Document Type
Article
Department
Political Science
Publication Date
11-2021
Abstract
Campus Reform is a right-wing website that hires students to write articles accusing universities and faculty members of “liberal bias.” These pieces circulate widely within the right-wing media ecosystem, where they can inspire self-deputized online vigilantes to harass faculty members and college administrators to sanction their faculty members. We argue that Campus Reform is part of a well-funded and well-organized panoptic network that engages in the sensationalized surveillance of faculty. This paper first develops our concept of sensationalized surveillance. We then offer a comprehensive institutional history of Campus Reform – demonstrating that it originates with, and continues to operate as, a conservative political technology. We then explore the details of how this surveillance apparatus functions and conclude by examining the disciplining effects Campus Reform has on faculty.
Publication Title
New Political Science
DOI
10.1080/07393148.2021.1996837
Comments
Author's manuscript. Published version available: https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2021.1996837