Clashing Information Orders

Course Description

People thought until recently that global information flows would lead to the global spread of liberal values and democracy, as social media platforms allowed citizens to talk and organize freely. Now, we are starting to understand that global information politics doesn't have predetermined winners. States - both democratic and authoritarian contending with each other over who should set the rules for information flows, each trying to impose its own national information order on others. In this class, we will examine where the different information orders of the major powers—the U.S., the E.U. and China—come from, and how each sees the politics of information as bound up with the survival of its own regime. We will examine the different vulnerabilities of democracies and autocracies to global information flows, and how each looks to shore up these vulnerabilities, as well as how each tries to project and spread its own approach to information to other countries, creating a new realm of global power politics.

Code

SA.501.107

Credits

4

Subject

Technology and Innovation