TY  - BOOK
AU  - Tauel Harper
PY  - 2011
CY  - New York, United States of America
PB  - Peter Lang Verlag
SN  - 9781453901335
TI  - Democracy in the Age of New Media
T2  - The Politics of the Spectacle
DO  - 10.3726/978-1-4539-0133-5
UR  - https://www.peterlang.com/document/1050959
N2  - In the age of the spectacle, democracy has never looked so bleak. Our world, saturated with media and marketing, endlessly confronts us with spectacles vying for our attention: from Apple and 9/11 to Facebook and the global financial crisis. Democratic politics, by comparison, remain far from engaging. A society obsessed with spectacles results in a complete misfiring of the democratic system.  This book uses critical democratic theory to outline the effects of consumer culture on citizenship. It highlights the importance that public space plays in creating the critical culture necessary for a healthy democracy, and outlines how contemporary ‘public’ spaces – shopping centres, the Internet, social networking sites and suburban communities – contribute to this culture. Terrorism, ecological destruction and the financial crisis are also outlined as symptoms of the politics of the spectacle. The book concludes with some basic principles and novel suggestions which could be employed to avoid the pitfalls inherent in our spectacular existence.
KW  - Politics, Media, Citizenship, Technology, Public Space Democracy, New Media, Digital Media, Hannah Arendt, Deliberative Democracy, Agonistic Democracy, Critical Theory, Jurgen Habermas
LA  - English
ER  -