Papers by Stephanie R Schulte
Television & New Media, 2008
WarGames (1983), the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a... more WarGames (1983), the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a vehicle and framework for America's earliest discussion of the internet. WarGames presented the internet simultaneously as a high-tech toy for teenagers and a weapon for global destruction. In its wake, major news media focused on potential realities of the “ WarGames Scenario.” In response, Congress held hearings, screened WarGames, and produced the first internet-regulating legislation. WarGames engaged a “teenaged technology” discourse, which cast both internet technology itself and its users as rebellious teenagers in need of parental control. This discourse enabled policy makers to equate government internet regulation with parental guidance rather than with suppression of democracy and innovation, a crucial distinction within 1980s cold war context. Thus, this article historicizes the internet as a cultural text, examining how technology and its regulation shaped and were shap...
Journal of Transnational American Studies, Feb 16, 2009
The 2002 German film Halbe Miete (Half the Rent) follows a computer hacker in his thirties named ... more The 2002 German film Halbe Miete (Half the Rent) follows a computer hacker in his thirties named Peter as he "unplugs," that is, as he makes the conscious decision to live his life off-line. 1 The gaunt hacker emerges from his darkened computer room to discover that his girlfriend has died in their apartment under ambiguous circumstances. Distraught, he puffs a cigarette in a daze until his cellular telephone rings and frightens him; instead of answering, Peter flips the phone over, removes the data chip from the back, and burns the chip with his cigarette. In this moment, Peter literally and symbolically destroys his means of digital communication and deliberately disconnects from telecommunications networks; in Peter's words, "I am no longer reachable." In few American films about the internet in the 1990s or early 2000s does a main character decide to unplug, or completely disengage. 2 Instead, the main characters in films like The Matrix and The Net almost always battle with evil forces over control of the internet, ultimately using the technology as a weapon with which to defeat their foe. In short, in American film, "winning" means mastery of the internet, not avoidance or rejection. Although American films far outsell German films in Germany, even domestic German-language films like Halbe Miete, this alternative representation suggests that the internet was "thinkable" in different terms in Germany and that a certain anti-internet sentiment made sense. As German cultural studies has shown, this skepticism toward technology stemmed in part from Germany's legacy of anticapitalism, meaning that technology became equated with the capitalist domination critiqued by German thinkers. 3 This comparative article is about the varying national imaginings of the internet in Europe and the United States, how they intersected with and were promoted by different policies regulating the technology. I argue that the United States and European Union member states had very different views of the internet
Social Science Quarterly
Objective We examine levels of racial resentment among white Millennial youth. In addition, we ex... more Objective We examine levels of racial resentment among white Millennial youth. In addition, we explore the individual‐level determinants of racial resentment among this group, with specific attention given to the potential role of political socialization and social media. Methods Using a national survey of parents and children collected in October 2012 immediately prior to the U.S. presidential election, we examine the individual‐level predictors of racial resentment among white respondents (n = 613) who are 18 years old and younger. We test several competing explanations of racial resentment among Millennial youth, including demographic differences, traditional media use, social media use, general societal views, and levels of racial resentment among parents. Results Our findings suggest that white American Millennial youth may be slightly more racially progressive than their parents, and parental racial attitudes remain strong predictors of youth racial attitudes. In addition, some forms of social media may help to reduce levels of racial resentment.
Nmediac the Journal of New Media and Culture, Feb 25, 2014
This article traces the legacies and cultural contexts of the growing hacker journalist movement,... more This article traces the legacies and cultural contexts of the growing hacker journalist movement, combining historical analysis with interviews of hackers themselves. Hacker journalists, computer programmers who assume roles as journalists in order to affect social change, are at once data miners, news producers, and idealistic computer vigilantes pushing a renaissance of cyberactivism. Hacker journalism is becoming institutionalized. Hacker journalists are "hacking" into legacy news establishments. But they are also hacking into cultural tropes of "hacking" itself, re-appropriating the term "hacker." Early hackers operated under a particular moral code, a "hacker ethic," and, steeping their activities in Americanism, they imagined themselves "console cowboys" settling the new digital frontier. Hacker journalists gather at "hackathons" to work toward change in real and virtual worlds. An answer to Silicon Valley's capitalism, hacker journalists pursue non-monetary rewards and seek personal fulfillment through moral interventionism. Hacker journalism exists in a tense relationship to information: Hacker journalists are themselves deregulating information flows, but at a time when economic deregulation is, paradoxically, facilitating the reaction of multimedia conglomerates that are also privatizing information. Hacker journalists emerged in a moment characterized by anti-media and anti-government (Tea Party) and anti-corporate (Occupy Wall Street) movements as well as by idealistic notions of participatory culture and citizen journalism. Traversing many conflicting ideologies-conservative, libertarian, socialist, post-capitalist-these hackers offer informational efficiency, governmental and corporate accountability, and "Do It Yourself" empowerment to citizens but risk changing the foundations of journalism, a historic pillar American democracy.
International Journal of Communication, 2018
This article tracks the culture of start-ups as it entered government through the U.S. Digital Se... more This article tracks the culture of start-ups as it entered government through the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), a new agency and self-described White House “start-up” designed to rewrite the government’s digital presence. This critical discourse analysis traces the cultural history of the start-up, showing how and why it became an American ideal and icon of American power. This explains how and why the start-up became a cultural infrastructure for the federal government and how it became a commonsense solution to both technological and civic problems and a model for “venture government.” This article concludes that ventures like USDS allowed the government to harness industry popularity, expertise, and credibility to tap venture capitalist modes of production and to capitalize on cultural associations with disruption and failure in the hopes of fortifying public trust in government. However, it also provided technology industry unprecedented influence in federal institutions for both...
