About

A scholar of political theory and digital media with a global purview, my research focus is on platform studies, democracy, and digital publics. I was inspired to pursue a Ph.D. by my experiences as an elected representative in German local politics, where I learned to put my commitment to democratic collaboration, plurality, and collective organizing into practice. Currently, I am a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University, working on my book “The Political Imaginary of User Democracy.” In this project, I argue that tech-corporations promote and engender their own normative conceptualization of democracy through the services they oversee. The resulting political imaginary of user democracy is informed by a technocratic understanding of politics, including a belief in the programmability of digital public life. Each chapter charts a particular aim of the political coming of age of tech-corporate power, epitomized by user democracy: 1) the popular aspiration in the tech-sector to escape from politics and difference, 2) the efforts of tech-corporations to appear as socially responsible governing powers, 3) the habituation of user-citizens into properly behaved subjects, and 4) the administration of platforms as privately-owned public space. https://www.irinakalinka.com/

Research Interests

Citizenship, Civil Society, Cyber Politics, Democracy, Democratisation, Globalisation, Media, Political Participation, Political Theory, Social Justice, Social Movements, Knowledge, Critical Theory, Internet, Post-Structuralism, Social Media, Television, Communication, Political Activism, Political Ideology, Power, Technology, Activism, Big Data, Political Cultures

Current/Upcoming Events

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Standing Groups and Research Networks

• Digital Authoritarianism
• Politics and Technology