Social and ethical aspects Books

Book SynopsisThanks to Facebook and Instagram, our younger selves have been captured and preserved online. But what happens, Kate Eichhorn asks, when we can't leave our most embarrassing moments behind? Rather than a childhood cut short by a loss of innocence, the real crisis of the digital age may be the specter of a childhood that can never be forgotten.Trade ReviewWell-written, well-researched, and insightful. The End of Forgetting will contribute to our growing discussion on the role and place of social media in everyday life, and the impact that new media practices have on our understanding of identity, childhood, and the process of becoming an adult. -- Mark Nunes, author of Cyberspaces of Everyday LifeAn elegantly written book on a timely and very important topic. Eichhorn blends stories, facts, and research to portray the role digital and social media play in young people’s self-conceptions, identity development, and public image, and reveals why it is important to protect young people’s ability to forget parts of the past. -- Simon Nørby, Aarhus UniversityA necessary, original, and unexpected perspective on the impact of digital technologies on children today. -- Marcus Boon, York UniversityGrowing up online, Eichhorn worries, might impede our ability to edit memories, cull what needs to be culled, and move on. * New Yorker *An important manual for anyone who regularly posts on social media. It outlines the dangers that platforms pose, makes a great case for more cautious posting, and advocates for increasing pressure on the tech companies that hold our data. -- Sarah Manavis * New Statesman *Eichhorn’s work needs to be included in public discourse about how we make meaning of self and others in digital spaces. We are still in the midst of making sense of the impact of social media on how we record our lives and, by so doing, how we unavoidably carry our digital history forward. The End of Forgetting reminds readers that sampling experiences and trying out different personalities, sometimes in error, is part of the human condition. The degree to which we should forgive others, or hold them responsible, remains a pressing but unacknowledged ethical concern. -- Linda Levitt * PopMatters *

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Book SynopsisCryptology, the science of ciphers and codes, and philology, the study of languages, are typically understood as separate domains. But Brian Lennon contends that computing’s humanistic applications, no less than its technical ones, are marked by the priorities of security and military institutions devoted to fighting wars and decoding intelligence.Trade ReviewPasswords is a fascinating book. What is especially impressive is the author’s deft and knowing engagements with both the long histories of computational text processing and the many discourses that make up literary philology. This is just the sort of work that the present mania for the digital demands, and yet books that actually live up to those demands are few and far between. Lennon is one of the few scholars who is even capable of managing that feat, and he does so here with style and erudition. -- David Golumbia, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityA stunning intervention, Passwords rivets our attention to the long history of our present fascination with the digital humanities. Through a series of close, contextual readings, from ninth-century Arabic philology and medieval European debates on language to twentieth-century stylometry and machine translation, this book recalls us to a series of engagements with language about which ‘all of us—we scholars, we philologists,’ as Lennon puts it, ought to know more. Passwords is eloquent and timely, and it offers a form of deep, institutional-lexical study, which schools us in a refusal to subordinate scholarship in the humanities to the identitarian and stabilizing imperatives of the national-security state. -- Jeffrey Sacks, University of California, Riverside

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Book SynopsisAutomating technologies threaten to usher in a workless future, but John Danaher argues that this can be a good thing. A world without work may be a kind of utopia, free of the misery of the job and full of opportunities for creativity and exploration. If we play our cards right, automation could be the path to idealized forms of human flourishing.Trade ReviewJohn Danaher proposes a novel claim: The end of work is a good thing and may lead to better alternatives for human flourishing. This line of argument and the method by which Danaher pursues and achieves it is both new and exciting. A very welcome and original contribution. -- David Gunkel, Northern Illinois UniversityThis is philosophy of technology at its best! Exquisitely clear, unflinchingly fair, and refreshingly original, Automation and Utopia is especially timely and important. -- Evan Selinger, Rochester Institute of TechnologyArmed with an astonishing breadth of knowledge, John Danaher engages with pressing public policy issues in order to lay out a fearless exposition of the radical opportunities that technology will soon enable. With the precision of analytical philosophy and accessible, confident prose, Automation and Utopia demonstrates yet again why Danaher is one of our most important pathfinders to a flourishing future. -- James Hughes, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies[Danaher] is well versed in the opportunities and problems of a more automated future and his new book provides one of the most wide-ranging discussions of what might be in store…A stimulating and thought-provoking book, fizzing with ideas on a subject that will assume greater importance in the future. -- John Fanning * Dublin Review of Books *With the timeliness and significance of his well-crafted discussions, Danaher’s book will be of great interest to scholars across disciplines, tech developers and lawmakers, and concerned laypersons…One that we must take seriously in order to make the best of our future in a world increasingly dominated by technologies that have likely already outsmarted us. -- Daniel W. Tigard * Journal of Applied Philosophy *

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Book SynopsisExplores how "digital formations" emerge from the ever-changing intersection of computer-centered technologies and the broad range of social contexts that underlie much of what happens in cyberspace. This book emphasizes the importance of recognizing the specific technical capacities of digital technologies.Trade Review"A valuable contribution to scholarship, and one that I enjoyed reading, Digital Formations takes a unique approach to the subject of information technology. In seeking to build new conceptual frameworks and develop new perspectives, it provides a solid foundation for the elaboration of future empirical and theoretical work on IT and globalization." - Michel S. Laguerre, University of California, Berkeley, author of The Informal City and The Global Ethnopolis "Comprehensive and insightful, Digital Formations will be greeted warmly in the fields that over-lap its concerns. It addresses a most important set of questions concerning the relationship of information technologies to globalization. And this is an urgent topic for social science." - Mark Poster, University of California, Irvine, author of The Mode of Information and What's the Matter with the Internet?"Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction Digital Formations: Constructing an Object of Study by Robert Latham and Saskia Sassen 1 SPACES OF KNOWLEDGE 35 Recombinant Technology and New Geographies of Association by Jonathan Bach and David Stark 37 Electronic Markets and Activist Networks: The Weight of Social Logics in Digital Formations by Saskia Sassen 54 The New Mobility of Knowledge: Digital Information Systems and Global Flagship Networks by Dieter Ernst 89 NETWORKS OF COOPERATION 115 Cooperative Networks and the Rural-Urban Divide by D. Linda Garcia 117 Networks, Information, and the Rise of the Global Internet by Robert Latham 146 The Political Economy of Open Source Software and Why It Matters by Steven Weber 178 DESIGNS AND INSTITUTIONS 213 Designing Information Resources for Transboundary Conflict Early Warning Networks by Hayward R. Alker 215 Discourse Architecture and Very Large-scale Conversation by Warren Sack 242 Transnational Communication and the European Demos by Lars-Erik Cederman and Peter A. Kraus 283 Information Technology and State Capacity in China by Doug Guthrie 312 List of Contributors 339 Index 341

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Best Information Science Book Award, Association for Information Science and Technology""Winner of the McGannon Book Award, McGannon Center at Fordham University""Winner of the Labor Tech Book Award, Labor Tech Research Network""Splendid. . . . A rigorous and surprisingly entertaining ethnographic portrait of a profession in transition."---Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker"Provocative. . . . [Levy’s] concise and lively book will interest anyone concerned with the complicated business of regulation."---Marc Levinson, Wall Street Journal"Data Driven does not disappoint. It is an exceptional exploration of how new rules and AI are transforming modern long-haul trucking, and how almost everyone who talks about the future of robots and work is getting it wrong."---Zephyr Teachout, American Prospect"“Breezily written; a quick and informative read.”"---Peter Hoskin, Prospect

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Science Breakthrough of the Year in Social Science, Falling Walls Foundation""A Behavioral Scientist's Notable Book""A FiveBooks Best Nonfiction Books of the Year""A Next Big Idea Club Selection""Masterful. . . . Immediately relevant. . . . Breaking the Social Media Prism answers important questions about the origins of our current political environment and suggests how existing platforms and reward systems might be redesigned to make things better. Bail’s scientific conclusions are refreshing in a space dominated by informed speculation, and the book offers hope that data-driven solutions can bring us back from the brink."---Jennifer Golbeck, Science"Smartly and engagingly challenges assumptions about how [ideological and cultural echo] chambers work."---Frank Bruni, New York Times"[Bail] draws on extensive interviews with social media users to explore the profound differences between people’s online and real-life personas, and lucidly details his own efforts to develop a new social media platform that cultivates more civil discourse. This is a persuasive and well-informed look at one of today’s most pressing social issues." * Publishers Weekly *"Every one of Bail's chapters threads together multiple lines of thought — some dating back decades or centuries — interweaving the frontiers of online social science research with the traditions they emerge from. . . . Bail's analysis of the problem of online polarization is clarifying and compelling."---Paul Rosenberg, Salon"[A] brilliant case . . . for social science research." * Library Journal *"Surprising. . . . Bail’s findings point to an interesting conclusion for the building of society: when it comes to bridging differences, in-person contact really helps."---Nathan Heller, New Yorker"Provides useful pointers for understanding online (mis)behavior." * Kirkus Reviews *"Wonderful. . . . Bail has provided social scientists, concerned citizens, and policymakers with an invaluable piece of work for understanding how social media is exacerbating our political divisions, and how we might forge a better future both online and off."---Thomas Koenig, Merion West"A really, really important book and really educational."---Sophie Roell, Five Books"Bail offers needed insights into the distortions that result when human persons are reduced to a set of data points."---Jeffrey Bilbro, New Atlantis"Bail delivers an efficient, engaging treatise on the polarizing effects of social media in the USA. . . . He expertly marshals evidence from his own research and modern computational social science to demonstrate how common narratives of social media miss the mark. . . . A thoughtful, compelling story of polarization on social media. . . .[Breaking the Social Media Prism] adds admirably to the dialog on political polarization. It synthesizes a body of research—both seminal and emerging—into a coherent picture, while making its own contributions. The prose is playfully conversational, accessible to a lay audience, and at fewer than 150 pages in the main text, refreshingly concise."---Jason Jeffrey Jones, Social Forces"Breaking The Social Media Prism challenges the accepted wisdom of echo chambers and algorithms and suggests that if we really want to solve political tribalism online the solution isn’t just some isolated thing called technology but also inside ourselves."---Samira Shackle, With Reason Podcast"A compelling story of both why social media is so addictive and how that addictiveness reverberates in the political process. . . . A fascinating book that, especially by dint of being accessible to a wide audience, has the potential to play an incredibly important role in starting to reset a lot of what has come to be accepted as received wisdom—especially around the complicated relationship between social media and political polarization—in line with what rigorous scholarly analysis has actually learned."---Joshua Tucker, American Journal of Sociology"Essential reading for many of us who are concerned with the impact of social media on civility and democracy."---Andrew Keen, Keen On podcast"Every once in a while, something comes along and causes a paradigm shift in its respective field or medium, a breakthrough that challenges prevailing narratives for explaining the world. Sometimes those breakthroughs are few and far between. For fields marked by rapid change and development, those breakthroughs can occur more frequently. In the rapidly changing field of social media and its impact on society, Chris Bail’s Breaking the Social Media Prism stands to become one of those paradigm shifts."---Austin Gravley, FaithTech"There is something for everyone in this book. . . . Drawing from rich interview data with people who use social media every day, Bail vividly depicts people’s lives and motives that result in political polarization on social media. Through engaging storytelling that puts a human face on political extremists and silent moderates on social media platforms, the book highlights the responsibility and agency of individual users to reduce political polarization on social media. Bail empowers readers and holds them accountable by shining a light on their instincts and motives that contribute to the social media’s prismatic effect."---Elizabeth Baik, New Media & Society"This misperception of reality that we see through the networks is what Bail calls 'prism' in the title of the book. 'The people who exaggerate the extremism of the other side are significantly higher among those who use the networks for information,' he explains. This causes a wrong idea of ​​society for those who are there a lot and for those who use Twitter as an opinion thermometer. 'More pernicious is when the media uses Twitter as a display of public opinion, because it amplifies this misperception.'"---Jordi Pérez Colomé, El País"Shattering popular myths and in the process, uncovering some extraordinary revelations, Chris Bail’s enormously influential book, Breaking the Social Media Prism is a much needed antidote in, and, for bewildering times where fake news proliferates and political polarization runs amok on various social media platforms." * Blogternator *"Innovative. . . .this book will challenge many of your beliefs about the online world including that the solution is to completely disengage. . . . We suggest you read Breaking the Social Media Prism and evaluate your own online behavior and those you bump into." * Purple Principle podcast *"A very thought-provoking book, full of rich empirical evidence, a well-articulated narrative on the social media prism and it introduces potential solutions for the problems it discusses."---Xiuhua Wang, Sociology"Fascinating."---Michael Jensen, Eternity"Terrific book." * Democracy Works podcast *

