New Books in Science, Technology, and Society Elisabetta Ferrari, "Appropriate, Negotiate, Challenge: Activist Imaginaries and the Politics of Digital Technologies" (U California Press, 2024)
Nov 29, 2025
Elisabetta Ferrari, a scholar of communication and digital studies, explores the intersection of activism and digital technology. She delves into how activists in Italy, Hungary, and the U.S. creatively appropriate and negotiate Silicon Valley's tech narrative. Ferrari contrasts freedom and populism in the tech discourse while discussing the varied activist strategies, from the Hungarian Internet Tax Protest to pragmatic organizing by Philly Socialists. She emphasizes the challenges activists face in rejecting mainstream tech paradigms and introduces her future research on mutual aid during the pandemic.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Focus On How Activists Think About Tech
- Ferrari wanted to study not just what activists do with tech but how they think about it politically.
- She emphasizes internal group conversations shape whether technologies fit their political visions.
Silicon Valley Frames Tech As Political
- Silicon Valley's technological imaginary ties freedom to market-based consumption and technosolutionism.
- This imaginary blends technocracy with populist rhetoric to legitimize tech power over state institutions.
What Is A Technological Imaginary?
- Technological imaginaries are practice-based beliefs about technology's role in social change held by groups.
- Ferrari classifies activist responses into appropriation, negotiation, and challenge to map those beliefs.
