Negating Neutrality: The Marco Civil Da Internet, Informational Capitalism, and Contesting Digital Rights at the Periphery

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dc.contributor.advisorElmer, Greg
dc.contributor.authorHoskins, Guy Thurston
dc.date.accessioned2021-11-15T15:28:41Z
dc.date.available2021-11-15T15:28:41Z
dc.date.copyright2021-07
dc.date.issued2021-11-15
dc.date.updated2021-11-15T15:28:41Z
dc.degree.disciplineCommunication & Culture, Joint Program with Ryerson University
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation critically examines the development of one of the worlds first civil rights frameworks for Internet users, the Marco Civil da Internet, created in Brazil 2009-2014. This bill of digital rights was the object of international acclaim as it purported to represent a robust set of protections for citizen users in the face of state and corporate abuses of power. One of the central arguments advanced in this dissertation is that for the Marco Civil to serve as an effective safeguard for citizen users it must confront the exploitations and inequities of the greatest concentration of power wielded on and through the Internet: that of informational capitalism. Chronicling how and why the Marco Civil failed in this regard and examining the implications of its emergence in a society at the periphery of the global system of informational capitalism - is the principal contribution represented by this study. In order to present this critique of the Marco Civil, this dissertation marries together a discourse and political-economic analysis to chart the symbolic and material dimensions of power present within informational capitalism, that in turn shaped the formation of this bill of digital rights. The conceptual and theoretical foundation of this dissertation is comprised of: an analytical framework for informational capitalism that accounts for its logics, mechanics and its global political-economy; a genealogy of digital rights that analyses how the dominant paradigm has been established in a manner conducive to the workings of informational capitalism; a history of communication technologies and policy in Brazil and their relationship to Brazils status within the global capitalist system. The case study chapters examining how the Marco Civil was created are based on semi-structured elite interviews with representatives of the principal economic, civic and government stakeholders, document analysis of all iterations of the bill and the records of public consultation, and discourse analysis of the key discursive interventions including blog posts, speeches and editorials. This dissertation presents the concluding argument that in order for digital rights to provide a meaningful check on the exploitations of informational capitalism they must be premised on collectivist, public and structural principles and must be sensitive to socio-cultural and political-economic particularities as opposed to a homogenizing approach.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/38707
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectInternational relations
dc.subject.keywordscommunication studies
dc.subject.keywordspolitical economy
dc.subject.keywordspolitical economy of communication
dc.subject.keywordspolicy studies
dc.subject.keywordsBrazil
dc.subject.keywordsdigital rights
dc.subject.keywordsMarco Civil da Internet
dc.subject.keywordscommunication rights
dc.subject.keywordsdiscourse studies
dc.titleNegating Neutrality: The Marco Civil Da Internet, Informational Capitalism, and Contesting Digital Rights at the Periphery
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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