Distinction and alternative tech

Exploring the techno-critical disposition

Bibliographic Data

ID6443363
AuthorsMichael Stevenson (0000-0003-3720-1888, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, corresponding author), Carolina Valente Pinto (Independent media researcher)
Year2024
Volume27
Issue7
Pages3770-3787
Publication date2024-03-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14614448241239579
OpenAlexW4393260631
LanguageEN
References cited24

How should we understand alternative social media and open-source technologies that seek to challenge the dominance of Big Tech? Are these ethical substitutes for monopolistic platforms and technological infrastructures, or “alternative” in the sense we might talk of alternative forms of culture? Here we offer new perspective on these questions by conceptualizing alternative tech through Bourdieu’s theories of cultural production and distinctive consumption. Building on the work of Holm, Coleman and others, we explore the “techno-critical disposition” through a case study of A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers (ATNOFS), arguing this is manifested primarily as “critical craftiness,” or hacker aesthetics in a critical register. Finally, we consider how ATNOFS represents a “distinctive” path to the wider adoption of alternative platforms, as well as how the techno-critical disposition may be reconfiguring legitimacy in the broader field of technology production

Disposition · Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Sociology · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Engineering · History of Computing Technologies · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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Open DOIOpen Access