Information Please

by Poster, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780822338390
• ISBN10: 0822338394
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-30
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Information Pleaseadvances the ongoing critical project of the media scholar Mark Poster: theorizing the social and cultural effects of electronically mediated information. In this book Poster conceptualizes a new relation of humans to information machines, a relation that avoids privileging either the human or the machine but instead focuses on the structures of their interactions. Synthesizing a broad range of critical theory, he explores how texts, images, and sounds are made different when they are mediated by information machines, how this difference affects individuals as well as social and political formations, and how it creates opportunities for progressive change.Posterrs"s critique develops through a series of lively studies. Analyzing the appearance ofSesame Streetrs"s Bert next to Osama Bin Laden in aNew York Timesnews photo, he examines the political repercussions of this Internet "hoax" as well as the unlimited opportunities that Internet technology presents for the appropriation and alteration of information. He considers the implications of open-source licensing agreements, online personas, the sudden rise of and interest in identity theft, peer-to-peer file sharing, and more. Focusing explicitly on theory, he reflects on the limitations of critical concepts developed before the emergence of new media, particularly globally networked digital communications, and he argues that, contrary to the assertions of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, new media do not necessarily reproduce neoimperialisms. Urging a rethinking of assumptions ingrained during the dominance of broadcast media, Poster charts new directions for work on politics and digital culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
I. Global Politics and New Media
1. Perfect Transmissions: Evil Bert Laden	9	(17)
2. Postcolonial Theory and Global Media	26	(20)
3. The Information Empire	46	(21)
4. Citizens, Digital Media, and Globalization	67	(20)
II. The Culture of the Digital Self
5. Identity Theft and Media	87	(29)
6. The Aesthetics of Distracting Media	116	(23)
7. The Good, the Bad, and the Virtual	139	(22)
8. Psychoanalysis, the Body, and Information Machines	161	(24)
III. Digital Commodities in Everyday Life
9. Who Controls Digital Culture?	185	(26)
10. Everyday (Virtual) Life	211	(20)
11. Consumers, Users, and Digital Commodities	231	(19)
12. Future Advertising: Dick's Ubik and the Digital Ad	250	(17)
Conclusion	267	(2)
Notes	269	(12)
References	281	(18)
Index	299