Communication and control

Abstract

The information age has been marked by complex advancements in the technologies of social management. Many of these advancements have been discussed in recent political theory. However, a thorough engagement with their mechanism and historical resonance remains necessary in order to substantiate such discussion. In this dissertation, I situate and analyze the increasingly informatic, molecular, and distributed technologies of power characteristic of "control societies" on a throughly substantive level. My research substantiates a number of claims made in recent political theory regarding control societies, and indicates that only a politics of positive feedback is adequate to the mechanism of such societies.