The Death of Public Knowledge?

The Death of Public Knowledge? PDF Author: Aeron Davis
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1906897433
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
A collection of short, sharp essays exploring the value of shared and accessible public knowledge in the face of its erosion. The Death of Public Knowledge argues for the value and importance of shared, publicly accessible knowledge, and suggests that the erosion of its most visible forms, including public service broadcasting, education, and the network of public libraries, has worrying outcomes for democracy. With contributions from both activists and academics, this collection of short, sharp essays focuses on different aspects of public knowledge, from libraries and education to news media and public policy. Together, the contributors record the stresses and strains placed upon public knowledge by funding cuts and austerity, the new digital economy, quantification and target-setting, neoliberal politics, and inequality. These pressures, the authors contend, not only hinder democracies, but also undermine markets, economies, and social institutions and spaces everywhere. Covering areas of international public concern, these polemical, accessible texts include reflections on the fate of schools and education, the takeover of public institutions by private interests, and the corruption of news and information in the financial sector. They cover the compromised Greek media during recent EU negotiations, the role played by media and political elites in the Irish property bubble, the compromising of government policy by corporate interests in the United States and Korea, and the squeeze on public service media in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States. Individually and collectively, these pieces spell out the importance of maintaining public, shared knowledge in all its forms, and offer a rallying cry for doing so, asserting the need for strong public, financial, and regulatory support. Contributors Toril Aalberg, Ian Anstice, Philip Augar, Rodney Benson, Aeron Davis, Des Freedman, Wayne Hope, Ken Jones, Bong-hyun Lee, Colin Leys, Andrew McGettigan, Michael Moran, Aristotelis Nikolaidis, Justin Schlosberg, Henry Silke, Roger Smith, Peter Thompson, Janine R. Wedel, Karel Williams, Kate Wright

The Death of Public Knowledge?

The Death of Public Knowledge? PDF Author: Aeron Davis
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1906897433
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Get Book Here

Book Description
A collection of short, sharp essays exploring the value of shared and accessible public knowledge in the face of its erosion. The Death of Public Knowledge argues for the value and importance of shared, publicly accessible knowledge, and suggests that the erosion of its most visible forms, including public service broadcasting, education, and the network of public libraries, has worrying outcomes for democracy. With contributions from both activists and academics, this collection of short, sharp essays focuses on different aspects of public knowledge, from libraries and education to news media and public policy. Together, the contributors record the stresses and strains placed upon public knowledge by funding cuts and austerity, the new digital economy, quantification and target-setting, neoliberal politics, and inequality. These pressures, the authors contend, not only hinder democracies, but also undermine markets, economies, and social institutions and spaces everywhere. Covering areas of international public concern, these polemical, accessible texts include reflections on the fate of schools and education, the takeover of public institutions by private interests, and the corruption of news and information in the financial sector. They cover the compromised Greek media during recent EU negotiations, the role played by media and political elites in the Irish property bubble, the compromising of government policy by corporate interests in the United States and Korea, and the squeeze on public service media in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States. Individually and collectively, these pieces spell out the importance of maintaining public, shared knowledge in all its forms, and offer a rallying cry for doing so, asserting the need for strong public, financial, and regulatory support. Contributors Toril Aalberg, Ian Anstice, Philip Augar, Rodney Benson, Aeron Davis, Des Freedman, Wayne Hope, Ken Jones, Bong-hyun Lee, Colin Leys, Andrew McGettigan, Michael Moran, Aristotelis Nikolaidis, Justin Schlosberg, Henry Silke, Roger Smith, Peter Thompson, Janine R. Wedel, Karel Williams, Kate Wright

The Death of Expertise

The Death of Expertise PDF Author: Tom Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190469439
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both. An update to the 2017breakout hit, the paperback edition of The Death of Expertise provides a new foreword to cover the alarming exacerbation of these trends in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election. Judging from events on the ground since it first published, The Death of Expertise issues a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age that is even more important today.

Death of the Public University?

