Cyberlibertarian Dreams: Producing Privilege and Power in Journalistic Discourses of the Internet

Abstract

Since the 1990s, when the Internet emerged as a focus of popular discourse, through the early 21st century as the Internet became a dominant communication technology, cyberlibertarianism—a combination of absolutist free speech and free market ideals—has shaped popular conceptions of what freedom means on the Internet. Journalism has served to reify these values over the last three decades, adopting cyberlibertarian precepts as common sense in debates about issues such as government regulation, the privatization of cyberspace, and the moderation of content on platforms. This dissertation develops a critical genealogy of cyberlibertarianism revealing how this ideology helped perpetuate the very forms of power and privilege—based on race, gender, and class—it promised the Internet would erase. Through discourse analysis of popular and tech journalism over the last three decades, this dissertation first explores how journalists used two public figures to make common sense of cyberlibertarian ideals in their respective historical contexts: John Perry Barlow in the 1990s and early-2000s and Aaron Swartz in the 2000s and early-2010s. Shifting to a contemporary context, this dissertation then explores how journalists have relied on cyberlibertarian ideals to make sense of tensions between free speech and hate speech and harassment online and of the increasing power tech corporations exert over the public regulation of speech. This analysis shows that journalistic practice has reified the cyberlibertarian ideals which underpin much public policy and corporate practice regarding how speech on the Internet ought to be regulated. This research asserts the need for more concerted critical journalistic discourses that dislodge the cyberlibertarian common sense which has naturalized the power of tech corporations over so much public life.