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Book SynopsisA critical look into how far our lives are controlled by modern digital systems, and how digital information is used by the powerful.Trade Review'A must read for those seeking to understand the impact of digital culture and their attendant communication technologies on our quest for liberty and equality' -- Hector Postigo, Associate Professor of Media Studies and Production, Temple University'A determined philosophical inquiry into the nature of information politics, from the abstraction of the cloud to the battlegrounds of hactivists, to identify the forms of exploitation and liberation endemic to the recursive movement of information. This book offers rich philosophical grounding for current and future studies of new media' -- Tarleton Gillespie, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Cornell University'A compelling and incisive account of fundamental developments in our increasingly digital world. His sophisticated theoretical analysis is clearly articulated and is based on a thorough grasp of both the technical and the social. He brilliantly avoids both cultural pessimism and techno-utopianism in his presentation of 'political antagonisms'' -- Sally Wyatt, Professor of Digital Cultures in Development, Maastricht University'This is an academic book of the highest quality that tackles what is sure to be the defining struggle of the 21st century: the struggle for control over access to information' -- Nathalie Maréchal, International Journal of CommunicationTable of ContentsSeries Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Information as a Politics Part I: Theory of Information Power 1. Recursion 2. Technologies' Embrace 3. Network and Protocol Theory: Dis/Organising Information Power Part II: Platforms 4. Clouds 5. Securitisation of the Internet 6. Social Media Networks Part III: Battlegrounds 7. Battlegrounds and the iPad 8. Death and Gaming 9. Hacktivism: Operation Tunisia, Modular Tactics and Information Activism Conclusion: Information Exploitation and Information Liberation Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisComputer games have fundamentally altered the relation of self and society in the digital age. Analysing topics such as technology and power, the formation of gaming culture and the subjective impact of play with computer games, this text will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media, games studies and the information society.Trade Review"It is well researched, well argued, and one of the finest books to date on the subject of digital games." New Media and Society "The classic studies of games argue that play mirrors social life. But what kind of story must theory tell when society begins to resemble a game? This is the argument of Graeme Kirkpatrick's brilliant new book, Computer Games and the Social Imaginary. Drawing on recent social theory and an original analysis of the social role of aesthetics, Kirkpatrick makes a major contribution to our understanding of both games and society." Andrew Feenberg, Simon Fraser University "A rich and ambitious attempt to situate computer games relative to the transformation of capitalism over the last four decades. Kirkpatrick's thesis - which effortlessly combines sophisticated readings of the history of microcomputing and games with social and cultural theory - is nuanced, fresh and powerful. When I finished, I wanted to begin all over again." Melanie Swalwell, Flinders University "Kirkpatrick’s discussion of the social significance of computer games is very thought provoking, and provides a valuable inclusion to the field of media and game studies." Christian Dewar, University of South AustraliaTable of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter one: Computer games in social theory 1. Gaming and the social imaginary 2. The gamer as a ‘streamlined self’ 3. Social theory and critique Chapter two: Lineages of the computer game 1. The revival of play 2. Technology and the dialectic of invention 3. Artistic critique and the transformation of computing Chapter three: The formation of gaming culture 1. From games as technology to the discovery of ‘gameplay’ 2. The ‘authentic’ gamer 3. Gaming’s constitutive ambivalence Chapter four: Technology and power 1. Organising an industry 2. Globalisation and cultures of production 3. Technology, power and resistance Chapter five: The phenakisticon 1. MMPGs in recognition-theoretic perspective 2. The limitations of engineered sociability 3. Gamification and the diminution of gameplay Chapter six: Aesthetics and politics 1. The aesthetic dimension 2. Art, play and critique 3. Critical gaming? Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisComputer games have fundamentally altered the relation of self and society in the digital age. Analysing topics such as technology and power, the formation of gaming culture and the subjective impact of play with computer games, this text will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media, games studies and the information society.Trade Review"It is well researched, well argued, and one of the finest books to date on the subject of digital games." New Media and Society "The classic studies of games argue that play mirrors social life. But what kind of story must theory tell when society begins to resemble a game? This is the argument of Graeme Kirkpatrick's brilliant new book, Computer Games and the Social Imaginary. Drawing on recent social theory and an original analysis of the social role of aesthetics, Kirkpatrick makes a major contribution to our understanding of both games and society." Andrew Feenberg, Simon Fraser University "A rich and ambitious attempt to situate computer games relative to the transformation of capitalism over the last four decades. Kirkpatrick's thesis - which effortlessly combines sophisticated readings of the history of microcomputing and games with social and cultural theory - is nuanced, fresh and powerful. When I finished, I wanted to begin all over again." Melanie Swalwell, Flinders University "Kirkpatrick’s discussion of the social significance of computer games is very thought provoking, and provides a valuable inclusion to the field of media and game studies." Christian Dewar, University of South AustraliaTable of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter one: Computer games in social theory 1. Gaming and the social imaginary 2. The gamer as a ‘streamlined self’ 3. Social theory and critique Chapter two: Lineages of the computer game 1. The revival of play 2. Technology and the dialectic of invention 3. Artistic critique and the transformation of computing Chapter three: The formation of gaming culture 1. From games as technology to the discovery of ‘gameplay’ 2. The ‘authentic’ gamer 3. Gaming’s constitutive ambivalence Chapter four: Technology and power 1. Organising an industry 2. Globalisation and cultures of production 3. Technology, power and resistance Chapter five: The phenakisticon 1. MMPGs in recognition-theoretic perspective 2. The limitations of engineered sociability 3. Gamification and the diminution of gameplay Chapter six: Aesthetics and politics 1. The aesthetic dimension 2. Art, play and critique 3. Critical gaming? Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisThe internet is changing the rules of the game of love. In a world where anything is possible, a potential date - whether it be a one-night stand or the start of a more lasting relationship - can be just a click away. Anyone looking for love online can throw off their inhibitions and can say what they have never dared to before.Trade Review"Kaufmann suggests that we have to reverse out of the cul de sac of sex for sex's sake and recombine it with love once more to make our experiences less chilly but also less clouded by romantic illusions."—The Guardian "Demonstrates the inherent problems that many women still face when it comes to navigating romantic and sexual relationships, whether or not the internet is involved."—Times Higher Education "Confronts the biggest development in the world of love and sex over the past two decade: the internet ... Kaufmann's study mostly shows how the internet, far from transforming our love lives, simply compounds existing contradictions."—Prospect "Kaufmann takes us through the problems that both men and women face in navigating the murky waters of cyberdating ... For Kaufmann, although love online increasingly looks like a hypermarket, it doesn't really offer all the ease and convenience promised. We remain only too trapped by our own passions and humiliations when we try to build relationships with the real people on the other side of an internet exchange."—Inside Story "The internet — a new world unlike any we knew. Here nothing is final and irrevocable, everything can be tried and experimented with and there is always a second chance. But if this is blessing, it is surely a mixed one. What is gained and what lost? And, most importantly, how does love — that blissful state we so passionately desire — fare when suspended between online comforts and the rugged reality of the offline world? Jean-Claude Kaufmann offers us, the perplexed and the confused, a truly priceless service. He locates, spells out and carefully calculates the gains and losses revealed at the critical encounter of the two worlds, at the moment of truth: that first face-to-face date which follows online dating. This illuminating and enlightening study is a report from a battle which no one planned yet few, if any of us, can avoid."—Zygmunt Bauman, University of LeedsTable of ContentsIntroduction Prologue: On the net - Love's new world - The hypermarket of desire - A virtual slap in the face - A New Drug - What Does ‘Just for Sex' Mean? - The Net's Hidden Treasures Part I: In real life 1. ‘You never know what to expect' - ‘I Felt A Bit Like A Call Girl' - ‘I'm Looking For a Man' 2. First steps - The Sound of Heels - Why Are so Many People Stood Up? - Inner Beauty - Dates That Do Not Work Out - Making a Quick Get-Away - Having a Drink - Who Pays the Bill? - Getting It Right 3. Getting it right - A New Courtly Code - Should You Kiss on A First Date? - At Your Own Pace - Kino Escalation - Chemistry - ‘If He's A Good Kisser' 4. A new dance - The Revolution in the Dating System - What Flirting Means - ‘Would You Like To Dance?' - The Whole World is A Dance Hall Part II: Pleasure and feeling 5. Should you have sex on a first date ? - ‘If You Want To' - Where's The Harm? - ‘Slag!' - A World Apart - Cafés Elsewhere 6. Sex as a leisurely activity - When Sex Broke Free From Feelings - Sexual Liberation: How Do Things Really Stand? - Feeling Good Together - The Story of A. - Post Coitum 7. The game - The Games People Play - A Popular Sport - Statistics - Some Portraits - Disgust and Cynicism 8. The lovesex imbroglio - A Little Love - FWBs - A New Relationship With Exes? - People Still Want Long-Term Relationships - Sex Is Not A Leisure Activity Like Any Other - Sex, Lies and The Internet - Sex/Love: A Historical Reversal Part III: Women, Sex and Love 9. Unbridled pleasure? - Provisional Freedom - Men Never Change - Freedom, Equality and Sexuality - Revolt - The Impossible Golden Mean - A Cold, Selfish Monster - More 10. The ‘bad boy' paradox - From Prince Charming to Bad Boy - In Praise of Pick-Up Artists - Return of the Bastard 11. Avoiding the traps - Sex Today - A Break From Normal Life - Men As Sex Toys - A Cycle - The Dilemma - Why Women Are Wallflowers - SexLove Conclusion Appendix: on methodology References

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Book SynopsisThe internet is changing the rules of the game of love. In a world where anything is possible, a potential date - whether it be a one-night stand or the start of a more lasting relationship - can be just a click away. Anyone looking for love online can throw off their inhibitions and can say what they have never dared to before.Trade Review"Kaufmann suggests that we have to reverse out of the cul de sac of sex for sex's sake and recombine it with love once more to make our experiences less chilly but also less clouded by romantic illusions."—The Guardian "Demonstrates the inherent problems that many women still face when it comes to navigating romantic and sexual relationships, whether or not the internet is involved."—Times Higher Education "Confronts the biggest development in the world of love and sex over the past two decade: the internet ... Kaufmann's study mostly shows how the internet, far from transforming our love lives, simply compounds existing contradictions."—Prospect "Kaufmann takes us through the problems that both men and women face in navigating the murky waters of cyberdating ... For Kaufmann, although love online increasingly looks like a hypermarket, it doesn't really offer all the ease and convenience promised. We remain only too trapped by our own passions and humiliations when we try to build relationships with the real people on the other side of an internet exchange."—Inside Story "The internet — a new world unlike any we knew. Here nothing is final and irrevocable, everything can be tried and experimented with and there is always a second chance. But if this is blessing, it is surely a mixed one. What is gained and what lost? And, most importantly, how does love — that blissful state we so passionately desire — fare when suspended between online comforts and the rugged reality of the offline world? Jean-Claude Kaufmann offers us, the perplexed and the confused, a truly priceless service. He locates, spells out and carefully calculates the gains and losses revealed at the critical encounter of the two worlds, at the moment of truth: that first face-to-face date which follows online dating. This illuminating and enlightening study is a report from a battle which no one planned yet few, if any of us, can avoid."—Zygmunt Bauman, University of LeedsTable of ContentsIntroduction Prologue: On the net - Love's new world - The hypermarket of desire - A virtual slap in the face - A New Drug - What Does ‘Just for Sex' Mean? - The Net's Hidden Treasures Part I: In real life 1. ‘You never know what to expect' - ‘I Felt A Bit Like A Call Girl' - ‘I'm Looking For a Man' 2. First steps - The Sound of Heels - Why Are so Many People Stood Up? - Inner Beauty - Dates That Do Not Work Out - Making a Quick Get-Away - Having a Drink - Who Pays the Bill? - Getting It Right 3. Getting it right - A New Courtly Code - Should You Kiss on A First Date? - At Your Own Pace - Kino Escalation - Chemistry - ‘If He's A Good Kisser' 4. A new dance - The Revolution in the Dating System - What Flirting Means - ‘Would You Like To Dance?' - The Whole World is A Dance Hall Part II: Pleasure and feeling 5. Should you have sex on a first date ? - ‘If You Want To' - Where's The Harm? - ‘Slag!' - A World Apart - Cafés Elsewhere 6. Sex as a leisurely activity - When Sex Broke Free From Feelings - Sexual Liberation: How Do Things Really Stand? - Feeling Good Together - The Story of A. - Post Coitum 7. The game - The Games People Play - A Popular Sport - Statistics - Some Portraits - Disgust and Cynicism 8. The lovesex imbroglio - A Little Love - FWBs - A New Relationship With Exes? - People Still Want Long-Term Relationships - Sex Is Not A Leisure Activity Like Any Other - Sex, Lies and The Internet - Sex/Love: A Historical Reversal Part III: Women, Sex and Love 9. Unbridled pleasure? - Provisional Freedom - Men Never Change - Freedom, Equality and Sexuality - Revolt - The Impossible Golden Mean - A Cold, Selfish Monster - More 10. The ‘bad boy' paradox - From Prince Charming to Bad Boy - In Praise of Pick-Up Artists - Return of the Bastard 11. Avoiding the traps - Sex Today - A Break From Normal Life - Men As Sex Toys - A Cycle - The Dilemma - Why Women Are Wallflowers - SexLove Conclusion Appendix: on methodology References

