Synopses & Reviews
Consumption has become a global phenomenon. This expansion of consumption has occurred at the same time as notions of 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 analyzes this new relationship between information and consumption. Leading theorists and critics map this new terrain, ranging across high theory and popular culture--from E-Bay auctions to "smart homes", from the everyday consumption of MP3 files and DVDs to the rituals of media violence, from internet-surfing to the role of "speed" in contemporary culture.
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Sande Cohen is at the California Institute of the Arts.
R. L. Rutsky is at the San Francisco State University.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Rethinking Consumption--Sande Cohen and R. L. Rutsky * Section 1: Redefining Consumption in an Age of Information * Artifice and Resistance in an Information Society--Mark Poster * Rituals of Consumption--Samuel Weber * Information Wants to be Consumed--R. L. Rutsky * Interview with Jean Baudrillard--Sylvere Lotringer * Section 2: Consuming Subjects * The Sentient Home and Social Consumption--Lynn Spigel * Customizing Subjectivity--Marilyn Manners * Commodity Audiences, Consumer Discipline and Glocal Flows--Sean Cubitt * Section 3: Consumption and Representation * The Speed of the Subject--Tom Lutz * Ratios of Matter and Information Spaces--James Wiltgen * Historical Knowledge as Mis-Information--Sande Cohen * The Consumption of Terror--Kriss Ravetto