TY - CHAP
T1 - 'The Public Spectre'
T2 - A Critical Concept of Public Engagement with Technology
AU - Jepsen, Kim Sune Karrasch
AU - Bertilsson, Margareta
AU - Delgado, Ana
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - This paper is concerned with how forms of publics come into being in situations of technological innovation and change. The paper attends to sudden social formations which arise as responses to what is perceived of as threatening socio-technical inventions into the routine of everyday social life. We revisit the Dewey-Lippmann debate, and we look at spontaneous citizens’ reactions towards emerging technologies such as Google Street View as well as we discuss some institutionally organized events of public engagement with science. As we explore the formation of publics inside and outside various institutional contexts, we suggest a concept of mobilizing unexpected agencies that we call the public spectre. Crowds emerge spontaneously, and assume the figure of a ‘public spectre’ that resides in the unforeseen. When repeated as collective events, crowds stabilize and assume the figure of publics. The notion of the public as a spectre draws attention to the plurality of forms in terms of which publics emerge and take form.
AB - This paper is concerned with how forms of publics come into being in situations of technological innovation and change. The paper attends to sudden social formations which arise as responses to what is perceived of as threatening socio-technical inventions into the routine of everyday social life. We revisit the Dewey-Lippmann debate, and we look at spontaneous citizens’ reactions towards emerging technologies such as Google Street View as well as we discuss some institutionally organized events of public engagement with science. As we explore the formation of publics inside and outside various institutional contexts, we suggest a concept of mobilizing unexpected agencies that we call the public spectre. Crowds emerge spontaneously, and assume the figure of a ‘public spectre’ that resides in the unforeseen. When repeated as collective events, crowds stabilize and assume the figure of publics. The notion of the public as a spectre draws attention to the plurality of forms in terms of which publics emerge and take form.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Public spectre
KW - Social formations
KW - – Governance of science and technology
KW - Radical democracy
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-32414-2_2
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-32414-2_2
M3 - Book chapter
VL - 17
T3 - The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology
SP - 17
EP - 30
BT - Technoscience and Citizenship
A2 - Delgado, Ana
PB - Springer
CY - Switzerland
ER -