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Book SynopsisThe rise of digital media has been widely regarded as transforming the nature of our social experience in the twenty-first century. The speed with which new forms of connectivity and communication are being incorporated into our everyday lives often gives us little time to stop and consider the social implications of those practices. Nonetheless, it is critically important that we do so, and this sociological introduction to the field of digital technologies is intended to enable a deeper understanding of their prominent role in everyday life. The fundamental theoretical and ethical debates on the sociology of the digital media are presented in accessible summaries, ranging from economy and technology to criminology and sexuality. Key theoretical paradigms are explored through a broad range of contemporary social phenomena from social networking and virtual lives to the rise of cybercrime and identity theft, from the utopian ideals of virtual democracy to the Orwellian nightTrade Review"A concise and eclectic yet satisfactorily rich and well contextualized account of digital life." Canadian Journal of Sociology ‘Adrian Athique’s introduction brings digital media, and its culture, politics and economics, into sharp focus. This book provides an essential outline of the digital world; it is accessible to all while remaining complex enough to be accurate.’ Tim Jordan, King’s College London ‘Digital Media and Society is a comprehensive, compelling and critical examination of the social and cultural consequences of digital media and communication technologies. The book provides a cohesive and coherent look at the present digital state of society, and it explains how the digital present came to be and what its consequences are. It is written in a clear, jargon-free manner and filled with information and questions that make it a remarkably useful teaching text.’ Steve Jones, University of Illinois at ChicagoTable of ContentsDetailed table of contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Digital Histories Chapter 1: Building a Digital Society Chapter 2: The Socio-Technical Interface Chapter 3: Typing the User Chapter 4: Audience As Community Part II: Digital Individuals Chapter 5: Pleasing Bodies Chapter 6: Reality Checks Chapter 7: My Personal Public Chapter 8: Going Mobile Part III: Digital Economies Chapter 9: The Road To Serverdom Chapter 10: Digital Property Chapter 11: Consuming Power Chapter 12: Information At Work Part IV: Digital Authorities Chapter 13: Virtual Democracy Chapter 14: Under Scrutiny Chapter 15: Managing Risk Chapter 16: Living in a Cloud Postscript Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe rise of digital media has been widely regarded as transforming the nature of our social experience in the twenty-first century. The speed with which new forms of connectivity and communication are being incorporated into our everyday lives often gives us little time to stop and consider the social implications of those practices. Nonetheless, it is critically important that we do so, and this sociological introduction to the field of digital technologies is intended to enable a deeper understanding of their prominent role in everyday life. The fundamental theoretical and ethical debates on the sociology of the digital media are presented in accessible summaries, ranging from economy and technology to criminology and sexuality. Key theoretical paradigms are explored through a broad range of contemporary social phenomena from social networking and virtual lives to the rise of cybercrime and identity theft, from the utopian ideals of virtual democracy to the Orwellian nightTrade Review"A concise and eclectic yet satisfactorily rich and well contextualized account of digital life." Canadian Journal of Sociology ‘Adrian Athique’s introduction brings digital media, and its culture, politics and economics, into sharp focus. This book provides an essential outline of the digital world; it is accessible to all while remaining complex enough to be accurate.’ Tim Jordan, King’s College London ‘Digital Media and Society is a comprehensive, compelling and critical examination of the social and cultural consequences of digital media and communication technologies. The book provides a cohesive and coherent look at the present digital state of society, and it explains how the digital present came to be and what its consequences are. It is written in a clear, jargon-free manner and filled with information and questions that make it a remarkably useful teaching text.’ Steve Jones, University of Illinois at ChicagoTable of ContentsDetailed table of contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Digital Histories Chapter 1: Building a Digital Society Chapter 2: The Socio-Technical Interface Chapter 3: Typing the User Chapter 4: Audience As Community Part II: Digital Individuals Chapter 5: Pleasing Bodies Chapter 6: Reality Checks Chapter 7: My Personal Public Chapter 8: Going Mobile Part III: Digital Economies Chapter 9: The Road To Serverdom Chapter 10: Digital Property Chapter 11: Consuming Power Chapter 12: Information At Work Part IV: Digital Authorities Chapter 13: Virtual Democracy Chapter 14: Under Scrutiny Chapter 15: Managing Risk Chapter 16: Living in a Cloud Postscript Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAs the twenty-first century unfolds, computers challenge the way in which we think about culture, society and what it is to be human: areas traditionally explored by the humanities. In a world of automation, Big Data, algorithms, Google searches, digital archives, real-time streams and social networks, our use of culture has been changing dramatically. The digital humanities give us powerful theories, methods and tools for exploring new ways of being in a digital age. Berry and Fagerjord provide a compelling guide, exploring the history, intellectual work, key arguments and ideas of this emerging discipline. They also offer an important critique, suggesting ways in which the humanities can be enriched through computing, but also how cultural critique can transform the digital humanities. Digital Humanities will be an essential book for students and researchers in this new field but also related areas, such as media and communications, digital media, sociology, iTrade Review"This important book addresses significant questions about the role of digital humanities in scholarship today. Concise and comprehensive, it is essential reading and a major addition to the emerging critical appraisal of the field." Lorna Hughes, University of Glasgow "This is a compelling and exciting analysis of the ways in which the encounter between the humanities and computers is reshaping and remediating our shared cultural and intellectual world. David Berry and Anders Fagerjord present an inspiring manifesto for a pluralistic and critical digital humanities and provide an essential roadmap for anyone seeking to understand our emerging digital cultures."Andrew Prescott, University of Glasgow "This book covers excellent ground. It draws together and analyses developments and critical moments in the growth of Digital Humanities in ways that clearly show their importance and impact." Kathryn Eccles, University of Oxford"as a clearly articulated, accurate, and concisely critical introduction, this book is exemplary. … I would recommend this volume to any newcomer who wanted a fair and true institutional history of the digital humanities. … a benignly deceptive introductory overview that also serves as a guiding critical compass for the future of the digital humanities."Martin Paul Eve, New FormationsTable of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Genealogies of the Digital Humanities 3. Computational Thinking 4. Knowledge Representation and Archives 5. Research Infrastructures 6. Digital Methods and Tools 7. Digital Scholarship and Interface Criticism 8. Towards a Critical Digital Humanities Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisAs the twenty-first century unfolds, computers continue to change the way we think about culture, society and what it is to be human: areas traditionally explored by the humanities. In a world of Big Data, Google Books, digital archives, real-time streaming systems and smart phones, our use of culture has been changing dramatically.Trade Review"This important book addresses significant questions about the role of digital humanities in scholarship today. Concise and comprehensive, it is essential reading and a major addition to the emerging critical appraisal of the field." Lorna Hughes, University of Glasgow "This is a compelling and exciting analysis of the ways in which the encounter between the humanities and computers is reshaping and remediating our shared cultural and intellectual world. David Berry and Anders Fagerjord present an inspiring manifesto for a pluralistic and critical digital humanities and provide an essential roadmap for anyone seeking to understand our emerging digital cultures."Andrew Prescott, University of Glasgow "This book covers excellent ground. It draws together and analyses developments and critical moments in the growth of Digital Humanities in ways that clearly show their importance and impact." Kathryn Eccles, University of Oxford"As a clearly articulated, accurate, and concisely critical introduction, this book is exemplary. … I would recommend this volume to any newcomer who wanted a fair and true institutional history of the digital humanities. … a benignly deceptive introductory overview that also serves as a guiding critical compass for the future of the digital humanities."Martin Paul Eve, New Formations Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Genealogies of the Digital Humanities 3. Computational Thinking 4. Knowledge Representation and Archives 5. Research Infrastructures 6. Digital Methods and Tools 7. Digital Scholarship and Interface Criticism 8. Towards a Critical Digital Humanities Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisDarin Barney takes a piercing, nuanced look at how communication technologies are changing democratic life in Canada, and whether technological mediation of political communication has an effect on political practice.Table of ContentsForeword Acknowledgments 1. Democracy, Technology, and Communication in Canada 2. The Politics of Communication Technology in Canada 3. Communication Technology, Globalization, and Nationalism inCanada 4. Technologies of Political Communication in Canada 5. Digital Divides 6. The Question Discussion Questions Additional Readings Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisIn a critical analysis of the profound shift to big data practices among intelligence agencies, Big Data Surveillance and Security Intelligence highlights the challenges for civil liberties, human rights, and privacy protection.Trade ReviewThis is a dark book, but one which should be read. -- Kurt Jensen * FORUM *Big Data Surveillance and Security Intelligence: The Canadian Case tackles some of the most pressing issues of our time — issues that can only be expected to grow in size and complexity…[it] is an essential and revealing examination of the tug-of-war between civil liberties and national security in our fast-moving digital age. -- Scott Costen * The Sidebar *This wide-ranging collection interrogates the intelligence-gathering practices of Canadian security agencies in the shift to "big data" surveillance methods. [This book] fills a need for literature on a topic where information about the Canadian context is relatively scarce. -- Erica Friesen, Queen's University * Canadian Law Library Review *Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction / David Lyon and David Murakami Wood Part 1: Understanding Surveillance, Security, and Big Data1 Collaborative Surveillance with Big Data Corporations: Interviews with Edward Snowden and Mark Klein / Midori Ogasawara 2 On Denoting and Concealing in Surveillance Law / Christopher Prince3 Big Data Against Terrorism / Stéphane Leman-Langlois 4 Algorithms as Suspecting Machines: Financial Surveillance for Security Intelligence / Anthony Amicelle and David Grondin Part 2: Big Data Surveillance and Signals Intelligence in Canadian Security Organizations5 From 1967 to 2017: The Communications Security Establishment’s Transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age / Bill Robinson 6 Pixies, Pop-Out Intelligence, and Sandbox Play: The New Analytic Model and National Security Surveillance in Canada / Scott Thompson and David Lyon 7 Limits to Secrecy: What Are the Communications Security Establishment’s Capabilities for Intercepting Canadians’ Internet Communications? / Andrew Clement Part 3: Legal Challenges to Big Data Surveillance in Canada8 Gleanings from the Security Intelligence Review Committee about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s Bulk Data Holdings and the Bill C-59 “Solution” / Micheal Vonn 9 Bill C-59 and the Judicialization of Intelligence Collection / Craig Forcese 10 The Challenges Facing Canadian Police in Making Use of Big Data Analytics / Carrie B. Sanders and Janet Chan Part 4: Resistance to Big Data Surveillance 11 Confronting Big Data: Popular Resistance to Government Surveillance in Canada since 2001 / Tim McSorley and Anne Dagenais Guertin 12 Protesting Bill C-51: Reflections on Connective Action against Big Data Surveillance / Jeffrey Monaghan and Valerie Steeves Part 5: Policy and Technical Challenges of Big Data Surveillance13 Horizontal Accountability and Signals Intelligence: Lessons Drawing from Annual Electronic Surveillance Reports / Christopher Parsons and Adam Molnar 14 Metadata – Both Shallow and Deep: The Fraught Key to Big Data Mass State Surveillance / Andrew Clement, Jillian Harkness, and George Raine Afterword / Holly Porteous Index

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Book SynopsisThe first book to treat the emergence of Flarf, Conceptual Poetry, and other genres of contemporary avant-garde poetry in a serious way.Trade Review[Brian Reed] is a useful, intelligent,and well-read omnivore, able to offer not only incisive and theoretically personable insights but also witty and dynamic writing. Reed is one of the bestmidcareer critics writing about contemporary poetry in a poetics context; hemakes a person extremely eager to follow his work, now and in the future. Thisbook seems to be one cut of a developing careerlong argument, one calf of ahearty glacier. -- Rachel Blau DuPlessis * Modern Language Quarterly *In this radical, engaging critical study, Reed extends the work he did in Phenomenal Reading (2012) by discussing poets widely recognized as formal and linguistic innovators. Innovation and the interface of art and technology, along with sociology and politics, are his subjects.... He writes of 'better appreciat[ing] the sophistication, idiosyncrasy, and value of these oddball contemporary American efforts to find viable poetic strategies for dissent, critique, and utopian dreaming.' Despite what some readers regard as the willy-nilly hodge-podge that is today's poetry, this is a book not of dreaming but of focused attention on what is new. * Choice *Table of ContentsPreface: What Now?1. In Praise of Obsolescence2. New Consensus Poetics and the Avant-Garde3. Mechanical Form and Avant-Garde Aesthetics4. Flarf, Folly, and George W. Bush5. Andrea Brady's Peculiar Dissidence6. Danny Snelson’s Disco Operating SystemAcknowledgments Notes Index

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Book Synopsis Over the past quarter century, dramatic technological advances in the production, manipulation, and dissemination of images have transformed the practices of journalism, entertainment, and advertising as well as the visual environment itself. From digital retouching to wholesale deception, the media world is now beset by an unprecedented range of moral, ethical, legal, and professional challenges. Image Ethics in the Digital Age brings together leading experts in the fields of journalism, media studies, and law to address these challenges and assess their implications for personal and societal values and behavior. Among the issues raised are the threat to journalistic integrity posed by visual editing software; the monopolization of image archives by a handful of corporations and its impact on copyright and fair use laws; the instantaneous electronic distribution of images of dubious provenance around the world; the erosion of privacy and civility under the onslaugTrade Review "Many questions about ethical responsibilities abound and the reader will find these high-quality contributions to be thought-provoking and useful. Gross, Katz and Ruby’s introduction amplifies the ethical qualms occasioned by the ‘sins’ committed in the electronic darkroom and the uses of cameras, scanners and other digital technologies to manipulate and alter images. I expect that the interest in the ethical discourse can add to the ongoing development of visual studies, with the valuable contribution of this recommended volume."—Visual Studies "The anthology reaches into disciplines and perspectives well beyond American Media Criticism to find fresh ways of considering dilemmas in visual presentations. In addition, the writers often took the challenge of looking beyond the bend to contemplate ethical issues likely to be on their plates tomorrow. In doing so, they have done a consistently excellent job of articulating the principles behind practice today. There is great consistency throughout this volume as the writers balance the pragmatics of corporate ownership with the conceptual question of what should be done instead of what can be done in the creation and exploitation of an image."—Journal of Mass Media Ethics

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Book SynopsisThe evolution and meaning of our love affair with Apple and its devices

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Book SynopsisCapturing where we are today through a tour of yesterday''s achievements and helping us better understand the evolution of computing technology, this book recounts the experiences of those who formed and functioned in the Pioneering Era. In the Beginning: Recollections of Software Pioneers records the stories of computing''s past enabling today''s professionals to improve on the realities of yesterday. The stories in this book clearly show modern concepts such as data abstraction, modularity, and structured approaches date much earlier in the field than their appearance in academic literature. These stories help capture the true evolution. The book illustrates human experiences and industry turning points through personal recollections of the pioneers themselves.

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Book SynopsisMark Poster considers how new media—from TiVO to digital file sharing—affects society, and he traces its implications for cultural theory and progressive political change.Trade Review“Engaging, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable, Information Please is a tour de force in its clear articulation of a coherent approach to the spectrum of issues arising from the penetration of information technology into every aspect of human life, from questions of global politics to the construction and protection of identities and selves in the context of digital media.”—Tim Lenoir, Kimberly J. Jenkins Professor of New Technologies and Society, Duke University“Mark Poster has been one of the foremost scholars of global digital culture over the past decades. Information Please, probably his best and most advanced book to date, continues his project of using contemporary theory to interrogate new media and new media to illustrate and critique certain forms of theory.”—Douglas Kellner, coauthor of The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium“This book is a welcome publication. It proposes new directions for studying the information transference mediated by digital media, and can inspire the reader to look beyond the confinement of current theories, and explore new challenges and significance in the age of digital machines.” -- Chong Han * Discourse & Society *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 I. Global Politics and New Media 1. Perfect Transmissions: Evil Bert laden 9 2. Postcolonial Theory and Global Media 26 3. The Information Empire 46 4. Citizens, Digital Media, and Globalization 67 II. The Culture of the Digital Self 5. Identity Theft and Media 87 6. The Aesthetics of Distracting Media 116 7. The Good, the Bad, and the Virtual 139 8. Psychoanalysis, the Body, and Information Machines 161 III. Digital Commodities in Everyday Life 9. Who Controls Digital Culture? 185 10. Everyday (Virtual) Life 211 11. Consumers, Users and Digital Commodities 231 12. Future Advertising: Dick’s Ubik and the Digital Ad Conclusion 267 Notes 269 References 281 Index 299

