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

Avsnitt(2208)

David Bather Woods, "Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy's Greatest Pessimist" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

David Bather Woods, "Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy's Greatest Pessimist" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy’s Greatest Pessimist by David Bather Woods An engaging biography of one of the most influential Western philosophers and a thought-provoking ex...

23 Mars 1h 16min

Philip C. Almond, "Noah and the Flood in Western Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Philip C. Almond, "Noah and the Flood in Western Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

In a world beset by climatic emergencies, the continuing resonance of the flood story is perhaps easy to understand. Whether in the tortured alpha male intensity of Russell Crowe’s Noah, in Darren Aro...

21 Mars 50min

Becca Voelcker, "Land Cinema in an Age of Extraction" (U California Press, 2025)

Becca Voelcker, "Land Cinema in an Age of Extraction" (U California Press, 2025)

Land Cinema in an Age of Extraction considers nonfiction filmmakers and film collectives whose work advances an understanding of land as a locus of social and environmental responsibility. Diving into...

21 Mars 1h 10min

Piergiorgio Di Giminiani et al. eds., "The Futures of Reparations in Latin America: Imagination, Translation, and Belonging" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

Piergiorgio Di Giminiani et al. eds., "The Futures of Reparations in Latin America: Imagination, Translation, and Belonging" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

Over the last thirty years, Latin America has undergone an unprecedented wave of reparations targeting victims of political violence during military regimes, Indigenous and Afro-Latin groups affected ...

20 Mars 1h 13min

Paul Kohlbry, "Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Paul Kohlbry, "Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2026)

The emancipatory potential and limits of land justice, when land is at once home, property, territory, and homeland. Peasant farming was once an integral part of Palestine's agrarian fabric. But afte...

20 Mars 1h 10min

 Miriam Ticktin, "Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Miriam Ticktin, "Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

In this timely and bold book, Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World (U Chicago Press, 2025), Miriam Ticktin explores how a concept that consistently appears as a moral good actually ends u...

19 Mars 1h 3min

H. S. Jones, "Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect" (Princeton UP, 2025)

H. S. Jones, "Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect" (Princeton UP, 2025)

James Bryce (1838–1922) was a leading figure in Britain’s Liberal Party and a distinguished historian, a versatile scholar-politician who moved seamlessly between academia and politics. He was, among ...

17 Mars 58min

Alec Ryrie, "The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It" (Reaktion, 2025)

Alec Ryrie, "The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It" (Reaktion, 2025)

Examining everything from popular novels to politics, an investigation of persistent fascination with Nazis—and where it might take us. We live in an age where Hitler and the Nazis dominate our cultu...

15 Mars 53min

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