Death of the Public University? PDF Author: Susan Wright
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 178533543X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Universities have been subjected to continuous government reforms since the 1980s, to make them ‘entrepreneurial’, ‘efficient’ and aligned to the predicted needs and challenges of a global knowledge economy. Under increasing pressure to pursue ‘excellence’ and ‘innovation’, many universities are struggling to maintain their traditional mission to be inclusive, improve social mobility and equality and act as the ‘critic and conscience’ of society. Drawing on a multi-disciplinary research project, University Reform, Globalisation and Europeanisation (URGE), this collection analyses the new landscapes of public universities emerging across Europe and the Asia-Pacific, and the different ways that academics are engaging with them.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death PDF Author: Neil Postman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Examines the effects of television culture on how we conduct our public affairs and how "entertainment values" corrupt the way we think.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System PDF Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465014917
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.

The Death and Resurrection of Jefferson Davis

The Death and Resurrection of Jefferson Davis PDF Author: Donald E. Collins
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742543041
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
When the Civil War ended, Jefferson Davis had fallen from the heights of popularity to the depths of despair. In this fascinating new book, Donald E. Collins explores the resurrection of Davis to heroic status in the hearts of white Southerners culminating in one of the grandest funeral processions the nation had ever seen. As schools closed and bells tolled along the thousand mile route, Southerners appeared en masse to bid a final farewell to the man who championed Southern secession and ardently defended the Confederacy.

The Risks of Knowledge

The Risks of Knowledge PDF Author: David William Cohen
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821415972
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The Risks of Knowledge minutely examines the multiple and unfinished investigations into the murder of Kenya's distinguished Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Robert Ouko, in February 1990. Public and international concern over Ouko's death led to renewed attention to the extent of governmental corruption the Moi era, and brought down the government of President Moi at the end of 2002.

Death Sentence

Death Sentence PDF Author: Don Watson
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 1742744648
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia’s public language, Don Watson’s Death Sentence is scathing, funny and brilliant. ‘ ... in public life the language has never been held in less regard. It withers in the dungeons of the technocratic mind. It is butchered by the media. In politics it lacks all qualifications for the main game.’ Almost sixty years ago, George Orwell described the decay of language and why this threatened democratic society. But compared to what we now endure, the public language of Orwell's day brimmed with life and truth. Today's corporations, government departments, news media, and, perhaps most dangerously, politicians – speak to each other and to us in cliched, impenetrable, lifeless sludge. Don Watson can bear it no longer. In Death Sentence, part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, he takes a blowtorch to the words – and their users – who kill joy, imagination and clarity. Scathing, funny and brilliant, Death Sentence is a small book of profound weight – and timeliness.

The Strange Death of Europe

The Strange Death of Europe PDF Author: Douglas Murray
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472942256
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A WATERSTONES POLITICS PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR, 2018 The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth-rates, mass immigration and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society. This book is not only an analysis of demographic and political realities, but also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes reporting from across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who appear to welcome them in to the places which cannot accept them. Told from this first-hand perspective, and backed with impressive research and evidence, the book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. In each chapter he also takes a step back to look at the bigger issues which lie behind a continent's death-wish, answering the question of why anyone, let alone an entire civilisation, would do this to themselves? He ends with two visions of Europe – one hopeful, one pessimistic – which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next.

The Other Bourgeoisie: Industrialized Information Its Complicity in the Death of American Democracy

The Other Bourgeoisie: Industrialized Information Its Complicity in the Death of American Democracy PDF Author: Douglas LeMaster
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1483448444
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 738

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Book Description
Democracy is grounded in the open exchange of knowledge and ideas, but its social and political institutions are being systematically destroyed by a flood of monopoly-driven information marketing. Douglas LeMaster explains why the stakes are so high in this detailed, academic work. Democracy, he says, is the only form of social organization that is not exploitive by design. To prove his point, he examines how human history has been dominated by monopolies, such as the priestly monopolies of the great religions, the land monopolies of kings and aristocracies, the marketplace monopolies of capitalists, and most recently-a reinvented and secular information monopoly. While this latest monopoly is still in its formative stage, it's founded on corporate control of expressive rights, copyright, and patent-and it should concern all of us. Join LeMaster as he takes a close look at the latest form of an insidious disease and reveals how these latest