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Book SynopsisInvestigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software. By exploring in detail how various practices came together as the Free Software movement from the 1970s to the 1990s, the author shows how it is possible to understand the new movements that are emerging out of Free Software: projects such as Creative Commons.Trade Review“[R]ich with empirical insight and exceptionally well written, Two Bits is delightful to read. I recommend the book to readers interested in open source, technology, and social change. . . .” - Zack Kertcher, American Journal of Sociology“It would be a great pity indeed if anthropologists, assuming they have no interest in software development, were to ignore the subtitle of this book. Because ‘the cultural significance of free software’ takes to heart matters of concern to all anthropologists. . . . They would miss a book that has as much to contribute to the anthropology of law as to the anthropology of religion, both much enhanced by the unusual perspective that emerges from software development. They would also miss a good read.” - Daniel Miller, American Anthropologist“I think Kelty’s book deserves a wide readership — especially among nerds trying to make sense of the past decade, let alone to prepare for the next one.” - Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed“Considering the scope of the subject matter, the book is not especially steeped in technical jargon, and is therefore highly readable for a wide and varied audience. Contrary to first impression this book is not specifically directed towards geeks, software code authors, or other computer nerds, although these individuals will find the book informative and inspiring. It also should be read by all those who have positions of influence such as teachers, cultural studies academics, government decision/policy makers and of course members of the legal profession.” - Rob Harle, Leonardo“[A] closely argued, well-defended, painstakingly referenced treatise covering one of the most complex, and possibly least understood, cultural movements of recent decades. . . . [D]eeply engaging.” - John Gilbey, Times Higher Education“In this study of the Free Software/Open Source movement, Christopher Kelty provides a fascinating look into a world that may initially seem arcane to those outside the field, but which illuminates many connections between ‘geek’ culture and the wider world as well. . . . In a moment marked by Wikipedia and Facebook, new connections and forms are emerging every day. Two Bits reaches beyond the technicalities of the Free Software movement to help provide productive ways to think about these non-traditional communities as they are only beginning to imagine themselves.” - Erica A. Farmer, Anthropological Quarterly“Two Bits describes the way those who work and play with Free Software themselves change in the process—engendering what Kelty calls ‘recursive publics’—social configurations that realize the Internet’s non-hierarchical, ever-evolving, and thus historically attuned logic, creatively updating the types of public spheres previously theorized by Habermas and Michael Warner, among others. Two Bits does something similar, pulling readers into an experimental (ethnographic) mode that draws out how Open Source movements have garnered the momentum and significance they have today. The book—on paper and online—quite literally shows how it is done, itself embodying the standards that make Free Software work. Two Bits is critical reading, in all senses.”—Kim Fortun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute“I know of no other book that mixes so beautifully a deep theoretical understanding of social theory with a rich historical and contemporary ethnography of the Free Software and free culture movements. Christopher M. Kelty’s book speaks to many audiences; his message should be understood by many more.”—Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School“[A] closely argued, well-defended, painstakingly referenced treatise covering one of the most complex, and possibly least understood, cultural movements of recent decades. . . . [D]eeply engaging.” -- John Gilbey * Times Higher Education *“[R]ich with empirical insight and exceptionally well written, Two Bits is delightful to read. I recommend the book to readers interested in open source, technology, and social change. . . .” -- Zack Kertcher * American Journal of Sociology *“Considering the scope of the subject matter, the book is not especially steeped in technical jargon, and is therefore highly readable for a wide and varied audience. Contrary to first impression this book is not specifically directed towards geeks, software code authors, or other computer nerds, although these individuals will find the book informative and inspiring. It also should be read by all those who have positions of influence such as teachers, cultural studies academics, government decision/policy makers and of course members of the legal profession.” -- Rob Harle * Leonardo Reviews *“I think Kelty’s book deserves a wide readership — especially among nerds trying to make sense of the past decade, let alone to prepare for the next one.” -- Scott McLemee * Inside Higher Ed *“In this study of the Free Software/Open Source movement, Christopher Kelty provides a fascinating look into a world that may initially seem arcane to those outside the field, but which illuminates many connections between ‘geek’ culture and the wider world as well. . . . In a moment marked by Wikipedia and Facebook, new connections and forms are emerging every day. Two Bits reaches beyond the technicalities of the Free Software movement to help provide productive ways to think about these non-traditional communities as they are only beginning to imagine themselves.” -- Erica A. Farmer * Anthropological Quarterly *“It would be a great pity indeed if anthropologists, assuming they have no interest in software development, were to ignore the subtitle of this book. Because ‘the cultural significance of free software’ takes to heart matters of concern to all anthropologists. . . . They would miss a book that has as much to contribute to the anthropology of law as to the anthropology of religion, both much enhanced by the unusual perspective that emerges from software development. They would also miss a good read.” -- Daniel Miller * American Anthropologist *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Part I. The Internet 1. Geeks and Recursive Publics 27 2. Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists 64 Part II. Free Software 3. The Movement 97 4. Sharing Source Code 118 5. Conceiving Open Systems 143 6. Writing Copyright Licenses 179 7. Coordinating Collaborations 210 Part III. Modulations 8. "If We Succeed, We Will Disappear" 243 9. Reuse, Modification, and the Nonexistence of Norms 269 Conclusion: The Cultural Consequences of Free Software 301 Notes 311 Bibliography 349 Index 367

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Book SynopsisInvestigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software. By exploring in detail how various practices came together as the Free Software movement from the 1970s to the 1990s, the author shows how it is possible to understand the new movements that are emerging out of Free Software: projects such as Creative Commons.Trade Review“[R]ich with empirical insight and exceptionally well written, Two Bits is delightful to read. I recommend the book to readers interested in open source, technology, and social change. . . .” - Zack Kertcher, American Journal of Sociology“It would be a great pity indeed if anthropologists, assuming they have no interest in software development, were to ignore the subtitle of this book. Because ‘the cultural significance of free software’ takes to heart matters of concern to all anthropologists. . . . They would miss a book that has as much to contribute to the anthropology of law as to the anthropology of religion, both much enhanced by the unusual perspective that emerges from software development. They would also miss a good read.” - Daniel Miller, American Anthropologist“I think Kelty’s book deserves a wide readership — especially among nerds trying to make sense of the past decade, let alone to prepare for the next one.” - Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed“Considering the scope of the subject matter, the book is not especially steeped in technical jargon, and is therefore highly readable for a wide and varied audience. Contrary to first impression this book is not specifically directed towards geeks, software code authors, or other computer nerds, although these individuals will find the book informative and inspiring. It also should be read by all those who have positions of influence such as teachers, cultural studies academics, government decision/policy makers and of course members of the legal profession.” - Rob Harle, Leonardo“[A] closely argued, well-defended, painstakingly referenced treatise covering one of the most complex, and possibly least understood, cultural movements of recent decades. . . . [D]eeply engaging.” - John Gilbey, Times Higher Education“In this study of the Free Software/Open Source movement, Christopher Kelty provides a fascinating look into a world that may initially seem arcane to those outside the field, but which illuminates many connections between ‘geek’ culture and the wider world as well. . . . In a moment marked by Wikipedia and Facebook, new connections and forms are emerging every day. Two Bits reaches beyond the technicalities of the Free Software movement to help provide productive ways to think about these non-traditional communities as they are only beginning to imagine themselves.” - Erica A. Farmer, Anthropological Quarterly“Two Bits describes the way those who work and play with Free Software themselves change in the process—engendering what Kelty calls ‘recursive publics’—social configurations that realize the Internet’s non-hierarchical, ever-evolving, and thus historically attuned logic, creatively updating the types of public spheres previously theorized by Habermas and Michael Warner, among others. Two Bits does something similar, pulling readers into an experimental (ethnographic) mode that draws out how Open Source movements have garnered the momentum and significance they have today. The book—on paper and online—quite literally shows how it is done, itself embodying the standards that make Free Software work. Two Bits is critical reading, in all senses.”—Kim Fortun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute“I know of no other book that mixes so beautifully a deep theoretical understanding of social theory with a rich historical and contemporary ethnography of the Free Software and free culture movements. Christopher M. Kelty’s book speaks to many audiences; his message should be understood by many more.”—Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School“[A] closely argued, well-defended, painstakingly referenced treatise covering one of the most complex, and possibly least understood, cultural movements of recent decades. . . . [D]eeply engaging.” -- John Gilbey * Times Higher Education *“[R]ich with empirical insight and exceptionally well written, Two Bits is delightful to read. I recommend the book to readers interested in open source, technology, and social change. . . .” -- Zack Kertcher * American Journal of Sociology *“Considering the scope of the subject matter, the book is not especially steeped in technical jargon, and is therefore highly readable for a wide and varied audience. Contrary to first impression this book is not specifically directed towards geeks, software code authors, or other computer nerds, although these individuals will find the book informative and inspiring. It also should be read by all those who have positions of influence such as teachers, cultural studies academics, government decision/policy makers and of course members of the legal profession.” -- Rob Harle * Leonardo Reviews *“I think Kelty’s book deserves a wide readership — especially among nerds trying to make sense of the past decade, let alone to prepare for the next one.” -- Scott McLemee * Inside Higher Ed *“In this study of the Free Software/Open Source movement, Christopher Kelty provides a fascinating look into a world that may initially seem arcane to those outside the field, but which illuminates many connections between ‘geek’ culture and the wider world as well. . . . In a moment marked by Wikipedia and Facebook, new connections and forms are emerging every day. Two Bits reaches beyond the technicalities of the Free Software movement to help provide productive ways to think about these non-traditional communities as they are only beginning to imagine themselves.” -- Erica A. Farmer * Anthropological Quarterly *“It would be a great pity indeed if anthropologists, assuming they have no interest in software development, were to ignore the subtitle of this book. Because ‘the cultural significance of free software’ takes to heart matters of concern to all anthropologists. . . . They would miss a book that has as much to contribute to the anthropology of law as to the anthropology of religion, both much enhanced by the unusual perspective that emerges from software development. They would also miss a good read.” -- Daniel Miller * American Anthropologist *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Part I. The Internet 1. Geeks and Recursive Publics 27 2. Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists 64 Part II. Free Software 3. The Movement 97 4. Sharing Source Code 118 5. Conceiving Open Systems 143 6. Writing Copyright Licenses 179 7. Coordinating Collaborations 210 Part III. Modulations 8. "If We Succeed, We Will Disappear" 243 9. Reuse, Modification, and the Nonexistence of Norms 269 Conclusion: The Cultural Consequences of Free Software 301 Notes 311 Bibliography 349 Index 367

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Book SynopsisThe cultural theorist and media designer Anne Balsamo calls for transforming learning practices to inspire culturally attuned technological imaginations.Trade Review“Designing Culture is a tour de force, offering a unique vision of the possibilities for a contemporary cultural studies. Refusing to separate research from pedagogy, technology from culture, or innovation from imagination, Anne Balsamo maps the concrete complexities of specific design processes, and opens up new ways of thinking about—and teaching—technocultures in relation to broader socio-political fields. Her book is required reading for anyone working with contemporary cultures.”—Lawrence Grossberg, author of Cultural Studies in the Future Tense“The argument pursued throughout the book is coherent and sustained. It makes a valuable intervention in thinking about design and design processes, technocultures and technological innovation. If you want a taster, try the website – http://designingculture.net.” * European Journal of Communication *“Designing Culture is a road map to the technological imagination, provided by one of our best theorists and practitioners. Anne Balsamo’s architecture of the future rests solidly on her own experiments, inventions, theoretical engagements, pedagogical innovations, and interactive hermeneutics. This is cultural theory at its best, brilliant, bold, and daring.”—Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University“This is an erudite yet accessible cross-disciplinary text that makes a substantial contribution to the field of cultural studies, and also serves as a welcome and timely call to arms not only for scholars and scientists in the humanities and technology, but also for those engaged in educational policy, institutional strategy and innovation.” -- Helen Keegan * Times Higher Education *“In this sweeping expansion of the classic innovation literature, Anne Balsamo portrays both the necessity and the challenge of cultivating the technological imagination in all of us. Her experiences as a researcher and designer who has worked across cultural domains—as a humanist in the academy, as a research scientist in an industrial innovation center, and as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley—give her a unique ability to foster conversations among diverse groups of thinkers who want to engage with issues of culture and technological innovation. Balsamo not only describes ways to take culture seriously in the design of new technologies but also elaborates why it is ethically imperative to do so. Her insights into expanding the traditional considerations of socio-technical design to consider issues of culture are coming at a critical time. This is a great book that should be read by anyone interested in creating new technologies of imagination—for enhancing learning in the twenty-first century and creating expressive cultural platforms for the future.”—John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and Director of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)“Balsamo’s passionate concerns with pedagogy, gender equality, and imagining new futures enliven every page... I drew much from Balsamo’s energy and enthusiasm in inviting us to revisit a collection of some of the most ingenious experiments in the history of digital technology—wonderfully original inventions of an extraordinarily creative generation that we have already come to take for granted, or even forgotten.” -- Bonnie Nardi * American Studies *“Designing Culture is a welcome and important intervention into many contemporary approaches to technology, innovation and design that construct technology as a final outcome of a singular imagining, or as a forceful determiner of socio-cultural practices. The book is powerful because of the way Balsamo makes what are crucial and profound interventions seem both obvious and logical. The breadth of topics and examples that she brings to the table to underpin her arguments also demonstrate the pertinence and real need for such a book across a whole set of disciplines, approaches and institutions.” -- Helen Thronham * Culture Machine *Table of ContentsContents of http://designingculture.net/ vii Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Taking Culture Seriously in the Age of Innovation 1 1. Gendering the Technological Imagination 27 2. The Performance of Innovation 51 3. Public Interactives and the Design of Technological Literacies 95 4. Designing Learning: The University as a Site of Technocultural Innovation 133 Conclusion. The Work of a Book in a Digital Age 185 Notes 199 Bibliography 255 Index 279Women of the World Talk Back: An Interactive Multimedia Documentary (enclosed dvd)

