Communication Against Domination: Ideas of Justice from the Printing Press to Algorithmic Media

This book tackles the philosophical challenge of bridging the gap between empirical research into communication and information technology, and normative questions of justice and how we ought to communicate with each other. It brings the question of what justice demands of communication to the center of social science research.

Max Hänska undertakes expansive philosophical analysis to locate the proper place of normativity in social science research, a looming subject in light of the sweeping roles of information technologies in our social world today. The book’s first section examines metatheoretical issues to provide a framework for normative analysis, while the second applies this framework to three technological epochs: broadcast communication, the Internet and networked communications, and the increasing integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies into our communication systems. Hänska goes beyond the prevailing frameworks in the field by exploring how we answer normative questions and how our answer can change depending on our social context and the affordances of prevailing communications technologies.

This book provides an essential guide for scholars as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students of research and theory in communication, philosophy, political science, and the social sciences.

Max Hänska is an Associate Fellow at the Free University of Berlin and has previously held posts at De Montfort University, the University of Gothenburg, and the London School of Economics, where he also earned a PhD. His research interests center on social media and collective action, as well as normative questions in the communications field.