Author: Guido Nicolosi
Publisher: Ethics International Press
ISBN: 1804418013
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Media and memory are linked by an intimate relationship. Every act aimed at fixing, memorizing, or commemorating, requires the mediation of some form of material or immaterial support: walls, objects, languages, technologies, media. This important new book reconstructs the evolution of this inseparable relationship, from cave art to modern digital devices, also investigating its various social implications. The author highlights the possible cognitive, ethical, educational and political risks linked to the onset of a new "religious" cult of digital media. In a society in which the task of processing, accumulating and retrieving information increasingly takes place within the Internet, digital devices, and Artificial Intelligence, the stakes are very high. It is not just a matter of understanding what the risks are of a possible weakening of our ability to remember, and therefore also to know the world, but to understand who or what owns and controls our individual and collective memory. Ultimately, it is about understanding what is happening to our identity. Faced with the disturbing advent of an inexorable "technological theocracy", the author calls for principles and practices of a new "digital secularism". The book was translated from the original Italian by Dr. Emanuele Liotta.
The Digital Cult
Author: Guido Nicolosi
Publisher: Ethics International Press
ISBN: 1804418013
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Media and memory are linked by an intimate relationship. Every act aimed at fixing, memorizing, or commemorating, requires the mediation of some form of material or immaterial support: walls, objects, languages, technologies, media. This important new book reconstructs the evolution of this inseparable relationship, from cave art to modern digital devices, also investigating its various social implications. The author highlights the possible cognitive, ethical, educational and political risks linked to the onset of a new "religious" cult of digital media. In a society in which the task of processing, accumulating and retrieving information increasingly takes place within the Internet, digital devices, and Artificial Intelligence, the stakes are very high. It is not just a matter of understanding what the risks are of a possible weakening of our ability to remember, and therefore also to know the world, but to understand who or what owns and controls our individual and collective memory. Ultimately, it is about understanding what is happening to our identity. Faced with the disturbing advent of an inexorable "technological theocracy", the author calls for principles and practices of a new "digital secularism". The book was translated from the original Italian by Dr. Emanuele Liotta.
Publisher: Ethics International Press
ISBN: 1804418013
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Media and memory are linked by an intimate relationship. Every act aimed at fixing, memorizing, or commemorating, requires the mediation of some form of material or immaterial support: walls, objects, languages, technologies, media. This important new book reconstructs the evolution of this inseparable relationship, from cave art to modern digital devices, also investigating its various social implications. The author highlights the possible cognitive, ethical, educational and political risks linked to the onset of a new "religious" cult of digital media. In a society in which the task of processing, accumulating and retrieving information increasingly takes place within the Internet, digital devices, and Artificial Intelligence, the stakes are very high. It is not just a matter of understanding what the risks are of a possible weakening of our ability to remember, and therefore also to know the world, but to understand who or what owns and controls our individual and collective memory. Ultimately, it is about understanding what is happening to our identity. Faced with the disturbing advent of an inexorable "technological theocracy", the author calls for principles and practices of a new "digital secularism". The book was translated from the original Italian by Dr. Emanuele Liotta.
The Cult of the Amateur
Author: Andrew Keen
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 0385520816
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors. In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions. Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 0385520816
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors. In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions. Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.
Geek Heresy
Author: Kentaro Toyama
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610395298
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
After a decade designing technologies meant to address education, health, and global poverty, award-winning computer scientist Kentaro Toyama came to a difficult conclusion: Even in an age of amazing technology, social progress depends on human changes that gadgets can't deliver. Computers in Bangalore are locked away in dusty cabinets because teachers don't know what to do with them. Mobile phone apps meant to spread hygiene practices in Africa fail to improve health. Executives in Silicon Valley evangelize novel technologies at work even as they send their children to Waldorf schools that ban electronics. And four decades of incredible innovation in America have done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality. Why then do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills? In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people-centric view of social change. Contrasting the outlandish claims of tech zealots with stories of people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes impoverished children into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it's human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610395298
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
After a decade designing technologies meant to address education, health, and global poverty, award-winning computer scientist Kentaro Toyama came to a difficult conclusion: Even in an age of amazing technology, social progress depends on human changes that gadgets can't deliver. Computers in Bangalore are locked away in dusty cabinets because teachers don't know what to do with them. Mobile phone apps meant to spread hygiene practices in Africa fail to improve health. Executives in Silicon Valley evangelize novel technologies at work even as they send their children to Waldorf schools that ban electronics. And four decades of incredible innovation in America have done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality. Why then do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills? In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people-centric view of social change. Contrasting the outlandish claims of tech zealots with stories of people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes impoverished children into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it's human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward.