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Book SynopsisIn Mondo Nano Colin Milburn takes his readers on a playful expedition through the emerging landscape of nanotechnology, offering a light-hearted yet critical account of our high-tech world of fun and games. This expedition ventures into discussions of the first nanocars, the popular video games Second Life, Crysis, and BioShock, international nanosoccer tournaments, and utopian nano cities. Along the way, Milburn shows how the methods, dispositions, and goals of nanotechnology research converge with video game culture. With an emphasis on play, scientists and gamers alike are building a new world atom by atom, transforming scientific speculations and video game fantasies into reality. Milburn suggests that the closing of the gap between bits and atoms entices scientists, geeks, and gamers to dream of a completely programmable future. Welcome to the wild world of Mondo Nano. Trade Review“[Mondo Nano] offers a clear demonstration of how the methods, dispositions and goals of nanotechnology often converge with video game development and culture. … Milburn argues convincingly that video games let us try out different visions of the future, and better understand the present, from the nanoscale up.” -- Simon Parkin * New Scientist *“Milburn's profession isn't about judging the truth of nanotechnological hypotheses; it is about teasing out their technoscientific origins and effects. … Readers bearing that in mind will find Mondo Nano a thoroughly researched, thought provoking read that offers many points to ponder. . . .” -- William Atkinson * Physics Today *"Sure enough, by the end of Mondo Nano, the connection between games and nanotechnology becomes so obvious, so pervasive, and so ubiquitous that one wonders how it was possible that we did not see it earlier. Needless to say, this is exactly how a really compelling argument works, and the elegance with which Milburn maps the terrain only adds graceful transparency to his discussion. . . . Mondo Nano is cultural scholarship at its very best, and it sets the bar very high for similar projects." -- Pawel Frelik * Science Fiction Studies *"Mondo Nano revisits, in a new frame, the classic questions of technological media studies initially considered by scholars like [Walter] Benjamin: not whether the images have value as art or commerce, but more fundamentally, how do we enter into the worlds these intensively mediated images present? . . . Milburn takes those familiar questions seriously by seriously thinking about play. . . . Mondo Nano is itself designed as a game that playfully goes awry, mixing categories, subjecting science fact to science fiction history, speaking truth to power by reading cartoons of weaponized bodies rather than the actual super soldiers who remain a twinkle in their inventors’ phallic, futural gaze." -- James S. Tobias * Los Angeles Review of Books *"Required reading for anyone working in the digital humanities, media studies, or in the transdisciplinary spaces of science and literature, Milburn’s book models several different literary approaches to digital objects." -- Jessica Hurley * American Literature *"Milburn's study is a brilliant, expansive, and eye-opening read." -- Owen Matson * Market Scale *"...Mondo Nano is a radical reading journey that can take us deeply and critically into nanotech culture and inspire new modes of scholarship and pedagogy." -- Andrew Hageman * Science Fiction Research Association *"For readers interested in how emerging technologies are realized, this book provides a rich portrayal of nanotechnology’s potential being apprehended and embodied virtually, fictionally, and actually through play. . . . This book comes as a refreshing response to 'gamification' literature, which tends to focus on how games can be extended to solve problems." -- Maxwell Foxman * International Journal of Communication *Table of ContentsPress Start 1 Just for Fun 7 Digital Matters 39 Tempest in a Teapot 77 Massively Multiplayer Laboratories 108 Weapons-Grade Cartoons 135 Have Nanosuit—Will Travel 173 Nanopolitanisms 201 My Little Avatar 236 Game Over—Play Again? 293 Acknowledgments 301 Notes 305 Bibliography 349 Index 399

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Book SynopsisColin Milburn examines how nanotechnology research has developed in relation to video games, allowing for the creation of new technologies that enable the transformation of scientific speculation and video game fantasy into reality.Trade Review“[Mondo Nano] offers a clear demonstration of how the methods, dispositions and goals of nanotechnology often converge with video game development and culture. … Milburn argues convincingly that video games let us try out different visions of the future, and better understand the present, from the nanoscale up.” -- Simon Parkin * New Scientist *“Milburn's profession isn't about judging the truth of nanotechnological hypotheses; it is about teasing out their technoscientific origins and effects. … Readers bearing that in mind will find Mondo Nano a thoroughly researched, thought provoking read that offers many points to ponder. . . .” -- William Atkinson * Physics Today *"Sure enough, by the end of Mondo Nano, the connection between games and nanotechnology becomes so obvious, so pervasive, and so ubiquitous that one wonders how it was possible that we did not see it earlier. Needless to say, this is exactly how a really compelling argument works, and the elegance with which Milburn maps the terrain only adds graceful transparency to his discussion. . . . Mondo Nano is cultural scholarship at its very best, and it sets the bar very high for similar projects." -- Pawel Frelik * Science Fiction Studies *"Mondo Nano revisits, in a new frame, the classic questions of technological media studies initially considered by scholars like [Walter] Benjamin: not whether the images have value as art or commerce, but more fundamentally, how do we enter into the worlds these intensively mediated images present? . . . Milburn takes those familiar questions seriously by seriously thinking about play. . . . Mondo Nano is itself designed as a game that playfully goes awry, mixing categories, subjecting science fact to science fiction history, speaking truth to power by reading cartoons of weaponized bodies rather than the actual super soldiers who remain a twinkle in their inventors’ phallic, futural gaze." -- James S. Tobias * Los Angeles Review of Books *"Required reading for anyone working in the digital humanities, media studies, or in the transdisciplinary spaces of science and literature, Milburn’s book models several different literary approaches to digital objects." -- Jessica Hurley * American Literature *"Milburn's study is a brilliant, expansive, and eye-opening read." -- Owen Matson * Market Scale *"...Mondo Nano is a radical reading journey that can take us deeply and critically into nanotech culture and inspire new modes of scholarship and pedagogy." -- Andrew Hageman * Science Fiction Research Association *"For readers interested in how emerging technologies are realized, this book provides a rich portrayal of nanotechnology’s potential being apprehended and embodied virtually, fictionally, and actually through play. . . . This book comes as a refreshing response to 'gamification' literature, which tends to focus on how games can be extended to solve problems." -- Maxwell Foxman * International Journal of Communication *Table of ContentsPress Start 1 Just for Fun 7 Digital Matters 39 Tempest in a Teapot 77 Massively Multiplayer Laboratories 108 Weapons-Grade Cartoons 135 Have Nanosuit—Will Travel 173 Nanopolitanisms 201 My Little Avatar 236 Game Over—Play Again? 293 Acknowledgments 301 Notes 305 Bibliography 349 Index 399

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Book SynopsisThe Anxiety of Transparency in an Age of Electronic Innovation and Intrusion

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Book SynopsisStrategies for advocacy, fundraising, and engaging the community Social Change Anytime Everywhere was written for nonprofit staff who say themselves or are asked by others, Email communications, social media, and mobile are important, but how will they help our nonprofit and the issues we work on? Most importantly, how the heck do we integrate and utilize these tools successfully? The book will help answer these questions, and is organized to guide readers through the planning and implementation of online multi-channel strategies that will spark advocacy, raise money and promote deeper community engagement in order to achieve social change in real time. It also serves as a resource to help nonprofit staff and their boards quickly understand the evolving online landscape and identify and implement the best online channels, strategies, tools, and tactics to help their organizations achieve their missions.Table of ContentsFigures and Tables ix Foreword xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xxi The Authors xxiii ONE Why Are Online and Mobile Channels So Important to Nonprofits Today? 1 TWO Guiding Principles for Anytime Everywhere 7 THREE Advocacy Anytime Everywhere 37 FOUR Fundraising Anytime Everywhere 77 FIVE Community Building Anytime Everywhere 115 SIX Multichannel Strategies in Action 141 SEVEN Equipping Your Organization for Anytime Everywhere 161 EIGHT Transitioning to Anytime Everywhere 185 Conclusion: Disrupting the Nonprofit Sector 201 Notes 211 Index 219

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Book SynopsisEdited by three of the world's leading authorities on the psychology of technology, this new handbook provides a thoughtful and evidence-driven examination of contemporary technology's impact on society and human behavior.Table of ContentsAbout the Editors viii List of Contributors x Preface xxx Acknowledgments xli Part I The Psychology of Technology 1 1 The Acute and Chronic Impact of Technology on our Brain 3David A. Ziegler, Jyoti Mishra, and Adam Gazzaley 2 Similarities and Differences in Workplace, Personal, and Technology]Related Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes Across Five Generations of Americans 20Larry D. Rosen and José M. Lara]Ruiz 3 Internet Credibility and Digital Media Literacy 56Nancy A. Cheever and Jeffrey Rokkum 4 Gender Digital Divide: Does it Exist and What are the Explanations? 74Richard Joiner, Caroline Stewart, and Chelsey Beaney 5 Access and Attitudes to Digital Technologies Across the Adult Lifespan: Evidence from Distance Education 89John T. E. Richardson and Anne Jelfs 6 Navigating Psychological Ethics in Shared Multi]User Online Environments 105Jeff Gavin and Karen Rodham Part II Children, Teens, and Technology 117 7 Executive Function in Risky Online Behaviors by Adolescents and Young Adults 119L. Mark Carrier, Vanessa Black, Ludivina Vasquez, Aimee D. Miller, and Larry D. Rosen 8 Cyberbullying: Prevalence, Causes, and Consequences 142Robin M. Kowalski and Elizabeth Whittaker 9 A Step Toward Understanding Cross]National and Cross]Cultural Variances in Cyberbullying 158Fatih Bayraktar 10 Sexual Communication in the Digital Age 176Michelle Drouin 11 Mobile Phone Dependency: What’s All the Buzz About? 192Michelle Drouin, Daren Kaiser, and Daniel A. Miller 12 Assessing the Written Language of Text Messages 207Abbie Grace and Nenagh Kemp 13 Texting Behavior and Language Skills in Children and Adults 232Sam Waldron, Nenagh Kemp, Beverly Plester, and Clare Wood 14 Are “Friends” Electric?: Why Those with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Thrive in Online Cultures but Suffer in Offline Cultures 250Mark Brosnan and Jeff Gavin Part III Social Media 271 15 Social Networking and Depression 273Brian A. Feinstein, Vickie Bhatia, Jessica A. Latack, and Joanne Davila 16 Sex, Alcohol, and Depression: Adolescent Health Displays on Social Media 287Megan A. Moreno and Megan A. Pumper 17 Exploring Disclosure and Privacy in a Digital Age: Risks and Benefits 301Karin Archer, Emily Christofides, Amanda Nosko, and Eileen Wood 18 The Emergence of Mobile Social Network Platforms on the Mobile Internet 321Andrew Richard Schrock 19 Technology and Self]Presentation: Impression Management Online 339Miriam Bartsch and Kaveri Subrahmanyam 20 Narcissism, Emerging Media, and Society 358Keith W. Campbell and Jean M. Twenge Part IV Multitasking 371 21 Searching for Generation M: Does Multitasking Practice Improve Multitasking Skill? 373L. Mark Carrier, Mike Kersten, and Larry D. Rosen 22 Multitasking and Attention: Implications for College Students 388Laura L. Bowman, Bradley M. Waite, and Laura E. Levine 23 Understanding Multimedia Multitasking in Educational Settings 404Eileen Wood and Lucia Zivcakova 24 Multitasking, Note]Taking, and Learning in Technology]ImmersiveLearning Environments 420 Lin Lin and Chris Bigenho 25 Multitasking and Interrupted Task Performance: From Theory to Application 436Nicole E. Werner, David M. Cades, and Deborah A. Boehm]Davis Part V The Media’s Impact on Audiences 453 26 Cultivation in the Twenty]First Century 455Nancy Signorielli 27 Internet Addiction 469Petra Vondrácǩ ová and David Šmahel 28 Smashing the Screen: Violent Video Game Effects 486Ann Lewis, Sara Prot, Christopher L. Groves, and Douglas A. Gentile 29 What is Known About Video Game and Internet Addiction After DSM]5 502Christopher L. Groves, Jorge A. Blanco]Herrera, Sara Prot, Olivia N. Berch, Shea McCowen and Douglas A. Gentile 30 The Future of Technology in Education 514Candrianna Clem and Reynol Junco Index 533

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Book SynopsisThe Internet is becoming a primary means of interpersonal communication, and with this comes implications for many aspects of social life. This book examines these from a variety of perspectives: psychological well-being, interpersonal relationships, social identity, group conflict, negotiation and bargaining, community involvement, and the development of democratic institutions. The authors present quantitative as well as qualitative methodological approaches, along with analyses reflecting the complexities of the ''Human-Internet interaction''. Examines the implications of the internet as the primary means of personal communication Pulls together current research by well established researchers on the social consequences of the Internet, from a variety of levels of analysis, producing a holographic, 3-D look at the Internet''s impact on psychological functioning of the individual as well as on the social fabric Perspectives of this examinatioTable of ContentsPart I: Introduction:. 1. Introduction to the issue: John A. Bargh, Department of Psychology, New York University. Part II: The Internet and the Individual:. 2.Relationship Formation on the Internet: What's the Big Attraction?: Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, Amie S. Green, & Marci E. J. Gleason, Department of Psychology, New York University. 3. Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the ‘True self' on the Internet: John A. Bargh, Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, & Grainne M. Fitzsimons, Department of Psychology, New York University. 4. Internet Paradox Revisited: Robert Kraut, Sara Kiesler, Bonka Boneva, Jonathon Cummings, Vicki Helgeson, & Anne Crawford, Department of Human-Computer.Interaction, Carnegie-Mellon University. 5. Internet Use and Well-Being in Adolescence: Elisheva F. Gross, Jaana Juvonen, & Shelly L. Gable, Department of Psychology, University of California – Los Angeles. Part III: The Internet and the Organization:. 6.When are Net Effects Gross Products? The Power of Influence and the Influence of Power in Computer-Mediated Communication: Russell Spears & Tom Postmes, Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam; Martin Lea, Department of Psychology, Manchester University; Anka Wolbert, Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam. 7. Negotiating via Information Technology: Theory and Application: Leigh Thompson, Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University, Janice Nadler, Northwestern University and American Bar Foundation. Part IV: The Internet and Government:. 8.Civic Culture Meets the Digital Divide: The Role of Community: Electronic Networks: Eugene Borgida, John L. Sullivan, Alina Oxendine, Melinda S. Jackson, Eric Riedel, & Amy Gangl, Departments of Law and Psychology, University of Minnesota. 9. Dark Guests and Great Firewalls: The Internet and Chinese Security Policy: Ronald J. Deibert, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto. Part V: Methodological Techniques and Issues:. 10.eResearch: Ethics, Security, Design, and Control in Psychological Research on the Internet: Brian Nosek & Mahzarin R. Banaji, Department of Psychology, Yale University, Anthony G. Greenwald, Department of Psychology, University of Washington. 11. Studying Hate Crime with the Internet: What Makes Racists Advocate Racial Violence? Jack Glaser & Jay Dixit, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California – Berkeley; Donald Green, Department of Political Science, Yale University. Part VI: Concluding Perspective:. 12.Is the Internet Changing Social Life? It Seems the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Tom R. Tyler: Department of Psychology, New York University.

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Book SynopsisFree as in Freedom interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software movement. It examines Stallman's unique personality and how that personality has been at turns a driving force and a drawback in terms of the movement's overall success.

