SPI Session #3: Online Together

October 21, 2021 1:00 pm — October 21, 2021 2:30 pm

SPI Session #3: Online Together

A global pandemic, a national election, entire regions devastated by one natural disaster after another: new technologies have made it possible for us to track, grasp, and witness these large-scale phenomena in real time and in the palms of our hands. Tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter have encouraged a sense of community and mobilized action, even as they have facilitated the spread of misinformation and the formation of fissures in public life. How do we, as individuals and as communities, navigate technologies of information and misinformation? How much power do tech companies have in shaping public conversation, and how much power should they have? Join the Los Angeles Review of Books and the Thomas Mann House for a conversation about these issues and more with writers and scholars Christoph Bieber (University of Duisburg-Essen), Safiya Noble (Algorithms of Oppression), and Anna Wiener (The New Yorker, Uncanny Valley), moderated by LARB Radio Hour hosts, on Thursday, October 21 at 1pm/4pm (PT/ET).


 





 


 

Christoph Bieber, born 1970 in Laubach/Hesse is Professor of Political Science at the NRWSchool of Governance, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. The position is funded by the Johann-Wilhelm-Welker-Stiftung. His main area of research is ethics in political management and society. Christoph Bieber has published widely on the effects of online communication for political actors, a special focus is addressing the effects of digitalization for the US political system. Since 2018 he is delegated to the Center for Advanced Internet Studies in Bochum. On Twitter he is known as @drbieber.


 

Safiya U. Noble is an Associate Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as the Co-Founder and Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She holds affiliations in the School of Education & Information Studies, and is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford where she is a Commissioner on the Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance (OxCAIGG). Dr. Noble is a board member of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, serving those vulnerable to online harassment. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, entitledAlgorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), which has been widely-reviewed in scholarly and popular publications.





 

Medaya Ocher is an Editor-at-Large at the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she previously served as the Managing Editor. She is also the co-host and producer of the LARB Radio Hour. She has worked in publishing for over 10 years, at publications like W & WWD, Teen Vogue, International Herald Tribune, Boom: A Magazine of California. She earned her BA in English from Columbia University and her Master’s in English as part of the PhD program in English Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she also taught courses on literature, contemporary American fiction, and the essay form. 

 

Anna Wiener is an author and writer. She writes about tech culture for The New Yorker and is the author of Uncanny Valley (MCD/FSG, January 2020), a book about her time working for Silicon Valley startups. Wiener grew up in Brooklyn, and currently lives in San Francisco. 

 

Kate Wolf is a writer based in Los Angeles. She is one of the founding editors of the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she’s currently editor at large and cohost and producer of its weekly podcast. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Frieze, Art in America, and many other publications.

 



*           *           *

 



This event is part of LARB’s Semipublic Intellectual Sessions, a tenth anniversary celebration and fundraiser. Donate what you can to register for this event or make a contribution of $75+ to receive a full series pass, which includes automatic registration to all five events, a copy of the Semipublic Intellectual issue of the LARB Quarterly Journal, and a limited edition Semipublic Intellectual tote.

 

Download a full program guide here.

 



 

 

 

Online Together is co-sponsored by Columbia University Press and the Thomas Mann House, a residency center and space for transatlantic debate in Los Angeles, California | vatmh.org