The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media

Front Cover
Series
The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media
Copyright information
Table of contents
Acknowledgments
Series Editors’ Preface
Introduction
1 Defining ‘the Public’
What/who is ‘the public’?
The good, the bad, and the redeemable ‘public’
The disappearance of ‘the public’
How to rethink ‘the public’ in order to revive it
Becoming citizens
Practising citizenship
(Re)making public space(s)
2 The History of Platforms
The rise of the (digital) platform
A brief history of social media platforms
Platform and agency
The ideology of social media
The reality of online participation
3 Between Publics and Platforms
Platforms and their publics
Caught between publics and platforms
Publishers as intermediaries
The divided soul of the platform
4 Sociology and its Platforms
Reasons for caution
Rethinking sociological practice for platforms
Decentring outputs
Decentring expertise
Decentring knowledge
What does this mean for public sociology?
5 The Past, Present and Future of Public Sociology
The past of public sociology
The present of public sociology
Traditional public sociology
Print media
Books
Organic public sociology
The future of public sociology
6 Making Sociology Public
Social media in higher education
The problems of platforms
The scholastic disposition
Forgetfulness of technics
Building platforms for public sociology
7 Making Platforms Public
The platform university
The epistemic chaos of platform capitalism
The contestation of research
Public sociology and platform governance
8 Assembling Public Sociology
Sociology in public
What is public sociology?
What is public about public sociology?
Who and what is its ‘public’?
What is public sociology’s relationship to its ‘public’?
Can professional sociology (ever) be ‘public’?
The digital undercommons
Public ‘inter-lectuals’
Notes
References
Index
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