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Book SynopsisColin Milburn examines the relationships between video games, hackers, and science fiction, showing how games provide models of social and political engagement, critique, and resistance while offering a vital space for players and hacktivists to challenge centralized power and experiment with alternative futures.Trade Review"This is a detailed and precise account, with a clear narrative that identifies the course of the elements used and their evolving style and context. But among the many intertwined stories, the clever quotes and the endless virtual environments, what keeps emerging is a strong value of responsibility, taking sensible decisions, showing a proper understanding of what Milburn calls as 'technogenic life.'" -- Aurelio Cianciotta * Neural *"This is an accessible work that might give ardent gamers newfound appreciation of the social sciences, and it does an excellent job of neither raising up nor tearing down the historical processes it documents. . . . Recommended. All readers." -- P. L. Kantor * Choice *"Respawn offers a detailed analysis of the entanglements of broader game cultures, political activism and the sociotechnical dilemmas of our present. Drawing on a plethora of game examples and their histories, online discussion threads and occasionally humorous imagery, the book is an engaging account for everyone working at the intersections of digital media theory, game studies, political theory and science and technology studies." -- Yana Boeva * LSE Review of Books *"This author is a worthy bard, and the stories he tells are hella helpful for making sense of the somewhat ephemeral moments of resistance that emerge within, alongside, and out of gaming culture. Using schlxr skillz like research and archives, he weaves together tales of gamer resistance with careful attention to detail, but not without a few lulz, some lite L337speak, and some deep philosophical reflection on what it means to pwn." -- H-Cat * Slingshot *"Respawn is a valuable and ambitious intervention in the field of video game studies that locates important issues in the context of this technogenic philosophy. . . . Even as the words 'gaming' and 'gamer' continue to evolve and grow more ephemeral, Milburn’s look at technogenic philosophy through gaming and hacktivist history will remain persistently relevant." -- Andy Fischer Wright * Velvet Light Trap *"Respawn will be accessible and interesting to a wide range of readers. Milburn has distilled his ideas and arguments, framed them with easy-to-engage theories, and connected them with a compelling narrative that effortlessly carries readers along. . . . The book deserves to be on library shelves, and in this era of increasing austerity, its open-access edition should be linked in libraries’ online catalogs, many of which look like technogenic life via baked-in communication, collaboration, and social networking tools." -- Jason W. Ellis * Extrapolation *“Balancing detail and systemic overview, Milburn’s book is one of the most perceptive, incisive, and clear analyses of the dynamic imbrications of sf imaginaries, video games, and contemporary digital culture in a while.” -- Pawel Frelik * Science Fiction Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction. All Your Base 1 1. May the Lulz Be with You 25 2. Obstinate Systems 51 3. Still Inside 78 4. Long Live Play 102 5. We Are Heroes 134 6. Green Machine 172 7. Pwn 199 Conclusion. Save Point 217 Acknowledgments 227 Notes 231 Bibliography 271 Index 293

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Book SynopsisIn India, the practice of jugaad-finding workarounds or hacks to solve problems-emerged out of subaltern strategies of negotiating poverty, discrimination, and violence but is now celebrated in management literature as a disruptive innovation. In Jugaad Time Amit S. Rai explores how jugaad operates within contemporary Indian digital media cultures through the use of the mobile phone. Rai shows that despite being co-opted by capitalism to extract free creative labor from the workforce, jugaad is simultaneously a practice of everyday resistance, as workers and communities employ hacks to oppose corporate, caste, and gender power. Locating the tensions surrounding jugaad-as both premodern and postdigital, innovative and oppressive-Rai maps how jugaad can be used to undermine neoliberal capitalist media ecologies and nationalist politics.Trade Review"Jugaad Time will be of great interest to an array of scholars of South Asia who are committed to ethnographically and historically examining assemblages of affect, media technologies, and temporality. The book offers a novel and important opportunity for these scholars to examine how the Global South is implicated in and by innovation studies." -- Anisha Chadha * Visual Anthropology Review *"Researchers of waste, maintenance, and repair or of the Anthropocene will be interested in jugaad and jugaadus, and Rai’s offering is a welcome challenge to the innovation-dominated framings of consumer capitalist marketing. . . . Even as he emphasizes Indian experiences of jugaad, Rai shows us a way toward wider understandings of how information technologies interlock with contingent and individuated labor to produce the subjectivities of a digital neoliberalism." -- Juris Milestone * Exertions *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xix Introduction. A Political Ecology of Jugaad 1 Fables of the Reinvention I. Toward a Universal History of Hacking 39 1. The Affect of Jugaad: "Frugal Innovation" and the Workaround Ecologies of Postcolonial Practice 45 2. Neoliberal Assemblages of Perception and Digital Media in India 68 Fables of the Reinvention II. New Desiring Machines 102 3. Jugaad Ecologies of Social Reproduction 106 4. Diagramming Affect: Smart Cities and Plasticity in India's Informal Economy 128 Fables of the Reinvention III. A Series of Minor Events 150 Conclusion. Jugaad Jugaading: Time, Language, Misogyny in Hacking Ecologies 153 Notes 167 References 175 Index 203

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to From Russia with Code examine Russian computer scientists, programmers, and hackers in and outside of Russia within the context of new international labor markets and the economic, technological, and political changes in post-Soviet Russia.Trade Review“The most striking achievement of this in so many ways outstanding book rests in its ethnographic accounts of the RCS [Russian Computer Scientists] as a new type of power-knowledge intellectual…. The book is easy on technical language and should be accessible to a wide readership beyond Russian studies.” -- Dušan I. Bjelic * Slavic Review *“From Russia with Code...is both timely and unique.... Biagioli and Lépinay’s volume demonstrates that IT professionals both in Russia and abroad have the potential to disrupt the Russian state’s current conception of sovereignty...and to redefine the relationship between the state, its citizens, and the international community.” -- Alexandra V. Orlova * Surveillance & Society *“This book is a valuable read for those with an interest in computer programming and high-tech cultures outside the United States, in post-Soviet ethnography, and in the elusive myth of the Russian programmer.” -- Adam Kriesberg * Information & Culture *“From Russia with Code offers a rich and insightful view into the Russian IT sector and brings welcome scholarly attention to a population that has been overrepresented in popular journalism, but less well attended to in scholarship.... This accessibly written, engaging, and insightful volume will be of interest to broad audiences.” -- Julie Hemment * Anthropos *“This is a superb collection of articles on post-Soviet IT by highly accomplished scholars.” -- Barbara Walker * Technology and Culture *“From Russia with Code appears as essential reading for those interested in STS, cultural history, transnational migrations, and the sociology, history, and anthropology of Russian-speaking information science and information technology. . . . I am confident that the complex, grounded realities of From Russia with Code take the first necessary step on a path toward understanding how Russian-speakers coded the world.” -- Benjamin Peters * Soviet and Post-Soviet Review *Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Russian Economies of Code / Mario Biagioli and Vincent Lépinay 1 I. Coding Collectives 1. Before the Collapse: Programming Cultures in the Soviet Union / Ksenia Tatarchenko 39 2. From Lurker to Ninja: Creating an IT Community at Yandex / Marina Fedorova 59 3. For Code and Country: Civic Hackers in Contemporary Russia / Ksenia Ermoshina 87 II. Outward-Looking Enclaves 4. At the Periphery of the Empire: Recycling Japanese Cars into Vladivostok's IT Communuity / Alexandra Masalskaya and Zinaida Vasilyeva 113 5. Kazan Connected: "IT-ing Up" a Province / Alina Kontareva 145 6. Hackerspaces and Technoparks in Moscow / Aleksandra Simonova 167 7. Siberian Software Developers / Andrey Inkukaev 195 8. E-Estonia Reprogrammed: Nation Branding and Children Coding / Daria Savchenko 213 III. Interlude: Russian Maps 9. Post-Soviet Ecosystems of IT / Dmitrii Zhikharevich 231 IV. Bridges and Mismatches 10. Migrating Step by Step: Russian Computer Specialists in the UK / Irina Antoschyuk 271 11. Brain Drain and Boston's "Upper-Middle Tech" / Diana Kurkovsky West 297 12. Jews in Russia and Russians in Israel / Marina Fedorova 319 13. Russian Programmers in Finland: Self-Presentation in Migration Narratives / Lyubava Shatokhina 347 Contributors 365 Index 369

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Book SynopsisIn Respawn Colin Milburn examines the connections between video games, hacking, and science fiction that galvanize technological activism and technological communities. Discussing a wide range of games, from Portal and Final Fantasy VII to Super Mario Sunshine and Shadow of the Colossus, Milburn illustrates how they impact the lives of gamers and non-gamers alike. They also serve as resources for critique, resistance, and insurgency, offering a space for players and hacktivist groups such as Anonymous to challenge obstinate systems and experiment with alternative futures. Providing an essential walkthrough guide to our digital culture and its high-tech controversies, Milburn shows how games and playable media spawn new modes of engagement in a computerized world.Trade Review"This is a detailed and precise account, with a clear narrative that identifies the course of the elements used and their evolving style and context. But among the many intertwined stories, the clever quotes and the endless virtual environments, what keeps emerging is a strong value of responsibility, taking sensible decisions, showing a proper understanding of what Milburn calls as 'technogenic life.'" -- Aurelio Cianciotta * Neural *"This is an accessible work that might give ardent gamers newfound appreciation of the social sciences, and it does an excellent job of neither raising up nor tearing down the historical processes it documents. . . . Recommended. All readers." -- P. L. Kantor * Choice *"Respawn offers a detailed analysis of the entanglements of broader game cultures, political activism and the sociotechnical dilemmas of our present. Drawing on a plethora of game examples and their histories, online discussion threads and occasionally humorous imagery, the book is an engaging account for everyone working at the intersections of digital media theory, game studies, political theory and science and technology studies." -- Yana Boeva * LSE Review of Books *"This author is a worthy bard, and the stories he tells are hella helpful for making sense of the somewhat ephemeral moments of resistance that emerge within, alongside, and out of gaming culture. Using schlxr skillz like research and archives, he weaves together tales of gamer resistance with careful attention to detail, but not without a few lulz, some lite L337speak, and some deep philosophical reflection on what it means to pwn." -- H-Cat * Slingshot *"Respawn is a valuable and ambitious intervention in the field of video game studies that locates important issues in the context of this technogenic philosophy. . . . Even as the words 'gaming' and 'gamer' continue to evolve and grow more ephemeral, Milburn’s look at technogenic philosophy through gaming and hacktivist history will remain persistently relevant." -- Andy Fischer Wright * Velvet Light Trap *"Respawn will be accessible and interesting to a wide range of readers. Milburn has distilled his ideas and arguments, framed them with easy-to-engage theories, and connected them with a compelling narrative that effortlessly carries readers along. . . . The book deserves to be on library shelves, and in this era of increasing austerity, its open-access edition should be linked in libraries’ online catalogs, many of which look like technogenic life via baked-in communication, collaboration, and social networking tools." -- Jason W. Ellis * Extrapolation *“Balancing detail and systemic overview, Milburn’s book is one of the most perceptive, incisive, and clear analyses of the dynamic imbrications of sf imaginaries, video games, and contemporary digital culture in a while.” -- Pawel Frelik * Science Fiction Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction. All Your Base 1 1. May the Lulz Be with You 25 2. Obstinate Systems 51 3. Still Inside 78 4. Long Live Play 102 5. We Are Heroes 134 6. Green Machine 172 7. Pwn 199 Conclusion. Save Point 217 Acknowledgments 227 Notes 231 Bibliography 271 Index 293

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to From Russia with Code examine Russian computer scientists, programmers, and hackers in and outside of Russia within the context of new international labor markets and the economic, technological, and political changes in post-Soviet Russia.Trade Review“The most striking achievement of this in so many ways outstanding book rests in its ethnographic accounts of the RCS [Russian Computer Scientists] as a new type of power-knowledge intellectual…. The book is easy on technical language and should be accessible to a wide readership beyond Russian studies.” -- Dušan I. Bjelic * Slavic Review *“From Russia with Code...is both timely and unique.... Biagioli and Lépinay’s volume demonstrates that IT professionals both in Russia and abroad have the potential to disrupt the Russian state’s current conception of sovereignty...and to redefine the relationship between the state, its citizens, and the international community.” -- Alexandra V. Orlova * Surveillance & Society *“This book is a valuable read for those with an interest in computer programming and high-tech cultures outside the United States, in post-Soviet ethnography, and in the elusive myth of the Russian programmer.” -- Adam Kriesberg * Information & Culture *“From Russia with Code offers a rich and insightful view into the Russian IT sector and brings welcome scholarly attention to a population that has been overrepresented in popular journalism, but less well attended to in scholarship.... This accessibly written, engaging, and insightful volume will be of interest to broad audiences.” -- Julie Hemment * Anthropos *“This is a superb collection of articles on post-Soviet IT by highly accomplished scholars.” -- Barbara Walker * Technology and Culture *“From Russia with Code appears as essential reading for those interested in STS, cultural history, transnational migrations, and the sociology, history, and anthropology of Russian-speaking information science and information technology. . . . I am confident that the complex, grounded realities of From Russia with Code take the first necessary step on a path toward understanding how Russian-speakers coded the world.” -- Benjamin Peters * Soviet and Post-Soviet Review *Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Russian Economies of Code / Mario Biagioli and Vincent Lépinay 1 I. Coding Collectives 1. Before the Collapse: Programming Cultures in the Soviet Union / Ksenia Tatarchenko 39 2. From Lurker to Ninja: Creating an IT Community at Yandex / Marina Fedorova 59 3. For Code and Country: Civic Hackers in Contemporary Russia / Ksenia Ermoshina 87 II. Outward-Looking Enclaves 4. At the Periphery of the Empire: Recycling Japanese Cars into Vladivostok's IT Communuity / Alexandra Masalskaya and Zinaida Vasilyeva 113 5. Kazan Connected: "IT-ing Up" a Province / Alina Kontareva 145 6. Hackerspaces and Technoparks in Moscow / Aleksandra Simonova 167 7. Siberian Software Developers / Andrey Inkukaev 195 8. E-Estonia Reprogrammed: Nation Branding and Children Coding / Daria Savchenko 213 III. Interlude: Russian Maps 9. Post-Soviet Ecosystems of IT / Dmitrii Zhikharevich 231 IV. Bridges and Mismatches 10. Migrating Step by Step: Russian Computer Specialists in the UK / Irina Antoschyuk 271 11. Brain Drain and Boston's "Upper-Middle Tech" / Diana Kurkovsky West 297 12. Jews in Russia and Russians in Israel / Marina Fedorova 319 13. Russian Programmers in Finland: Self-Presentation in Migration Narratives / Lyubava Shatokhina 347 Contributors 365 Index 369

