What is the public life of technology?
Drone warfare is imagined as a feedback loop between machine and enemy. Its icon is a Predator aircraft over an empty desert. Yet, military drone missions are replete with people and their supposed aim is not the targeted enemy but national protection. Drone Publics studies how the frameworks of targeting and protection are refashioned by unmanned aircraft for humanitarianism, wildlife management and development on the African continent. It uses these cases to reconsider debates on the role of media and technology in shaping the public sphere and the challenge of everyday militarism to collective life.