Free PDF Digital Disconnect

Free PDF Digital Disconnect

Easy way to get the remarkable book from skilled writer? Why not? The method is extremely straightforward if you get the book right here. You need only guide soft files right here. It is based upon the links that are released in this website. By checking out the link, you can obtain the book directly. And here, you will certainly discover lots of type of guides created by the specialist authors from all globe locations.

Digital Disconnect

Free PDF Digital Disconnect

Taking into consideration about the excellences will require particular facts and sights from some sources. Currently we provide Digital Disconnect as one of the resources to think about. You may not forget that publication is the best resource to resolve your trouble. It could assist you from many sides. When having such problem, obtaining the right publication is much required. It is to make deal and matched to the trouble as well as the best ways to solve it.

If Digital Disconnect is among the choices to read the book, you can follow just what we will certainly inform you now. Locating guide could require more times when you are looking from store to store. We have brand-new means to lead you get this publication swiftly. By seeing this page, it ends up being the primary steps to obtain guide carefully. This page is kind of on-line library that serves so various book collections.

Reading a book could assist you to open the new world. From knowing nothing to recognizing whatever can be reached when reading publications many times. As many people claim, more publications you check out, a lot more points you need to know, yet few points you will really feel. Yeah, reviewing guide will lead your mind to open up minded as well as always try to seek for the other expertise, even from lots of sources. Digital Disconnect as a means of exactly how guide is advised will certainly be available for you to get it.

When many of them are still perplexed of how to get this book, you have actually been below. The best location to discover lots of book classifications consisted of Digital Disconnect It's so easy to get exactly how this publication is revealed. You can just visit, browse, as well as discover the title of the book that you intend to get. Many publications from many sources and also nations exist. So, you might to go to other website to find the precise books to have today.

Review

"No one knows this field better than McChesney, and with this book he has reached the pinnacle."—Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive "A thorough and alarming critique of the corruption of one of the most influential inventions in human history."—Publishers Weekly, starred review "Indispensable reading."—Gar Alperovitz, author of What Then Must We Do? "Once again, McChesney stands at the crossroads of media dysfunction and the denial of democracy, illuminating the complex issues involved and identifying a path forward to try to repair the damage. Here’s hoping the rest of us have the good sense to listen this time."—Eric Alterman

Read more

About the Author

Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of several books on the media, including the award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy and Communication Revolution. He lives in Champaign, Illinois.

Read more

Product details

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: The New Press; Reprint edition (September 2, 2014)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1620970317

ISBN-13: 978-1620970317

Product Dimensions:

5 x 1 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.3 out of 5 stars

51 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#821,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

