Technocracy Meets Populism: The Dominant Technological Imaginary of Silicon Valley

The Mizrahi Pillar of Fire: memory policy-actors’ perceptions of the role of media and memory

“…In addition, memory policy-actors involved in the Biton Committee were fully aware of the power of media, the media's role in creating the marginalization of the Mizrahi community in Israel, and the media's potential to promote the Mizrahi right to memory through a new documentary series that would detail the Mizrahi narrative in Israel. These perceptions of the role of media in mnemonic activities are indeed contextualized using the notions of technological imaginary (Ferrari, 2020) and imagined affordances (Nagy and Neff, 2015). Memory policy-actors 'imagine' media as tools that may shape the consciousness of large segments of society.…”

“…While some scholars criticized the work of the committee as being too ‘friendly’ to the Israeli hegemonic narrative (Tal, 2019), I view the establishment of the Biton Committee and the publication of its report as milestones in the conflicted relationship among Jews of different ethnicities in Israel. This study used the centrality of the Biton Committee’s work in Israel to reflect on memory policy-actors’ perceptions of memory and media, and, as such, it advances the ongoing academic discourse about the human actors behind memory work and the different ways in which media are crucial to their work (Ferrari, 2020; Kubik and Bernhard, 2014).…”

“…Also significant are the perceptions of memory policy-actors toward the media and their role in memory debates. Indeed, memory policy-actors’ ‘technological imaginary’ (Ferrari, 2020) shapes their perceptions of technology and its role ‘in social life and change’ (Ferrari, 2020: 121). Nagy and Neff suggested the term ‘imagined affordances’ to describe how different actors perceive their ‘communication technologies, data, and media that, in effect and practice, shape how they approach them and what actions they think are suggested’ (Nagy and Neff, 2015: 5).…”

Towards a Critical Understanding of Social Networks for the Feminist Movement: Twitter and the Women’s Strike

“…Given the widespread interest in social networks, some authors raise the need for activists and academics to conduct a thorough analysis of their condition as corporate platforms (Ferrari, 2020;Poell and Borra, 2012). This critical perspective argues that they are not conceived with a democratic purpose, neither in their structure nor in their design (Mattoni, 2017).…”

“…In short, activism does not exist in a vacuum but a dynamic and contradictory context. Its technological appropriation involves tensions with the digital platform's infrastructure and the influence of other political and economic actors that have traditionally accumulated greater power (Ferrari, 2020;Youmans and York, 2012).…”