Finn Brunton, “Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet” (MIT Press, 2013)

Finn Brunton, “Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet” (MIT Press, 2013)

Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our attention for the purposes of exploiting it. From pranks on early computer networks in the 1970s to commercial nuisances in the 1990s to the global criminal infrastructure of today driven by botnets and algorithms, spam’s history surfaces and shifts with the Internet itself. Spam is a lively book packed with tales of the people responsible for sharing and stopping spam’s myriad of forms in email, web sites and social networks. This includes everyone from programmers and security professionals, marketers and lawyers, and con artists and thieves to name a few. Each person has personal experiences with spam and opinions about when they’re being spammed, but Brunton, a professor at New York University, reminds us about the critical role that communities, organizations, and governments have played in regulating spam. Ultimately, the governance agreed to by these groups defines spam in the contemporaneous moment, but more importantly, shapes spam’s future forms. As long as open communication platforms exist, so will spam. It is more useful to treat spam as signal about the quality of our digital interactions. The more our attention is captured and exploited the worse our digital communities are functioning. Like the mysterious meat in a can (and with full appreciation for all the spam lovers out there), a digital diet heavy on spam isn’t just unappetizing, it’s unhealthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Episoder(2199)

Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan eds., "Autotheories" (MIT Press, 2025)

Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan eds., "Autotheories" (MIT Press, 2025)

A transdisciplinary array of authors offering a new frame of reference for autotheory and its genre-bending synthesis of autobiography and critical theory. Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025) tells the s...

6 Mar 1h 9min

Damion Searls, "The Philosophy of Translation" (Yale UP, 2024)

Damion Searls, "The Philosophy of Translation" (Yale UP, 2024)

The Philosophy of Translation (Yale UP, 2024) is a fresh, approachable, and convincing account of what translation really is and what translators actually do. As the translator of sixty books from mul...

5 Mar 57min

David L. Eng, "Reparations and the Human" (Duke UP, 2025)

David L. Eng, "Reparations and the Human" (Duke UP, 2025)

The Holocaust and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki invoked in graphic terms the specter of total human destruction. In response, a new international order of reparations and human rights ...

4 Mar 54min

Catherine Elgin, "Epistemic Ecology" (MIT Press, 2025)

Catherine Elgin, "Epistemic Ecology" (MIT Press, 2025)

Humans are highly inquisitive, yet fallible and cognitively limited. How can we improve our epistemic lot despite our limitations? In Epistemic Ecology (MIT Press, 2025), Catherine Elgin develops a mo...

3 Mar 1h

Ailbhe Kenny, "Music Refuge: Living Asylum through Music" (Oxford UP, Press 2025)

Ailbhe Kenny, "Music Refuge: Living Asylum through Music" (Oxford UP, Press 2025)

How can music change people’s lives? In Music Refuge: Living Asylum Through Music (Oxford UP, Press 2025) Ailbhe Kenny, an Associate Professor in Music Education at Mary Immaculate College Ireland, e...

3 Mar 38min

Jessi Streib, "The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay After College" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

Jessi Streib, "The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay After College" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

Are jobs fair? In The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay after College (U Chicago Press, 2023), Jessi Streib, an associate Professor of Sociology at Duke University, uncovers the remarkable...

2 Mar 34min

Sophie Salvo, "Articulating Difference: Sex and Language in the German Nineteenth Century"(U Chicago Press, 2024)

Sophie Salvo, "Articulating Difference: Sex and Language in the German Nineteenth Century"(U Chicago Press, 2024)

Drawing on a wide range of texts, from understudied ethnographic and scientific works to canonical literature and philosophy, Sophie Salvo uncovers the prehistory of the inextricability of gender and ...

1 Mar 35min

Hanna Pickard, "What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing But Cocaine?: A Philosophy of Addiction" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Hanna Pickard, "What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing But Cocaine?: A Philosophy of Addiction" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Dr. Hanna Pickard has written a revolutionary new paradigm for understanding addiction.  Why do people with addiction use drugs self-destructively? Why don’t they quit out of self-concern? Why does t...

24 Feb 48min

Populært innen Vitenskap

fastlegen
tingenes-tilstand
rss-nysgjerrige-norge
rekommandert
liberal-halvtime
forskningno
sinnsyn
rss-rekommandert
fjellsportpodden
smart-forklart
vett-og-vitenskap-med-gaute-einevoll
jss
villmarksliv
hva-er-greia-med
rss-overskuddsliv
rss-radium
dekodet-2
rss-inn-til-kjernen-med-sunniva-rose
tidlose-historier
aldring-og-helse-podden