Public Lecture: Big Tech Imperialism, Market Failures and Oligarchy

The Canterbury Socialist Society is delighted to host Dr Olivier Jutel, former journalist and media worker and now lecturer at the University of Otago.

Says Olivier, the long-running crisis of public interest journalism in Aotearoa-New Zealand has become a story of global oligarchy and Big Tech imperialism. In the face of a rolling media apocalypse previous Labour governments have offered salves and an emphasis on collaboration with big tech over disinformation. With Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter collaboration is officially dead, the crisis of journalism continues apace. Our current government’s response has ranged from indifference to glee. The abandonment of industrial and national policy for journalism and digital media has been accompanied by the mantras of internet freedom and self-governance. Self-publishing ontology, or the freedom to post, now comes before any notion of the public trust. The political and media entrepreneurs of the right can rely upon the tech infrastructure of American oligarchs. They are compradors in what Sinead Boucher has called Big Tech’s ‘sucking the marrow out of our economy’. Rebuilding journalism as a public trust and creating national sovereignty in the digital sphere will be essential in defending democracy our from American oligarchs.

This event is free to attend and open to the public.