Stephanie R Schulte

WarGames (1983), the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a vehicle and framework for America's earliest discussion of the internet. WarGames presented the internet simultaneously as a high-tech toy for teenagers and a weapon for global destruction. In its wake, major news media focused on potential realities of the “ WarGames Scenario.” In response, Congress held hearings, screened WarGames, and produced the first internet-regulating legislation. WarGames engaged a “teenaged technology” discourse, which cast both internet technology itself and its users as rebellious teenagers in need of parental control. This discourse enabled policy makers to equate government internet regulation with parental guidance rather than with suppression of democracy and innovation, a crucial distinction within 1980s cold war context. Thus, this article historicizes the internet as a cultural text, examining how technology and its regulation shaped and were shap...

Objective We examine levels of racial resentment among white Millennial youth. In addition, we explore the individual‐level determinants of racial resentment among this group, with specific attention given to the potential role of political socialization and social media. Methods Using a national survey of parents and children collected in October 2012 immediately prior to the U.S. presidential election, we examine the individual‐level predictors of racial resentment among white respondents (n = 613) who are 18 years old and younger. We test several competing explanations of racial resentment among Millennial youth, including demographic differences, traditional media use, social media use, general societal views, and levels of racial resentment among parents. Results Our findings suggest that white American Millennial youth may be slightly more racially progressive than their parents, and parental racial attitudes remain strong predictors of youth racial attitudes. In addition, some forms of social media may help to reduce levels of racial resentment.

This article tracks the culture of start-ups as it entered government through the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), a new agency and self-described White House “start-up” designed to rewrite the government’s digital presence. This critical discourse analysis traces the cultural history of the start-up, showing how and why it became an American ideal and icon of American power. This explains how and why the start-up became a cultural infrastructure for the federal government and how it became a commonsense solution to both technological and civic problems and a model for “venture government.” This article concludes that ventures like USDS allowed the government to harness industry popularity, expertise, and credibility to tap venture capitalist modes of production and to capitalize on cultural associations with disruption and failure in the hopes of fortifying public trust in government. However, it also provided technology industry unprecedented influence in federal institutions for both...

ABSTRACT Although young citizens may not always politically engage in the same fashion as their elders, research suggests they are using Facebook, Twitter, and other newer communication systems to mobilize politically both generally and around environmental issues. Given the declining environmental conditions facing young citizens, a national stratified quota sample of 1,096 U.S. parents and their children between the ages of 12 and 17 was conducted to investigate the factors potentially related to their efforts to persuade members of their online social networks to be more environmental. We believe that online peer persuasion is an important concept to investigate because peer persuasion can create subjective norms that ultimately may influence behavior. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that, although parents influence youth behavior (Adj. R-2=.11), the greatest variance in behavior was explained by the youth's own environmental self-efficacy, environmental news consumption, political interest, time spent online, gender, and environmental consumerism (R-2=.29). Youth political interest and environmental consumerism were especially important variables in the final model. Structural equation modeling reinforced that parental influence is primarily indirect. This study appears to be among the first to link environmental consumerism with youth online peer persuasion.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the internet became a major player in the global economy and a revolutionary component of everyday life for much of the United States and the world. It offered users new ways to relate to one another, to share their lives, and to spend their time—shopping, working, learning, and even taking political or social action. Policymakers and news media attempted—and often struggled—to make sense of the emergence and expansion of this new technology. They imagined the internet in conflicting terms: as a toy for teenagers, a national security threat, a new democratic frontier, an information superhighway, a virtual reality, and a framework for promoting globalization and revolution.

Schulte maintains that contested concepts had material consequences and helped shape not just our sense of the internet, but the development of the technology itself. Cached focuses on how people imagine and relate to technology, delving into the political and cultural debates that produced the internet as a core technology able to revise economics, politics, and culture, as well as to alter lived experience. Schulte illustrates the conflicting and indirect ways in which culture and policy combined to produce this transformative technology.