This interdisciplinary study advances film effects and policy research by combining multiple meth... more This interdisciplinary study advances film effects and policy research by combining multiple methodologies to assess how a film may affect policy debates. Investigating Traffic's effect on press and Congressional drug policy debates, this article illustrates how Traffic was used to push for or against legislation, to reframe the drug policy debate, and to provide symbolic attention to drug-related issues. A framing analysis shows that Traffic framed news coverage of drug abuse, and a discursive analysis illustrates how and why this occurred. Ultimately, this article suggests blockbuster films cloaked in realism, elite attention, and news coverage may shift policy debates in media spheres. It also illustrates the potentials for multimethod research strategies to reveal hegemony at work and flaws in journalistic practices.
Mass Communication and Society, 2013
ABSTRACT Although young citizens may not always politically engage in the same fashion as their e... more ABSTRACT Although young citizens may not always politically engage in the same fashion as their elders, research suggests they are using Facebook, Twitter, and other newer communication systems to mobilize politically both generally and around environmental issues. Given the declining environmental conditions facing young citizens, a national stratified quota sample of 1,096 U.S. parents and their children between the ages of 12 and 17 was conducted to investigate the factors potentially related to their efforts to persuade members of their online social networks to be more environmental. We believe that online peer persuasion is an important concept to investigate because peer persuasion can create subjective norms that ultimately may influence behavior. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that, although parents influence youth behavior (Adj. R-2=.11), the greatest variance in behavior was explained by the youth's own environmental self-efficacy, environmental news consumption, political interest, time spent online, gender, and environmental consumerism (R-2=.29). Youth political interest and environmental consumerism were especially important variables in the final model. Structural equation modeling reinforced that parental influence is primarily indirect. This study appears to be among the first to link environmental consumerism with youth online peer persuasion.
American Behavioral Scientist, 2014
American Behavioral Scientist, 2014
, the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a vehicle and fr... more , the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a vehicle and framework for America's earliest discussion of the internet. WarGames presented the internet simultaneously as a high-tech toy for teenagers and a weapon for global destruction. In its wake, major news media focused on potential realities of the "WarGames Scenario." In response, Congress held hearings, screened WarGames, and produced the first internet-regulating legislation. WarGames engaged a "teenaged technology" discourse, which cast both internet technology itself and its users as rebellious teenagers in need of parental control. This discourse enabled policy makers to equate government internet regulation with parental guidance rather than with suppression of democracy and innovation, a crucial distinction within 1980s cold war context. Thus, this article historicizes the internet as a cultural text, examining how technology and its regulation shaped and were shaped by cultural representations.
This comparative article investigates the different views of the internet-what it could do and wh... more This comparative article investigates the different views of the internet-what it could do and what it was for-as they emerged in news media, popular culture, and policy in the United State and Europe before the year 2000. In the United States, the internet was imagined as an inevitability, as the domain of private corporations, and as a new frontier that would usher the United States into an era of global economic dominance. In Europe, the internet was imagined as a technological choice, as a technology subordinate to national institutions, and as a public utility that the state should provide citizens through national telecommunications corporations. Despite these differences, this article shows how, as the century concluded, the political imaginings of the internet in the two locations converged. While EU policymakers increasingly envisioned the internet as a free market and a means for global economic power, U.S. policymakers envisaged it more and more as a requirement for competent democratic citizenship. Europe "Americanized" its internet policies by increasing competition through cuts in state support for national telecommunications corporations, and the United States "Europeanized" theirs by promoting policies designed to bridge the "digital divide." Ultimately, this article shows how the internet served both as an agent of change and a discursive construction through which varying imaginings were contested. In particular, Europe's adoption of the eEurope 2005 project-an endorsement of American-style unsubsidized corporations instead of European-style statist traditions-suggests that the internet functioned as a transatlantic cultural carrier of advanced capitalism.
Books by Stephanie R Schulte
Critical Cultural Communication Series, Mar 2013
In the 1980s and 1990s, the internet became a major player in the global economy and a revolution... more In the 1980s and 1990s, the internet became a major player in the global economy and a revolutionary component of everyday life for much of the United States and the world. It offered users new ways to relate to one another, to share their lives, and to spend their time—shopping, working, learning, and even taking political or social action. Policymakers and news media attempted—and often struggled—to make sense of the emergence and expansion of this new technology. They imagined the internet in conflicting terms: as a toy for teenagers, a national security threat, a new democratic frontier, an information superhighway, a virtual reality, and a framework for promoting globalization and revolution.
Schulte maintains that contested concepts had material consequences and helped shape not just our sense of the internet, but the development of the technology itself. Cached focuses on how people imagine and relate to technology, delving into the political and cultural debates that produced the internet as a core technology able to revise economics, politics, and culture, as well as to alter lived experience. Schulte illustrates the conflicting and indirect ways in which culture and policy combined to produce this transformative technology.
Book Reviews by Stephanie R Schulte
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Papers by Stephanie R Schulte
Books by Stephanie R Schulte
Schulte maintains that contested concepts had material consequences and helped shape not just our sense of the internet, but the development of the technology itself. Cached focuses on how people imagine and relate to technology, delving into the political and cultural debates that produced the internet as a core technology able to revise economics, politics, and culture, as well as to alter lived experience. Schulte illustrates the conflicting and indirect ways in which culture and policy combined to produce this transformative technology.
Book Reviews by Stephanie R Schulte
Schulte maintains that contested concepts had material consequences and helped shape not just our sense of the internet, but the development of the technology itself. Cached focuses on how people imagine and relate to technology, delving into the political and cultural debates that produced the internet as a core technology able to revise economics, politics, and culture, as well as to alter lived experience. Schulte illustrates the conflicting and indirect ways in which culture and policy combined to produce this transformative technology.