Consumption In An Age Of Information

by Cohen, Sande; Rutsky, R. L.

• ISBN13: 9781845200893
• ISBN10: 1845200896
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-07
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

We live in an age when consumption and consuming have come to define us. Consumption, now a global phenomenon, is so dominant it allows little room for alternatives. At the same time, information and digitization have become all-pervasive in our media culture . As ever greater aspects of the world have come to be seen as 'data', information has increasingly become the very currency of consumption. Consumption in an Age of Information maps this new terrain. Bringing together some of the world's leading theorists and critics, the essays range across high theory and popular culture - from informational flows to science fiction simulations, from pop-cultural consumption to capitalism as religion, from the consumption of time to the role of 'speed' in contemporary culture.

Author Biography

Sande Cohen is at the California Institute of the Arts.

R. L. Rutsky is at the San Francisco State University.

Table of Contents

Contributors	vii
Introduction: Consumption in an Age of Information
Sande Cohen and R.L. Rutsky	1	(8)
1 The Murder of the Sign
Jean Baudrillard	9	(12)
Part I Cultural Consumption in an Age of Information
2 Future Advertising: Dick's Ubik and the Digital Ad
Mark Poster	21	(20)
3 Spending Time
Tom Lutz	41	(20)
4 Information Wants to be Consumed
R.L. Rutsky	61	(18)
Part II The Subject of Consumption in an Age of Information
5 Consumer Discipline and the Work of Audiencing
Sean Cubitt	79	(18)
6 Sado-Monetarism or Saint Fond-Saint Ford
James Wiltgen	97	(22)
7 Closing the Net: "Capitalism as Religion"
Samuel Weber	119	(36)
8 Disparity, Information, and Consumption — Hello to an Agonistics of the Future
Sande Cohen	155	(26)
Index	181