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Media technologies for play have become major industries in Japan and South Korea. Even in North Korea, citizens bypass the state to enjoy popular culture. At the same time, corporations and governments encourage people to produce economic values through play.
The first comparative study of media technologies in Japan and the two Koreas, this book illuminates the peculiar geopolitical relations between the three countries through their development and use of digital technologies. Drawing from political economy, cultural studies and technology studies, this book will be essential reading for researchers and students of media technologies and popular culture in Northeast Asia.
The relationship between science and belief has been a prominent subject of public debate for many years, one that has relevance to everything from science communication, health and education to immigration and national values. Yet, sociological analysis of these subjects remains surprisingly scarce.
This wide-ranging book critically reviews the ways in which religious and non-religious belief systems interact with scientific theories and practices. Contributors explore how, for some secularists, ‘science’ forms an important part of social identity. Others examine how many contemporary religious movements justify their beliefs by making a claim upon science. Moving beyond the traditional focus on the United States, the book shows how debates about science and belief are firmly embedded in political conflict, class, community and culture.
We are all ‘glass consumers’. Organisations know so much about us, they can almost see through us. Governments and businesses collect and process our personal information on a massive scale. Everything we do, and everywhere we go, leaves a trail. But is this in our interests?
The glass consumer appraises this relentless scrutiny of consumers’ lives. It reviews what is known about how personal information is used and examines the benefits and risks to consumers. The book takes the debate beyond privacy issues, arguing that we are living in a world in which - more than ever before - our personal information defines our opportunities in life.
This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of information use, data protection and privacy. It will also appeal more widely to those with an interest in technology and society, social policy, consumption, marketing and business studies.
The figure of the imposter can stir complicated emotions, from intrigue to suspicion and fear. But what insights can these troublesome figures provide into the social relations and cultural forms from which they emerge?
Edited by leading scholars in the field, this volume explores the question through a diverse range of empirical cases, including magicians, spirit possession, fake Instagram followers, fake art and fraudulent scientists.
Proposing ‘thinking with imposters’ as a valuable new tool of analysis in the social sciences and humanities, this revolutionary book shows how the figure of the imposter can help upend social theory.
Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, this book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today.
The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.
We now live in a pre-crime society, in which information technology strategies and techniques such as predictive policing, actuarial justice and surveillance penology are used to achieve hyper-securitization.
However, such securitization comes at a cost – the criminalization of everyday life is guaranteed, justice functions as an algorithmic industry and punishment is administered through dataveillance regimes.
This pioneering book explores relevant theories, developing technologies and institutional practices and explains how the pre-crime society operates in the ‘ultramodern’ age of digital reality construction. Reviewing pre-crime's cultural and political effects, the authors propose new directions in crime control policy.
We are living in algorithmic times.
From machine learning and artificial intelligence to blockchain or simpler news-feed filtering, automated systems can transform the social world in ways that are just starting to be imagined.
Redefining these emergent technologies as the new systems of knowing, pioneering scholar David Beer examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable. Drawing on cases ranging from the art market and the smart home through to financial tech, AI patents and neural networks, he develops key concepts for understanding the framing, envisioning and implementation of algorithms.
This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the rise of algorithmic thinking and the way it permeates society.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere, yet it causes damage to society in ways that can’t be fixed. Instead of helping to address our current crises, AI causes divisions that limit people’s life chances, and even suggests fascistic solutions to social problems. This book provides an analysis of AI’s deep learning technology and its political effects and traces the ways that it resonates with contemporary political and social currents, from global austerity to the rise of the far right.
Dan McQuillan calls for us to resist AI as we know it and restructure it by prioritising the common good over algorithmic optimisation. He sets out an anti-fascist approach to AI that replaces exclusions with caring, proposes people’s councils as a way to restructure AI through mutual aid and outlines new mechanisms that would adapt to changing times by supporting collective freedom.
Academically rigorous, yet accessible to a socially engaged readership, this unique book will be of interest to all who wish to challenge the social logic of AI by reasserting the importance of the common good.
The concept of transhumanism emerged in the middle of the 20th century, and has influenced discussions around AI, brain–computer interfaces, genetic technologies and life extension. Despite its enduring influence in the public imagination, a fully developed philosophy of transhumanism has not yet been presented.
In this new book, leading philosopher Stefan Lorenz Sorgner explores the critical issues that link transhumanism with digitalization, gene technologies and ethics. He examines the history and meaning of transhumanism and asks bold questions about human perfection, cyborgs, genetically enhanced entities, and uploaded minds.
Offering insightful reflections on values, norms and utopia, this will be an important guide for readers interested in contemporary digital culture, gene ethics, and policy making.
Social media platforms hold vast amounts of biographical data about our lives. They repackage our past content as ‘memories’ and deliver them back to us. But how does that change the way we remember?
Drawing on original qualitative research as well as industry documents and reports, this book critically explores the process behind this new form of memory making. In asking how social media are beginning to change the way we remember, it will be essential reading for scholars and students who are interested in understanding the algorithmically defined spaces of our lives.
