Joy Rankin: Old, Raw, or New: A (New?) Deal for the Digital Age

At this event, Professor Joy Rankin spoke about American computing in the 1960s and 1970s, considering whether the academic networks of that era may be inspiration for a Digital New Deal. The users of 1960s and 1970s academic computing networks built, accessed, and participated in cooperative digital commons, developing now-quotidian practices of personal computing and social media. In the process, they became what she calls “computing citizens.” She used several case studies to illustrate the dynamic—and unexpected—relationships among gender, community, computing, and citizenship, including the Old Deals and the Raw Deals of computing citizenship. During this Dissonance event, Ranking asks: might these computing citizens inform crucial contemporary debates about technology and justice?