Annenberg School of Communication alumna Elisabetta Ferrari spoke about her book on a virtual talk.
Credit: Jean ParkAnnenberg School of Communication alumna Elisabetta Ferrari discussed her new book on the connections between contemporary social movements and digital media platforms in a virtual question and answer session with the Annenberg School.
In "Appropriate, Negotiate, Challenge: Activist Imaginaries and the Politics of Digital Technologies," Ferrari — who received a Ph.D. in 2019 from the Annenberg School of Communication — examines the connections between contemporary social movements and digital media platforms by taking an up-close look at the “internet tax” protests in Hungary, the anti-capitalist “student collective LUMe” in Italy, and the “Philly Socialists” group in the United States.
Ferrari is currently an assistant professor and AIAS-AUFF fellow at Aarhus University in Denmark. According to her website, her research is focused on the political and social consequences of digital technology and “explores how the ways in which people use and think about digital media play a role in their struggles for social justice.”
“I consider the groups I studied in the book to be part of a cohort of social movements that emerged to fight back against the rise of right-wing populism across the world in the mid-2010s," Ferrari said to The Annenberg School for Communication in the digital Q&A. “I chose them because they are similar in their political positions and organizational structures, but they are also immersed in political contexts that are very different; I hoped that looking at them side by side would allow me to see how and why they approached digital technology in different ways.”
When asked about how her time at Penn helped her career, she highlighted two main takeaways.
"One is the importance of building a community of people," she said. "I was so lucky at Annenberg to have incredible colleagues, friends, and mentors, whose support I feel even now; they are still the people I go to when I need help wrangling my ideas."
She added that the second main takeaway from her time at Penn was "being open to following your curiosity and questions about the world, even when they take you beyond the boundaries of your academic discipline."
"These days, I work in an interdisciplinary environment where my colleagues are biologists, linguists, and philosophers, and I think Annenberg’s openness to learning from other disciplines has certainly helped me feel at home in these spaces," she said.
Ferrari also addressed potential implications for social media platforms during the Trump administration. Influential figures in Silicon Valley, including Mark Zuckerberg and 1997 College and Wharton graduate Elon Musk, have recently taken steps to align themselves more closely with President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump.
“I think we are seeing big shifts in real time, as activists — and many ‘regular’ people — move away from Twitter/X and Meta products in recognition of their now explicit alignment with Trump," Ferrari said. “Despite how much tech entrepreneurs like to see themselves as revolutionaries, the vision of society and politics promoted by the dominant technological imaginary of Silicon Valley is at odds with notions of social justice.”
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