The Cult and Science of Public Health
Author: Kevin Dew
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857453394
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
In contemporary manifestations of public health rituals and events, people are being increasingly united around what they hold in common--their material being and humanity. As a cult of humanity, public health provides a moral force in society that replaces 'traditional' religions in times of great diversity or heterogeneity of peoples, activities and desires. This is in contrast to public health's foundation in science, particularly the science of epidemiology. The rigid rules of 'scientific evidence' used to determine the cause of illness and disease can work against the most vulnerable in society by putting sectors of the population, such as underrepresented workers, at a disadvantage. This study focuses on this tension between traditional science and the changing vision articulated within public health (and across many disciplines) that calls for a collective response to uncontrolled capitalism and unremitting globalization, and to the way in which health inequalities and their association with social inequalities provides a political rhetoric that calls for a new redistributive social programme. Drawing on decades of research, the author argues that public health is both a cult and a science of contemporary society.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857453394
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
In contemporary manifestations of public health rituals and events, people are being increasingly united around what they hold in common--their material being and humanity. As a cult of humanity, public health provides a moral force in society that replaces 'traditional' religions in times of great diversity or heterogeneity of peoples, activities and desires. This is in contrast to public health's foundation in science, particularly the science of epidemiology. The rigid rules of 'scientific evidence' used to determine the cause of illness and disease can work against the most vulnerable in society by putting sectors of the population, such as underrepresented workers, at a disadvantage. This study focuses on this tension between traditional science and the changing vision articulated within public health (and across many disciplines) that calls for a collective response to uncontrolled capitalism and unremitting globalization, and to the way in which health inequalities and their association with social inequalities provides a political rhetoric that calls for a new redistributive social programme. Drawing on decades of research, the author argues that public health is both a cult and a science of contemporary society.
Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage
Author: Fiona Cameron
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780262514118
Category : Computer art
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Theoretical and practical perspectives from a range of disciplines on the challenges of using digital media in interpretation and representation of cultural heritage. In Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, experts offer a critical and theoretical appraisal of the uses of digital media by cultural heritage institutions. Previous discussions of cultural heritage and digital technology have left the subject largely unmapped in terms of critical theory; the essays in this volume offer this long-missing perspective on the challenges of using digital media in the research, preservation, management, interpretation, and representation of cultural heritage. The contributors--scholars and practitioners from a range of relevant disciplines--ground theory in practice, considering how digital technology might be used to transform institutional cultures, methods, and relationships with audiences. The contributors examine the relationship between material and digital objects in collections of art and indigenous artifacts; the implications of digital technology for knowledge creation, documentation, and the concept of authority; and the possibilities for "virtual cultural heritage"--the preservation and interpretation of cultural and natural heritage through real-time, immersive, and interactive techniques. The essays in Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage will serve as a resource for professionals, academics, and students in all fields of cultural heritage, including museums, libraries, galleries, archives, and archaeology, as well as those in education and information technology. The range of issues considered and the diverse disciplines and viewpoints represented point to new directions for an emerging field. Contributors Nadia Arbach, Juan Antonio Barceló, Deidre Brown, Fiona Cameron, Erik Champion, Sarah Cook, Jim Cooley, Bharat Dave, Suhas Deshpande, Bernadette Flynn, Maurizio Forte, Kati Geber, Beryl Graham, Susan Hazan, Sarah Kenderdine, José Ripper Kós, Harald Kraemer, Ingrid Mason, Gavan McCarthy, Slavko Milekic, Rodrigo Paraizo, Ross Parry, Scot T. Refsland, Helena Robinson, Angelina Russo, Corey Timpson, Marc Tuters, Peter Walsh, Jerry Watkins, Andrea Witcomb
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780262514118
Category : Computer art
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Theoretical and practical perspectives from a range of disciplines on the challenges of using digital media in interpretation and representation of cultural heritage. In Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, experts offer a critical and theoretical appraisal of the uses of digital media by cultural heritage institutions. Previous discussions of cultural heritage and digital technology have left the subject largely unmapped in terms of critical theory; the essays in this volume offer this long-missing perspective on the challenges of using digital media in the research, preservation, management, interpretation, and representation of cultural heritage. The contributors--scholars and practitioners from a range of relevant disciplines--ground theory in practice, considering how digital technology might be used to transform institutional cultures, methods, and relationships with audiences. The contributors examine the relationship between material and digital objects in collections of art and indigenous artifacts; the implications of digital technology for knowledge creation, documentation, and the concept of authority; and the possibilities for "virtual cultural heritage"--the preservation and interpretation of cultural and natural heritage through real-time, immersive, and interactive techniques. The essays in Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage will serve as a resource for professionals, academics, and students in all fields of cultural heritage, including museums, libraries, galleries, archives, and archaeology, as well as those in education and information technology. The range of issues considered and the diverse disciplines and viewpoints represented point to new directions for an emerging field. Contributors Nadia Arbach, Juan Antonio Barceló, Deidre Brown, Fiona Cameron, Erik Champion, Sarah Cook, Jim Cooley, Bharat Dave, Suhas Deshpande, Bernadette Flynn, Maurizio Forte, Kati Geber, Beryl Graham, Susan Hazan, Sarah Kenderdine, José Ripper Kós, Harald Kraemer, Ingrid Mason, Gavan McCarthy, Slavko Milekic, Rodrigo Paraizo, Ross Parry, Scot T. Refsland, Helena Robinson, Angelina Russo, Corey Timpson, Marc Tuters, Peter Walsh, Jerry Watkins, Andrea Witcomb
The Sacred & the Digital
Author: F.G. (Frank) Bosman
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3038978302
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
Video game studies are a relative young but flourishing academic discipline. But within game studies, however, the perspective of religion and spirituality is rather neglected, both by game scholars and religion scholars. While religion can take different shapes in digital games, ranging from material and referential to reflexive and ritual, it is not necessarily true that game developers depict their in-game religions in a positive, confirming way, but ever so often games approach the topic critically and disavowingly. The religion criticisms found in video games can be categorized as follows: religion as (1) fraud, aimed to manipulate the uneducated, as (2) blind obedience towards an invisible but ultimately non-existing deity/ies, as (3) violence against those who do not share the same set of religious rules, as (4) madness, a deranged alternative for logical reasoning, and as (5) suppression in the hands of the powerful elite to dominate and subdue the masses into submission and obedience. The critical depictions of religion in video games by their developers is the focus of this special issue.
