessible style, Judith Bessant takes on the key questions about democracy and the transformation of politics.

She illuminates the complex relationships between digital media and young people, probing change and continuity across generations. Engaging in a critical and elegant manner with a range of theoretical trajectories, she develops her own framework that she applies to several compelling case studies. The result is a outstanding book that cannot be bypassed by anyone concerned about these questions'. - Peter Dalhgren, Lund University, Sweden 'Judith Bessant has provided an insightful analysis of what political struggle, if not politics itself, might look like for young people in the digital age.

Youth inhabit a digital space that is both destructive and emancipatory, but we often only hear one side of this narrative. Not so with this beautifully written carefully crafted combination of theory and field work. A wonderful book that takes the merging of culture, politics, and subjectivity seriously and should be read by everyone concerned about a world that is been turned upside down by the digital revolution'. - Henry Giroux, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada