The Good Drone

The Good Drone

How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance

About the Book

How small-scale drones, satellites, kites, and balloons are used by social movements for the greater good.

Drones are famous for doing bad things: weaponized, they implement remote-control war; used for surveillance, they threaten civil liberties and violate privacy. In The Good Drone, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines a different range of uses: the deployment of drones for the greater good. Choi-Fitzpatrick analyzes the way small-scale drones--as well as satellites, kites, and balloons--are used for a great many things, including documenting human rights abuses, estimating demonstration crowd size, supporting anti-poaching advocacy, and advancing climate change research. In fact, he finds, small drones are used disproportionately for good; nonviolent prosocial uses predominate.
Read more
Close

Praise for The Good Drone

"The Good Drone’s very engaging, accessible, and timely account of the importance of material, not just digital, technologies to social movements, is a mustread for anyone interested in understanding how technologies present new opportunities and perils for protesters."
– Jennifer Earl, sociologist and coauthor of Digitally Enabled Social Change

"ChoiFitzpatrick brings deep thought and research together with years of practical experience in writing this insightful account of technology's effects on politics and politics’ effects on technology."
– Steven Livingston, Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics, George Washington University

"It’s hard to know where to start in praise of The Good Drone, but why not with the drone. Just when movement scholars thought they had awakened to the implications of the digital revolution, along comes Choi-Fitzpatrick challenging us to theorize the impact of drones and other cutting-edge technologies on the dynamics of contention. Then there is the inherent fascination of the cases he explores. But for my money, the last chapter of the book is alone worth the price of admission. In it, he sets the new technologies aside to remind us that technology has always powerfully shaped contention, with a compelling revisionist tour of social movement theory to make his case."  
 – Doug McAdam, Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
Read more
Close

Acting with Technology Series

Appropriating Technology
Triangles and Tribulations
Data Rules
Virtually Amish
The Good Drone
Heteromation, and Other Stories of Computing and Capitalism
Shifting Practices
Venture Labor
Technology Choices
Coding Places
View more

About the Author

Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick
Decorative Carat

By clicking submit, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime.

Random House Publishing Group