Political Code

Politics on the Canadian prairies are puzzling. The provinces share common roots, but they have nurtured three distinct political cultures -- Alberta is Canada's bastion of conservatism, Saskatchewan its cradle of social democracy, and Manitoba its progressive centre. Jared Wesley explains this paradox by examining the rhetoric employed by dominant parties to renew their provinces' political code -- freedom for Alberta, security for Saskatchewan, and moderation for Manitoba. Although the content of their campaigns differed, leaders from William Aberhart to Tommy Douglas to Gary Doer have employed distinct codes to ensure their parties' success and shape their provinces' political landscapes.

The aesthetic and political implications of working with code as procedure, expression, and action. Speaking Code begins by invoking the “Hello World” convention used by programmers when learning a new language, helping to establish the interplay of text and code that runs through the book. Interweaving the voice of critical writing from the humanities with the tradition of computing and software development, in Speaking Code Geoff Cox formulates an argument that aims to undermine the distinctions between criticism and practice and to emphasize the aesthetic and political implications of software studies. Not reducible to its functional aspects, program code mirrors the instability inherent in the relationship of speech to language; it is only interpretable in the context of its distribution and network of operations. Code is understood as both script and performance, Cox argues, and is in this sense like spoken language—always ready for action. Speaking Code examines the expressive and performative aspects of programming; alternatives to mainstream development, from performances of the live-coding scene to the organizational forms of peer production; the democratic promise of social media and their actual role in suppressing political expression; and the market's emptying out of possibilities for free expression in the public realm. Cox defends language against its invasion by economics, arguing that speech continues to underscore the human condition, however paradoxical this may seem in an era of pervasive computing.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

Politics on the Canadian prairies are puzzling. The provinces share common roots, but they have nurtured three distinct political cultures -- Alberta is Canada's bastion of conservatism, Saskatchewan its cradle of social democracy, and Manitoba its progressive centre. Jared Wesley explains this paradox by examining the rhetoric employed by dominant parties to renew their provinces' political code -- freedom for Alberta, security for Saskatchewan, and moderation for Manitoba. Although the content of their campaigns differed, leaders from William Aberhart to Tommy Douglas to Gary Doer have employed distinct codes to ensure their parties' success and shape their provinces' political landscapes.

The passage of Citizens United by the Supreme Court in 2010 sparked a renewed debate about campaign spending by large political action committees, or Super PACs. Its ruling said that it is okay for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want in advertising and other methods to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. This book provides a wide range of opinions on the issue. Includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives; eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others.