Mediated Governance Then and Now: How Broadcast, Biopolitics and Algorithms Control Our Conduct

The book intensively explores the governance techniques of control of public behaviour in the context of mediation. It draws on Michel Foucault's historic formulations - "governmentality" and "conduct of conduct" - but expands them to the contemporary times to trace the evolution of surveillance from the pre-digital past to the digital present.The analysis covers three sequential phases: i) The Broadcast era and the people-as-mass audience; ii) The Biopolitical epoch and the people-as-aggregates; iii) The Algorithmic time with people-as-data points. In its endeavour to highlight an under-focused area the book unravels how the innovative and unique mediating strategies of each phase unleash modulation of the identity of the public in the name of governance.Written in a lucid and engaging way, the book will be useful for academics, researchers and advanced students in social sciences and humanities. It will also be of interest to general readers seeking an appropriate and updated understanding of the behind-the-scene maneuvering of governance for nearly nine decades. Dipankar Sinha is Professor of Political Science and Director, Centre or Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Calcutta, India. He is also Honorary Associate of the Centre for Media History, Macquarie University, and former Nominated Member, Association of Third World Studies, USA.Sinha is engaged in postgraduate teaching and research for more than three and half decades. He also acts in advisory capacity in various academic, governmental, non-governmental, corporate and civil society organizations.Are Apart from numerous articles in international and national journals, edited books, newspapers and magazines Sinha has authored Development Communication: Contexts for the Twenty-First Century, Media Sanskriti (in Bengali, tr. Media Culture), Communicating Development in the New World Order: A Critical Analysis, and Development Narratives: Walking the Field in Rural West Bengal. His co-authored books include Media, Gender and Popular Culture in India: Tracking Change and Continuity, Self-help Groups in West Bengal: Challenges of Development and Empowerment. He has also co-edited Webs of History: Information, Communication and Technology from Early to Post-Colonial India, and Democratic Governance in India: Reflections and Refractions.Sinha's recent internationally published monographs are The Information Game in Democracy (2018) and The Social Sciences in a Global Age: Decoding Knowledge Politics (2021) and Pandemic, Governance and Communication: The Curious Case of COVID-19.