Abstract

The lecture will address critical issues on the intersection between new media technology and the public spheres with particular reference to the recent development of social media and cyberspace. While critically reflecting theoretical debates on the shift of mediated social movements to the age of Web 2.0, the lecture will focus on two recent cases in the US and South Korea: a role of the Internet forum in mobilizing the massive anti-government protests in Seoul in early 2008 and the avid employment of the social-networking strategy in the 2008 US Presidential Election campaigns. In doing so, Prof. Kang will assess the distinct – yet controversial – dynamics of civic participation in virtual communities, which he characterizes as the emergence of digital constellations.

About the lecturer

Jae Kang is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology and Media at the New School in New York. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, England, and was Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Institut fuer Sozialforschung at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. He has a book in progress, Walter Benjamin and the Media and has published articles on the social theories of Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas. His research interests include technology and media art; new media and urban spaces; and sociology of football. He is currently exploring Kracuaer’s theory of political communication while editing his writings on media and propaganda. Expanding the theoretical motives of critical theory, Jae is also investigating the impact of the new media on political communication and social movements in the US and South Korea.