Socialists on Social Media /w Dr. Tanner Mirrlees

In the digital age, socialists have used social media platforms to their advantage, both for messaging and organizing. But what kind of a radical politics can really emerge from the clutches of digital capitals and the dominance of the contemporary Internet Big Tech? Dr. Tanner Mirrlees of Ontario Tech University is optimistic! Tanner helps us find some hope in the age of posting by historicizing the Internet, leftist media, and media criticism, as well as probing how leftists can navigate ‘entrepreneurial’ content creation. For more on this topic, see “Socialists on Social Media Platforms: Within and Against Digital Capitalism,” publishing in Socialist Register 21: Beyond Digital Capitalism – New Ways of Living.

Tanner Mirrlees is an award-winning teacher and a critical political economy of communications scholar. Mirrlees is the author of Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Cultural Industry (UBC Press, 2016), Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization (Routledge, 2013), co-author of EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age (Routledge, 2019), and co-editor of Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), The Television Reader (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Media, Technology, and the Culture of Militarism (Democratic Communique, 2014).