Session 2: Embedding Fear: The Internet And The Spectacle Of Heightened Alert @ Conference

Respondent: Thorsten Schilling [de]

The Internet's ‘open system’ makes it not only the world's most powerful tool of conspiratorial narrative generation but also creates the broadest ‘extranational’ platform for the creation and dissemination of political, military and corporate propaganda. Any form of authorship. Any group (or individual) whether legitimate, clandestine or fraudulent with access to the net may proclaim any act, real or imagined. Within the current atmospheres of induced security, economies of fear and pending ‘terrorist’ action, what are the key roles played by the Internet in defining the legitimacy of a perceived threat? How are the complex issued of identity and culture corrupted when freedom of access and communication become entangled in an ill-defined international 'war on terror' fought to a large extent online?

The conference takes place at Auditorium.