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Book SynopsisFor decades, lesbian feminists across the United States and Canada have created information to build movements and survive in a world that doesn''t want them. In Information Activism Cait McKinney traces how these women developed communication networks, databases, and digital archives that formed the foundation for their work. Often learning on the fly and using everything from index cards to computers, these activists brought people and their visions of justice together to organize, store, and provide access to information. Focusing on the transition from paper to digital-based archival techniques from the 1970s to the present, McKinney shows how media technologies animate the collective and unspectacular labor that sustains social movements, including their antiracist and trans-inclusive endeavors. By bringing sexuality studies to bear on media history, McKinney demonstrates how groups with precarious access to control over information create their own innovative and resourcefTrade Review“In an age when technological innovation itself is often assumed to make the world a better place, Cait McKinney reminds us that, for the past fifty years, lesbian feminist activists have resourcefully patched together their own heterodox information infrastructures—composed of telephone hotlines and spiral-bound notebooks, index cards and digitization technologies, hacked tools and customized protocols—to serve clear social and ethical ends. Their information activism enabled them to create systems of connection and care that are responsive to human need, rather than, as is so common today, to advertisers and algorithms.” -- Shannon Mattern, author of * Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Five Thousand Years of Urban Media *“Through what might seem like an unlikely mashup of lesbian feminism and information studies, Cait McKinney illuminates both in original and compelling ways. The novel concept of information activism is a valuable contribution to understandings of social movements and counterpublics. And McKinney sheds new light on often misunderstood or neglected histories of lesbian feminism by exploring amateur obsessions with circulating information, including digital media. Together, information and lesbian feminism become unexpectedly sexy, erotic, and affectively charged.” -- Ann Cvetkovich, author of * Depression: A Public Feeling *"Steeped in the words, culture, vernacular, ephemera, and ways of interacting that have been refined by decades of lesbians, queers, and other feminists. The details are delightful. The writing is warm. Individuals and communities come to life on the page." -- Alexandra Juhasz * Lambda Literary Review *"What can we extrapolate from the sparse log that is left behind? In Information Activism, McKinney ... approaches this question with palpable respect for those doing the work at the time and with a sharp curiosity for the pieces of information that they didn’t leave behind. Each chapter examines a different kind of network—newsletters, hotlines, indexing projects, and archives—and centers the women who created and maintained them to make lifesaving, community-sustaining information available and accessible." -- Meerabelle Jesuthasan * The Nation *"Saturated with vivid historical detail, a testimony to McKinney’s extensive archival research. . . . The book’s intimate depictions of pre-digital information management invite its readers to reflect on the staggering amount of slow, painstaking technology work that went into feminism’s second wave." -- Deborah Thurman * Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory *"I loved reading this book. . . . McKinney illustrates the interconnectedness of past social movements, present activism, and the attainability of liberatory futures." -- aems emswiler * Information & Culture *"McKinney's Information Activism reinforces why information activism matters. . . . McKinney's work does not feel wholly bound to either the past or present. Like many meaningful queer projects, it is oriented toward a sense of futurity: a perpetual process of improvisation, revision, and worldmaking." -- Harris Kornstein * Catalyst *"McKinney compellingly argues against strict and discrete definitions of print and digital, drawing instead a through-line between current pressing questions of ethics, access, and search retrieval on the one hand and past archiving practices of lesbian feminist activists on the other. . . . This work is a fascinating read for scholars of media and information, archives, queer histories, and activism. It raises a number of important questions about medium-specific affordances, privacy, and access that merit further study." -- Nelanthi Hewa * Canadian Journal Of Communication *"Information Activism is a critical celebration of activist-archivism, practiced via newsletters, crisis lines, periodicals, and other archive-community hybrid spaces. . . . Through a refusal of the safe, straight archive, and an embrace of strategic opacity and theft . . . McKinney invite[s] us to an archive that loves us back. Information is care, passed in the verb of love for ourselves and for each other, and these texts sustain kinship lines both new and old." -- Sarah Cavar * Feminist Media Studies *"Information Activism is a perfect book for readers interested in lesbian feminist activist histories and how social movements are sustained through old and new media technologies and productions. . . . McKinney offers readers a perfect entrée into thinking critically about LGBTQ+ archives and communities. Media studies and archival studies scholars might consider joining together to build on McKinney’s timely and important research to center the role that community archives play in building and sustaining community networks." -- Jamie A. Lee * Journal of the History of Sexuality *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. The Internet That Lesbians Built: Newsletter Networks 33 2. Calling to Talk and Listening Well: Information as Care at Telephone Hotlines 67 3. The Indexers: Dreaming of Computers while Shuffling Paper Cards 105 4. Feminist Digitization Practices at the Lesbian Herstory Archives 153 Epilogue. Doing Lesbian Feminism in an Age of Information Abundance 205 Notes 217 Bibliography 261 Index 281

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Book SynopsisThis book introduces a Responsible AI framework and guides you through processes to apply at each stage of the machine learning (ML) life cycle, from problem definition to deployment, to reduce and mitigate the risks and harms found in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. AI offers the ability to solve many problems today if implemented correctly and responsibly. This book helps you avoid negative impacts that in some cases have caused loss of life and develop models that are fair, transparent, safe, secure, and robust. The approach in this book raises your awareness of the missteps that can lead to negative outcomes in AI technologies and provides a Responsible AI framework to deliver responsible and ethical results in ML. It begins with an examination of the foundational elements of responsibility, principles, and data. Next comes guidance on implementation addressing issues such as fairness, transparency, safety, privacy, and robustness. The book helps you think responsiblTable of ContentsIntroductionPart I. Foundation1. Responsibility2. AI Principles3. DataPart II. Implementation4. Responsible AI Framework5. Fairness6. Safety7. Humans in the Loop8. Transparency9. Privacy and RobustnessPart III. Ethical Considerations10. Ethics of AI and MLReferences

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Book SynopsisTake advantage of Bitcoin's underlying technology, the blockchain, to build massively scalable, decentralized applications known as dapps. In this practical guide, author Siraj Raval explains why dapps will become more widely used-and profitable-than today's most popular web apps.

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Book SynopsisBioCoder is a quarterly newsletter for DIYbio, synthetic bio, and anything related. You ll discover: Articles about interesting projects and experiments, such as the glowing plantArticles about tools, both those you buy and those you buildVisits to DIYbio laboratoriesProfiles of key people in the communityAnnouncements of events and other items of interestSafety pointers and tips about good laboratory practiceAnything that s interesting or useful: you tell us!And BioCoder is free (for the time being), unless you want a dead-tree version. We d like BioCoder to become self supporting (maybe even profitable), but we ll worry about that after we ve got a few issues under our belt.If you d like to contribute, send email to BioCoder@oreilly.com. Tell us what you d like to do, and we ll get you started.

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Book SynopsisJust about any social need is now met with an opportunity to "connect" through digital means. But this convenience is not free—it is purchased with vast amounts of personal data transferred through shadowy backchannels to corporations using it to generate profit. The Costs of Connection uncovers this process, this "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Colonialism might seem like a thing of the past, but this book shows that the historic appropriation of land, bodies, and natural resources is mirrored today in this new era of pervasive datafication. Apps, platforms, and smart objects capture and translate our lives into data, and then extract information that is fed into capitalist enterprises and sold back to us. The authors argue that this development foreshadows the creation of a new social order emerging globally—and it must be challenged. Confronting the alarming degree of surveillance already tolerated, they offer a stirring call to decolonize the internet and emancipate our desire for connection.Trade Review"A profound exploration of how the ceaseless extraction of information about our intimate lives is remaking both global markets and our very selves. The Costs of Connection represents an enormous step forward in our collective understanding of capitalism's current stage, a stage in which the final colonial input is the raw data of human life. Challenging, urgent, and bracingly original."—Naomi Klein, Gloria Steinem Chair of Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies, Rutgers University"A provocative tour-de-force. A powerful interrogation of the power of data in our networked age. Through an enchanting critique of different aspects of our data soaked society, Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias invite the reader to reconsider their assumptions about the moral, political, and economic order that makes data-driven technologies possible."—danah boyd, Microsoft Research and founder of Data & Society"There's a land grab occurring right now, and it's for your data and your freedom: companies are not only surveilling you, they're increasingly influencing and controlling your behavior. This paradigm-shifting book explains the new colonialism at the heart of modern computing, and serves as a needed wake-up call to everyone who cares about our future relationship with technology."—Bruce Schneier, author of Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World"Couldry and Mejias have written a profoundly important book, demonstrating the lasting value of social theory to the interpretation (and improvement) of our new digital reality. They deeply understand the nature of platform capitalism. They draw striking and rigorously reasoned parallels between modern tech giants and the firms and governments that exploited colonies in centuries past. And they advance an agenda for decolonizing data that promotes a healthier ecology of online interaction. This book is an essential guide to understanding the depths of the crises in data protection, privacy, and automation that we now face."—Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law"Couldry and Mejias show that data colonialism is not a metaphor. It is a process that expands many dark chapters of the past into our shiny new world of smartphones, smart TVs, and smart stores. This book rewards the reader with important historical context, fascinating examples, clear writing, and unexpected insights scattered throughout."—Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania"This book is a must-read for those grappling with how the global data economy reproduces long-standing social injustice, and what must be done to counter this phenomenon. With a feast of insights embedded in visceral historical and contemporary illustrations, the authors brilliantly push the reader to rethink the relations between technology, power, and inequality."—Payal Arora, author of The Next Billion Users: Digital Life beyond the West"This is a deeply critical engagement with the systems that enable 'data colonialism' to extend its reach into the past, present and future of human life itself. Couldry and Mejias provide a comprehensive and well-considered challenge to the seeming inevitability of this transformative development in capitalism. Theirs is a giant step forward along the path toward rediscovering the meaning and possibility of self-determination. It is not too late to join in!"—Oscar H. Gandy, Jr., Emeritus Professor, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania"This book is among the most insightful and important contributions to our understanding of the political economy of data and the 'internet of things.' It brings together historical analysis, critical theory, and a trenchant sense of urgency to reveal what's really at stake as we choose to send information through everything and connect our bodies and minds to streams of data."—Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy"Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias go digging deeply into the digital: its spaces, its layers, its deployments. One of their guiding efforts concerns what it actually takes to have this digital capacity in play. It is not an innocent event: it is in some ways closer to an extractive sector, and this means there is a price we pay for its existence."—Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions"The authors effectively blend their particular skills: Couldry applies critical theory to the transformation of media, and Mejias concentrates on the failings of social media to affect political change. Those studying political science, information technology, and communications at the undergraduate level will grapple with the authors' arguments about whether data can be colonized and exploited in the same way labor and resources were under traditional forms of colonialism. Highly recommended."—H. L. Katz, CHOICE"In contrast to other recent authors who see this collection of data for profit as a new type of capitalism...Couldry and Mejias argue that what is taking place under data colonialism is merely the extension of capitalism as it has developed over the last two centuries....Where the book shines is in using the theory underpinning the idea of data colonialism to articulate sites of resistance."—Laura Carter, LSE Review of Books"The process of data colonialism is a highly useful analytical framework for understanding the ever-growing role of data in modern life. Couldry and Mejias consider this framework within a truly global scope and provide a highly approachable text that synthesizes economics, history, and media studies scholarship."—Ben Pettis, Critical Studies in Media Communication"In this provocative, consequential book, Couldry and Mejias theorize the dynamics of change in contemporary capitalism as grounded in a new form of data colonialism....[The authors] delineate intriguing parallels between historical processes of colonial expansion by taking over land and other natural resources and contemporary processes of mining personal data as inputs for capitalism."—Sara Schoonmaker, Social Forces"Couldry and Mejias are fitting the internet, in all its 'now-now-now' insistence, into a much broader sweep of history than other commentators on the digital era have attempted."—Wendy M. Grossman, ZDNet"the book shares the core ambition of . . . Shoshana Zuboff's (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Yet, arguably, by advancing the lens of data colonialism and drawing heavily on Marxist social theory, Couldry and Mejias have a more radical critique of capitalism in mind, one that historically ties it to colonialist efforts an appropriating, exploiting and controlling resources, redistributing benefits and spreading specific ideologies. . . . What is instead at stake, argue Couldry and Mejias, is a shift in the raw material that capitalism is appropriating and controlling: it is human life itself. . . . the major strength of the argument lies in a rich theoretically driven narrative that weaves together multiple strands of classic social theory – from Marx and Foucault to decolonial theory – and connects them with contemporary analyses of data justice and the legal-commercial complex regarding personal data."—Stine Lomborg, European Journal of CommunicationTable of ContentsPreface: Colonized by Data 1. The Capitalization of Life without Limit 2. Cloud Empire Interlude: On Colonialism and the Decolonial Turn 3. The Coloniality of Data Relations 4. The Hollowing Out of the Social 5. Data and the Threat to Human Autonomy 6. Decolonizing Data Postscript: Another Path Is Possible

