Challenging Democracy in the Digital Era: Corporations, Civic Rights, and Intersubjectivity in Jennifer Haley’s Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom and The Nether

The impact digital phenomena – such as social media, fake news, or deepfakes – have on democracies has become a growing concern. Jennifer Haley’s “tech plays” explore these concerns by depicting fictional worlds where corporate structures have replaced democratic ones, and digital innovations disrupt social relations. In this article, I focus on two of Haley’s plays: Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom ( N3RD ) (2008/2009) and The Nether (2014). N3RD portrays an American suburban community divided by a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) popular among teenagers. The Nether is set in a future where most of public life has shifted into the digital realm due to an ecological catastrophe. I argue that the primary dystopian theme in both plays is the impact of deregulated corporate control over digital spaces on social and political life. Through their themes and aesthetics, Haley’s plays suggest that digital realms are not separate from physical reality but extensions of it. The possibility of disembodiment in virtual spaces is critiqued as a myth that has enabled corporate domination and a lack of democratic regulation of digital realms.