In this research report I examine the current approaches to the design of technology against the development of the Golden Shield project, as undertaken by the Chinese government. The Golden Shield technology is designed to control all forms of electronic communication, including social media technologies. I argue that the current approaches to the design of technology are inadequate. There is a need to include moral values as a consideration in the design of social media technologies, specifically when human well-being is impacted. I offer the capabilities approach as a solution that the designers of technology ought to consider as an option when designing technology as this approach defines conditions for human well-being. I define informational freedom as a capability. Excluding informational freedom in the design of social media technology leads to the user of the technology suffering harm as they are unable to fulfill the capability of informational freedom.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation studies the lived experiences and perceptions of Indiana public-school superintendents use of social media. This phenomenological qualitative study seeks to explore how superintendents use social media in their careers, why they use social media and how they respond to parents<a href="#_ftn1" target="_blank">[1]</a> and stakeholders on social media platforms.</p><p dir="ltr">This study uses semi-structured interviews with five Indiana public-school superintendents to gain insight into their experiences with social media in their professions. The Spiral of Silence theory developed by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1974) was used as a lens to code and interpret the findings related to superintendent engagement with stakeholders on social media.</p><p dir="ltr">Superintendents explained the importance of having dedicated staff to create, post and monitor social media for the district due to it being time consuming and quick changing. They emphasized the critical importance of knowing the audience for posts and utilizing the best platform for communicating with that audience. Since social media is immediate communication, they emphasized the importance of celebrating students and staff along with keeping the public informed.</p><p dir="ltr">As a result, the assertions evolved to stress the importance of dedicating a position within a budget for a person to create, post and monitor on social media. As the key communicator for the district, the superintendent must focus on building relationships with the community to build a culture of trust and support for the district.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref1" target="_blank">[1]</a> I am using “parent” to describe all primary caregivers, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, foster parents, legal guardians, etc.</p>

In an era when adversarial politics is condemned for either being archaic or right-wing extremism, proposing that incivility can be used to counter existing hegemonies, despite its potential to incite violence, is proposing an unorthodox project. By rejecting foundationalist approaches to the current incivility crisis, this study sees an opportunity for it to act as a populist rapture that defies simple binary categorisation and deconstructs incivility, at an ontological level, to reveal the deep meanings and concealed causes that contrast the grand narrative of hate speech. After an overview in chapter one, the study continues with a theoretical review of literature on incivility, guided by the works of radical democracy theorists who universalise what seems particular to Kenya. This review is followed by the description of Bakhtin’s concept of carnivalesque as utani, a joking relationship common in East Africa. For its theoretical perspective, the study is guided by Mouffe’s theory of agonistic democracy and a research method developed by transforming Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) work in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic, into a method for Discourse Analysis. Various concepts from Laclau and Mouffe’s work are used to innovate an explanation of how political practices in social media, both linguistic and material texts, enhance incivility and the struggle to fix a regime’s preferred meaning. Guided by Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Analysis, the study describes how the government is using linguistic tools and physical technologies to repair the dislocation caused by incivility in social media in its attempts to re-create hegemonic practices. Without engaging in naïve reversal of the polarities between acceptable and unacceptable speech, and considering that at the ontological level politics is a friend—enemy relation, the study argues that incivility in social media is part of the return of politics in a post-political era, rather than simple unacceptable speech. While remaining aware of the dangers of extreme speech, but without reinforcing the anti-political rational consensus narrative, incivility is seen as having disruptive counterhegemonic potential, that is, if we consider the powerplay inherent in democracy. It means that binary opposition is blind to the way power produces, and is countered through unacceptable speech. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication Science)