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DESCRIPTION:Wrecking the Public Sphere: new-authoritarians and the digital 
 attack on pluralism and truth.\n\nBy Simone Chambers/University of Califor
 nia\, Irvine\n\nThis talk is sponsored by Jarislowsky Chair in Human Natur
 e and Technology and the new Research Group on Human Nature and Science in
  the Digital Age.\n\nAbstract: In this talk\, Simone Chambers argues that 
 the dangers to democracy posed by new information technology have more to 
 do with political bad actors intentionally targeting democracy than with e
 ither the technology itself or the economic forces driving the development
 s and expansion of that technology. New authoritarian forces are the bad a
 ctors to be worried about. By new authoritarian forces we mean groups\, le
 aders\, or parties that seek to promote authoritarian\, autocratic\, or pa
 trimonial regimes within the framework of constitutional democracy. The pr
 oprietors of digital platforms for the most part\, understand that they mu
 st balance the demands of democracy with the goals of profit. Platforms do
  not set out to undermine democracy even if some of the design choices the
 y have made for the sake of profit have indeed undermined democracy. New a
 uthoritarians\, by contrast\, do set out to undermine and weaken democracy
 . It used to be that authoritarian states and would-be authoritarians focu
 sed on civil society and the suppression of social movements. Authoritaria
 nism has gone virtual. Now what is important is information and communicat
 ion– not so much controlling or suppressing that information – (although t
 hat too still happens) but rather undermining the very function of informa
 tion in a democracy. Thus\, the second claim defended in the paper is that
  the internet has opened possibilities for authoritarians and autocrats to
  flourish and gain power within constitutional democracies because they ca
 n effectively wreck the public sphere rather than brutally suppress it.\n
 \nBio: Simone Chambers is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the 
 University of California Irvine. She has written and published on such top
 ics as deliberative democracy\, referendums\, constitutional politics\, th
 e public sphere\, secularism\, rhetoric\, civility\, and the work of Jürge
 n Habermas and John Rawls. She is working on two book projects\, The State
  of Contemporary Democratic Theory a critical survey of new developments i
 n democratic theory and a book of collected essays: Deliberation and the F
 uture of Democracy: A realistic but not realist political theory.\n
DTSTART:20220318T193000Z
DTEND:20220318T210000Z
LOCATION:TBD
SUMMARY:Simone Chambers - Wrecking the Public Sphere: new-authoritarians an
 d the digital attack on pluralism and truth.
URL:/lin-centre/channels/event/simone-chambers-wreckin
 g-public-sphere-new-authoritarians-and-digital-attack-pluralism-and-truth-
 337129
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