ETICA E POLITICA NELL'ERA DIGITALE

The course analyzes the relation between ethics and politics in technically advanced societies, the problem of deliberation through the net, the open government and the forms of digital democracy.

The course is run through lectures and students’ presentations on a theme agreed upon with the teacher selected among those present in the syllabus.

The digital revolution is having a huge impact on political processes and moral values. The digital strategy of electoral campaigns is more important than that concerned with presence on TVs, radios, newspapers. Political participation is more and more shaped by social media and democracy understood as something that can work without intermediate bodies. This poses a new challenge to representative democracy that was understood only a couple of decades ago as the only serious institutional option, possibly to be exported where absent. The phenomena of polarization, cyberbullying, extremism, echochambers characterize our times challenging the idea that internet fosters democracy and makes us better human beings. The course offers a detailed analysis of the problems posed by digital politics and ethics and proposes a path to overcome them.

Cass Sunstein, #Republic.com. La democrazia nell'epoca dei social media, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2017.

Jamie Bartlett, The People Vs Tech. How the Internet is killing democracy (and how we save it). London: Penguin 2018.

Martin Moore, Democracy Hacked: Political Turmoil and Information Warfare in the Digital Era. London: OneWorld 2018.

G. Pondrano Altavilla, A. Scala “Ripensare i fondamenti della liberal-democrazia nell’era di internet” Micromega ottobre 2018