Description
Book SynopsisAlex Preda provides an ethnographic exploration of how financial expertise is performed and produced in the media, analyzing its features and how audiences react to it. He examines how analysts, anchors, and producers collaborate in manufacturing financial talk that circulates around the world.
Trade ReviewThis is easily the most original book in the sociology of finance that I have read in many years. Preda singles out financial expert talk by academics, analysts, and financial journalists, showing how it is interactionally produced and performed, and how it invades the public sphere and influences how finance is understood. This book should not be missed by sociologists of finance and financial economists. It is also a must read for science communication generally, expert studies and media studies—and for practitioners, seeking to look into a mirror of their practice. -- Karin Knorr Cetina, author of
Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make KnowledgeHow are we ever going to make sense of our world after the 2008 crash without understanding what financial experts think they are doing? Reaching into all the latest research on, and analysis of expertise, Alex Preda tells us what is going on when financial experts present themselves in the media. -- Harry Collins, coauthor of
Why Democracies Need ScienceTalk is fundamental to how human beings interact, and what we say about money and finance matters. Focusing on Hong Kong's TV and radio studios, and employing his trademark combination of ethnographic insight and sharp sociological analysis, Preda throws important new light on financial talk, its nuances, and its audiences. -- Donald MacKenzie, author of
Trading at the Speed of Light: How Ultrafast Algorithms Are Transforming Financial MarketsWritten in clear prose, Preda’s ethnography moves easily between theory and evidence. * Social Forces *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. What Is Financial Expertise?
2. Talk, Spectacle, and Expertise
3. The Organization of Expert Talk
4. Strategic Facework: The Expert Presentation of Experts
5. Unfaultable Talk
6. Talk and Truth
7. Managing Audiences
Conclusion
Appendix 1. Hong Kong as a Global Financial Center
Appendix 2. Ethnographic Methods
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