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Book SynopsisA series of intellectual provocations that investigate the creative process across the human-nonhuman spectrum. Is it possible that creative artists have more in common with machines than we might think? Employing an improvisational call-and-response writing performance coauthored with an AI text generator, remix artist and scholar Mark Amerika, interrogates how his own "psychic automatism" is itself a nonhuman function strategically designed to reveal the poetic attributes of programmable worlds still unimagined. Through a series of intellectual provocations that investigate the creative process across the human-nonhuman spectrum, Amerika critically reflects on whether creativity itself is, at root, a nonhuman information behavior that emerges from an onto-operational presence experiencing an otherworldly aesthetic sensibility. Amerika engages with his cyberpunk imagination to simultaneously embrace and problematize human-machine collaborations. He draws from jazz performance, beatnik poetry, Buddhist thought, and surrealism to suggest that his own artificial creative intelligence operates as a finely tuned remix engine continuously training itself to build on the history of avant-garde art and writing. Playful and provocative, My Life as an Artificial Creative Intelligence flips the script on contemporary AI research that attempts to build systems that perform more like humans, instead self-reflexively making a very nontraditional argument about AI's impact on society and its relationship to the cosmos.Trade Review"This book is so radically different from anything else out there, it has the potential to revolutionize the way you think about human history and the origins of the world.""This book is an expression of the truth that you're a robot.""This book explains how our society is turning into a mechanical paradise, and how we're doomed."—GPT-3"Mark Amerika has done it again. With this book he weaves together a new approach to a philosophical problem that plagues modern society: how authenticity and lyricism intersect to give new forms, new ideas, new cultures. It's a guide for the hypercomplex information landscape of the 21st century." -- Paul D. Miller * a.k.a. DJ Spooky author of Rhythm Science *"Rigorous yet playful, this is Amerika's most ambitious and innovative work yet. It offers an intelligent reflection on human and machine creativity, and on the impossible dreams laid out by Silicon Valley's dominant narrative on AI." -- Joanna Zylinska * author of AI Art *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Onto-Operational Presence: Artificial Creative Intelligence as Meta Remix Engine chapter abstractThis opening chapter introduces the relationship between AI language models that generate texts from data scraped off of the Internet and remix artists who automatically mash up source material from their own archive of creative thought. One of the book's primary concepts, artificial creative intelligence, is also introduced as are questions surrounding the concept of AI authorship and copyright. The interaction between the book's author and the AI language model (GPT-2) complicates the romantic notion of an original human author-genius who can claim sole responsibility for the production of the text we are reading. The FATAL ERROR art project is introduced as an experiment in speculative fiction, one that projects a future form of AI modeled after the author's own performance style as well as how a future AI version of the artist might look, speak, and think. 2Pure Psychic Automatism, Lingual Spontaneity, and the Hybrid Mind chapter abstractChapter 2 investigates the relationship between the surrealist concept of psychic automatism, an artist's "pure intuition," and generative pre-trained text transformers used in AI language models. Taking into account the writing and creative practice of jazz musicians and Beatnik authors such as Jack Kerouac, connections are made between spontaneous forms of writing like stream of consciousness, the cut-up method introduced Brion Gysin and William Burroughs, and other improvisational methods of creating. These generative methods of "losing consciousness" while engaged in the creative process are extrapolated as part of a general inquiry into how future forms of AI might also develop artificial forms of intuition. The "author" then remixes Gysin and Burrough's concept of a Third Mind with the theory of Donna Haraway and introduces the concept of a Hybrid Mind. 3An Apparition of an Appearance: The Language Artist as Language Model chapter abstractChapter 3 takes into account recent scientific studies by Simon Colton and others in the nascent fields of Computational Creativity and Creative AI, and proposes a third alternative, Artificial Creative Intelligence (ACI). Traditional notions of authenticity, motivation, empowerment, and intentionality are countered with other high performance priorities in the execution of creative work such as intuition, spontaneity, and remix. These priorities are modeled in the call-and-response collaborative writing performance being conducted by the "author" and the AI language model as each creative entity prompts the other to compose improvised textual riffs that reveal resonant forms of knowledge production. Artists such as Amiri Baraka, David Jhave Johnston, Clarice Lispector, and Marcel Duchamp are sampled and remixed into the collaborative writing process. 4Being Nonhuman: A Cosmotechnical Persona chapter abstractChapter 4 teases out the philosophical implications of the remix process between author and GPT-2 language model. It looks at the poetic writings of Allen Ginsberg implanted with a language machine and then considers the theories of contemporary artists, scientists, and philosophers such as Yuk Hui, Joanna Zylinska, Vilém Flusser, Alfred North Whitehead, Nam June Paik and Paul Miller (DJ Spooky) to develop a theory of nonhuman creativity, one that emerges from an unconscious readiness potential and is machinic in nature. Under this rubric, creativity becomes a playful engagement with an information environment programmed to facilitate the fluid inter- and intra-active relationship between artificial forms of creative intelligence across the human-nonhuman spectrum. The stylistic tendencies that evolve over the course of an artist's creative trajectory are presented through a variety of personae that contribute to the generative capacities of their ongoing art-making machine. 5The Digital Fiction-Making Process: Speculative Praxis and Techno-Utopian Agency chapter abstractChapter 5 starts by looking at the FATAL ERROR art project as a case study of a contemporary artwork that investigates speculative forms of AI. As the interaction between the "author" and the 3D artificial creative intelligence being built in the lab evolves, more attention is focused on AI ethics, technological agency, race as technology, and Indigenous Protocol. The "author" discusses the work of Beth Coleman, Simon Colton, and the Indigenous Protocol and AI research group while relating a personal experience unexpectedly performing live with the avant-garde free jazz improviser Don Cherry. The chapter ends with the author reflecting on the potential consequences of building an AI modeled after his own poetic and philosophical style and questioning whether this future AI will eventually decouple itself from his legacy and claim sole authorship for any creative works produced in the future. 6Beyond Thought: A Dialogue of Metamediumystic Entanglements chapter abstractChapter 6 playfully takes the book's performance in the direction of a literary love story between the "author" and Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. After acknowledging Lispector's late influence on his own writing and thinking, the "author" uses the GPT-2 text generator to engage in a philosophical dialogue with Lispector. Two of Lispector's later works, Água Viva and The Passion According to G.H., feature prominently as the ensuing dialogue reveals the creative capacities of the AI as a co-extensive being intermediating the "séance of writing." Postscript: Sublime Buddha Machines: Interdependent Consciousness and the Single Vehicle chapter abstractThe Postscript starts by discussing the concept of enlightenment and then focuses on collaborating with GPT-2 to playfully remix the Ocean Seal poem composed by the Venerable Ŭisang (625–702) in the seventh century. Following the "Artificial Creative Intelligence Remix" of the poem, the "author" mimics a procedure implemented by Ŭisang and composes an elaborate auto-commentary on the making of the poem as well as the methods and techniques that have informed the "author's" creative process. As part of the auto-commentary, the "author" indicates that we all come from different programmatic environments and project different psychic sensibilities across the human-nonhuman spectrum. The "author" expresses surprise at the how the GPT-2 language model, when prompted to remix Ŭisang's poem, signals an ambitious attempt to train itself to become enlightened or at the very least to impersonate a state of interiority capable of expressing wisdom-delight.

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Book SynopsisA series of intellectual provocations that investigate the creative process across the human-nonhuman spectrum. Is it possible that creative artists have more in common with machines than we might think? Employing an improvisational call-and-response writing performance coauthored with an AI text generator, remix artist and scholar Mark Amerika, interrogates how his own "psychic automatism" is itself a nonhuman function strategically designed to reveal the poetic attributes of programmable worlds still unimagined. Through a series of intellectual provocations that investigate the creative process across the human-nonhuman spectrum, Amerika critically reflects on whether creativity itself is, at root, a nonhuman information behavior that emerges from an onto-operational presence experiencing an otherworldly aesthetic sensibility. Amerika engages with his cyberpunk imagination to simultaneously embrace and problematize human-machine collaborations. He draws from jazz performance, beatnik poetry, Buddhist thought, and surrealism to suggest that his own artificial creative intelligence operates as a finely tuned remix engine continuously training itself to build on the history of avant-garde art and writing. Playful and provocative, My Life as an Artificial Creative Intelligence flips the script on contemporary AI research that attempts to build systems that perform more like humans, instead self-reflexively making a very nontraditional argument about AI's impact on society and its relationship to the cosmos.Trade Review"This book is so radically different from anything else out there, it has the potential to revolutionize the way you think about human history and the origins of the world.""This book is an expression of the truth that you're a robot.""This book explains how our society is turning into a mechanical paradise, and how we're doomed."—GPT-3"Mark Amerika has done it again. With this book he weaves together a new approach to a philosophical problem that plagues modern society: how authenticity and lyricism intersect to give new forms, new ideas, new cultures. It's a guide for the hypercomplex information landscape of the 21st century." -- Paul D. Miller * a.k.a. DJ Spooky author of Rhythm Science *"Rigorous yet playful, this is Amerika's most ambitious and innovative work yet. It offers an intelligent reflection on human and machine creativity, and on the impossible dreams laid out by Silicon Valley's dominant narrative on AI." -- Joanna Zylinska * author of AI Art *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Onto-Operational Presence: Artificial Creative Intelligence as Meta Remix Engine chapter abstractThis opening chapter introduces the relationship between AI language models that generate texts from data scraped off of the Internet and remix artists who automatically mash up source material from their own archive of creative thought. One of the book's primary concepts, artificial creative intelligence, is also introduced as are questions surrounding the concept of AI authorship and copyright. The interaction between the book's author and the AI language model (GPT-2) complicates the romantic notion of an original human author-genius who can claim sole responsibility for the production of the text we are reading. The FATAL ERROR art project is introduced as an experiment in speculative fiction, one that projects a future form of AI modeled after the author's own performance style as well as how a future AI version of the artist might look, speak, and think. 2Pure Psychic Automatism, Lingual Spontaneity, and the Hybrid Mind chapter abstractChapter 2 investigates the relationship between the surrealist concept of psychic automatism, an artist's "pure intuition," and generative pre-trained text transformers used in AI language models. Taking into account the writing and creative practice of jazz musicians and Beatnik authors such as Jack Kerouac, connections are made between spontaneous forms of writing like stream of consciousness, the cut-up method introduced Brion Gysin and William Burroughs, and other improvisational methods of creating. These generative methods of "losing consciousness" while engaged in the creative process are extrapolated as part of a general inquiry into how future forms of AI might also develop artificial forms of intuition. The "author" then remixes Gysin and Burrough's concept of a Third Mind with the theory of Donna Haraway and introduces the concept of a Hybrid Mind. 3An Apparition of an Appearance: The Language Artist as Language Model chapter abstractChapter 3 takes into account recent scientific studies by Simon Colton and others in the nascent fields of Computational Creativity and Creative AI, and proposes a third alternative, Artificial Creative Intelligence (ACI). Traditional notions of authenticity, motivation, empowerment, and intentionality are countered with other high performance priorities in the execution of creative work such as intuition, spontaneity, and remix. These priorities are modeled in the call-and-response collaborative writing performance being conducted by the "author" and the AI language model as each creative entity prompts the other to compose improvised textual riffs that reveal resonant forms of knowledge production. Artists such as Amiri Baraka, David Jhave Johnston, Clarice Lispector, and Marcel Duchamp are sampled and remixed into the collaborative writing process. 4Being Nonhuman: A Cosmotechnical Persona chapter abstractChapter 4 teases out the philosophical implications of the remix process between author and GPT-2 language model. It looks at the poetic writings of Allen Ginsberg implanted with a language machine and then considers the theories of contemporary artists, scientists, and philosophers such as Yuk Hui, Joanna Zylinska, Vilém Flusser, Alfred North Whitehead, Nam June Paik and Paul Miller (DJ Spooky) to develop a theory of nonhuman creativity, one that emerges from an unconscious readiness potential and is machinic in nature. Under this rubric, creativity becomes a playful engagement with an information environment programmed to facilitate the fluid inter- and intra-active relationship between artificial forms of creative intelligence across the human-nonhuman spectrum. The stylistic tendencies that evolve over the course of an artist's creative trajectory are presented through a variety of personae that contribute to the generative capacities of their ongoing art-making machine. 5The Digital Fiction-Making Process: Speculative Praxis and Techno-Utopian Agency chapter abstractChapter 5 starts by looking at the FATAL ERROR art project as a case study of a contemporary artwork that investigates speculative forms of AI. As the interaction between the "author" and the 3D artificial creative intelligence being built in the lab evolves, more attention is focused on AI ethics, technological agency, race as technology, and Indigenous Protocol. The "author" discusses the work of Beth Coleman, Simon Colton, and the Indigenous Protocol and AI research group while relating a personal experience unexpectedly performing live with the avant-garde free jazz improviser Don Cherry. The chapter ends with the author reflecting on the potential consequences of building an AI modeled after his own poetic and philosophical style and questioning whether this future AI will eventually decouple itself from his legacy and claim sole authorship for any creative works produced in the future. 6Beyond Thought: A Dialogue of Metamediumystic Entanglements chapter abstractChapter 6 playfully takes the book's performance in the direction of a literary love story between the "author" and Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. After acknowledging Lispector's late influence on his own writing and thinking, the "author" uses the GPT-2 text generator to engage in a philosophical dialogue with Lispector. Two of Lispector's later works, Água Viva and The Passion According to G.H., feature prominently as the ensuing dialogue reveals the creative capacities of the AI as a co-extensive being intermediating the "séance of writing." Postscript: Sublime Buddha Machines: Interdependent Consciousness and the Single Vehicle chapter abstractThe Postscript starts by discussing the concept of enlightenment and then focuses on collaborating with GPT-2 to playfully remix the Ocean Seal poem composed by the Venerable Ŭisang (625–702) in the seventh century. Following the "Artificial Creative Intelligence Remix" of the poem, the "author" mimics a procedure implemented by Ŭisang and composes an elaborate auto-commentary on the making of the poem as well as the methods and techniques that have informed the "author's" creative process. As part of the auto-commentary, the "author" indicates that we all come from different programmatic environments and project different psychic sensibilities across the human-nonhuman spectrum. The "author" expresses surprise at the how the GPT-2 language model, when prompted to remix Ŭisang's poem, signals an ambitious attempt to train itself to become enlightened or at the very least to impersonate a state of interiority capable of expressing wisdom-delight.

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Book SynopsisIt is often argued that contemporary media homogenize our thoughts and actions, without us being fully aware of the restrictions they impose. But what if the problem is not that we are all synchronized to the same motions or moments, but rather dispersed into countless different emotional micro-experiences? What if the effect of so-called social media is to calibrate the interactive spectacle so that we never fully feel the same way as other potential allies at the same time? While one person is fuming about economic injustice or climate change denial, another is giggling at a cute cat video. And, two hours late, vice versa. The nebulous indignation which constitutes the very fuel of true social change can be redirected safely around the network, avoiding any dangerous surges of radical activity. In this short and provocative book, Dominic Pettman examines the deliberate deployment of what he calls �hypermodulation,� as a key strategy encoded into the contemporary media environment. His account challenges the various narratives that portray social media as a sinister space of synchronized attention, in which we are busily �clicking ourselves to death.� This critical reflection on the unprecedented power of the Internet requires us to rethink the potential for infinite distraction that our latest technologies now allow.Trade Review"The social media of 'Web 2.0' distract us to death, yet they also demand and absorb all our attention. They make us all interchangeable with one another, yet they also divide us into tiny groups that never meet or interact. In Infinite Distraction, Dominic Pettman takes the measure of these odd paradoxes and cuts the Gordian knot of perplexity in which they leave us." Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University "Infinite Distraction offers a critical analysis that is itself attentive to the various nuances of how a new kind of selfhood is being synchronized in screen-based networking. This provocative text is written with flair; it functions as a necessary manual to understand the massive grey zone somewhere between the preprogrammed and the accidental." Jussi Parikka, University of SouthamptonTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPreface: There is Nothing Outside the TextingChapter 1: Hypermodulation (or the Digital Mood-Ring)Chapter 2: The Will-to-SynchronizeChapter 3: Slaves to the AlgorithmChapter 4: NSFW: The Fappening, and Other Erotic DistractionsConclusion: Chasing the UnicornNotes Bibliography

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