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3038978302
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
Video game studies are a relative young but flourishing academic discipline. But within game studies, however, the perspective of religion and spirituality is rather neglected, both by game scholars and religion scholars. While religion can take different shapes in digital games, ranging from material and referential to reflexive and ritual, it is not necessarily true that game developers depict their in-game religions in a positive, confirming way, but ever so often games approach the topic critically and disavowingly. The religion criticisms found in video games can be categorized as follows: religion as (1) fraud, aimed to manipulate the uneducated, as (2) blind obedience towards an invisible but ultimately non-existing deity/ies, as (3) violence against those who do not share the same set of religious rules, as (4) madness, a deranged alternative for logical reasoning, and as (5) suppression in the hands of the powerful elite to dominate and subdue the masses into submission and obedience. The critical depictions of religion in video games by their developers is the focus of this special issue.
Teaching Digital Natives
Author: Marc R. Prensky
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1452207259
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
A new paradigm for teaching and learning in the 21st century! Marc Prensky, who first coined the terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants," presents an innovative model that promotes student learning through the use of technology. Discover how to implement partnership learning, in which: Digitally literate students specialize in content finding, analysis, and presentation via multiple media Teachers specialize in guiding student learning, providing questions and context, designing instruction, and assessing quality Administrators support, organize, and facilitate the process schoolwide Technology becomes a tool that students use for learning essential skills and "getting things done"
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1452207259
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
A new paradigm for teaching and learning in the 21st century! Marc Prensky, who first coined the terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants," presents an innovative model that promotes student learning through the use of technology. Discover how to implement partnership learning, in which: Digitally literate students specialize in content finding, analysis, and presentation via multiple media Teachers specialize in guiding student learning, providing questions and context, designing instruction, and assessing quality Administrators support, organize, and facilitate the process schoolwide Technology becomes a tool that students use for learning essential skills and "getting things done"
The Cult of Smart
Author: Fredrik deBoer
Publisher: All Points Books
ISBN: 1250200385
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 149
Book Description
Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.
Publisher: All Points Books
ISBN: 1250200385
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 149
Book Description
Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.
Those Who Prey
Author: Jennifer Moffett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1534450971
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
"College freshman Emily is seduced into joining a cult with deadly results"--
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1534450971
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
"College freshman Emily is seduced into joining a cult with deadly results"--
Cults
Author: Stephanie Alice Baker
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040047769
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 134
Book Description
This engaging text introduces readers to the sociology of cults. Covering the history and current state of cult studies, this book includes topics ranging from doomsday cults and new religious movements through to self-help cults, the cult of celebrity, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs. Case studies as varied as David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, the Manson family, and the cult brands of Elon Musk, Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson are deployed to shed new light on cult formation in the twenty-first century. Amidst the rise of populist demagogues, the online radicalisation of alienated individuals, and the proliferation of celebrities and gurus with avid followings, cult dynamics are everywhere in society. Yet key urgent questions have not been clearly and concisely addressed: What are cults? Why do they emerge? How are they established and maintained? What is the future of cults, and why are we so fascinated by them? This book explores these questions by tracing the spectrum of cult formation historically and in today’s networked media ecosystem. This accessible introduction to the darkly fascinating world of cults is essential reading for academics and students of sociology, social psychology, religion, politics, business and cultural studies, and anyone interested in understanding the relationship between cults and society.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040047769
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 134
Book Description
This engaging text introduces readers to the sociology of cults. Covering the history and current state of cult studies, this book includes topics ranging from doomsday cults and new religious movements through to self-help cults, the cult of celebrity, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs. Case studies as varied as David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, the Manson family, and the cult brands of Elon Musk, Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson are deployed to shed new light on cult formation in the twenty-first century. Amidst the rise of populist demagogues, the online radicalisation of alienated individuals, and the proliferation of celebrities and gurus with avid followings, cult dynamics are everywhere in society. Yet key urgent questions have not been clearly and concisely addressed: What are cults? Why do they emerge? How are they established and maintained? What is the future of cults, and why are we so fascinated by them? This book explores these questions by tracing the spectrum of cult formation historically and in today’s networked media ecosystem. This accessible introduction to the darkly fascinating world of cults is essential reading for academics and students of sociology, social psychology, religion, politics, business and cultural studies, and anyone interested in understanding the relationship between cults and society.