I don’t often highlight passage after passage in any of my Kindle books – and I rarely buy one after reading most of a print copy – but I bought Robert W. McChesney’s Digital Disconnect after reading most of it, and my copied highlights in 11 point are 21 pages long.Why? Because I’ve been making one or another form of McChesney’s argument – which is also Michael Moore’s and Chris Hayes’ argument and that of numerous others – all of my adult life – except I never focused on digital technology, my arguments are less polite, and I go farther left in my conclusions. I wouldn’t spend time assuring readers/listeners that I only want to reform capitalism and protect those things, such as education and journalism, which exist for the public good. I’m a socialist, strongly in favor of emulating Denmark’s “lopping off the top.” Like Moore, I would replace capitalism with democracy.I certainly agree that capitalism undermines democracy, that capitalism in the U.S. and internationally is now monopolistic corporatism, that the U.S. economy is built to sustain the institutions and people at the top, and that the internet and digital technologies can be potent weapons in the hands of either the 1% or the rest of us. I’m probably less optimistic about the future than McChesney, even though he concludes:Left on their current course and driven by the needs of capital, digital technologies can be deployed in ways that are extraordinarily inimical to freedom, democracy, and anything remotely connected to the good life. Therefore battles over the Internet are of central importance for all those seeking to build a better society. When the dust clears on this critical juncture, if our societies have not been fundamentally transformed for the better, if democracy has not triumphed over capital, the digital revolution may prove to have been a revolution in name only, an ironic, tragic reminder of the growing gap between the potential and the reality of human society. (Kindle Locations 4936-4941).Throughout the book, McChesney emphasizes the need to resist both the “ritualized chant to the genius of the free market” and the idea that “the internet will necessarily lead to democratic political revolutions worldwide.”Acknowledging that publicness does threaten “institutions whose power is invested in the control of information and audience,” McChesney cites studies which show that “garbage in, garbage out” remains true. The internet promotes ignorance as much as knowledge; creates a false sense of community and increased loneliness and unhappiness; “routinely generates bogus information, violates people’s privacy and civil rights, and facilitates various forms of harassment.”Internet searching has become less a tool for discovery and more a way to be locked in a “bubble” which prevents discovery and innovation. Using the internet/digital devices may be decreasing our linear thought process so that we cannot think deeply or creatively, and corroding our ability to remember, which is dangerous because “the art of remembering is the art of thinking.” As Arianna Huffington wrote, “All these new social tools can help us bear witness more powerfully or they can help us be distracted more obsessively.”To combat the “ritualized chant to the genius of the free market,” McChesney begins by describing the development of capitalism in terms of society’s economic evolution from hunter gatherer, to agricultural society, to mercantile society, to industrial society and the concomitant increase in surplus, which became not just the amount produced above that needed for survival, but capital to invest in order to generate more capital: profit. This makes surplus something not to be consumed, even by the wealthy. “How the surplus is generated and distributed becomes the portfolio of political economy,” he writes.Capitalism thus tends to increase income inequality exponentially. It also “tends to evolve into monopolistic competition, or oligopoly” and “as a rule the digital era has seen a continued, arguably accelerating, rate of monopoly in the economy.” Capitalism also tends toward an “endless drive to develop new technologies,” whether or not that is rational for the system as a whole, and much of this technology is funded by and for the military and the growing military-digital complex. As McChesney notes, “in addition to inequality, founders saw militarism as contributor to inequality and enemy of democracy.….. ‘No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’—Madison.”McChesney also discusses the roles of advertising and public relations in expanding contemporary capitalism’s monopolistic, oligarchical power over and through the media and into the government, at the expense of both privacy and a free press which supports robust investigative journalism. Tax structures and numerous rules and regulations increase and cement corporate power. Copyright law and patent law are especially insidious; instead of protecting the rights of creators for a reasonable amount of time, they protect the ability of corporations to keep information locked away or used only for corporate profit. And the internet giants are now among the most powerful of all corporations.McChesney concludes that “efforts to reform or replace capitalism but leave the Internet giants riding high will not reform or replace really existing capitalism” because “the Internet giants are not a progressive force. Their massive profits are the result of monopoly privileges, network effects, commercialism, exploited labor, and a number of government policies and subsidies.” He proposes a long list of policies and reforms (Kindle Locations 4609-4622) that “would put the Internet and our society on a very different trajectory” but says that “none of these reforms has a chance” because of political corruption. It’s going to take a political movement, he says, designed to replace capitalism.

The Internet can be free, produce knowledge that all can access, and support a different type of economy and arena of engagement. Or, the Internet can be a place in which you must be careful. The author lays out the case for both; shows were things may be today; and what could happen to maintain the hopeful and optimistic possibilities of the Web.You may have an opinion on the virtues, positive or negative, about social media, e-commerce, and network technology. The author's work provides the kind of insights you need to understand the points of view of those that see technology as a tool for good as well as the alternative view.As you make decisions about technology, whether for personal digital devices and home networks, or in a professional setting involving the use of technology for business, the book provides an excellent foundation for understanding the potential impact of your decisions.

This writer is an integral part of our national conscience. When he takes on an issue he is thorough in his exploration. His sense of providing background while still staying steadily on track makes him an essential source of whatever subject matter he has taken on. Specifically, I think this is a very useful book because it incorporates some fundamental basics on capitalism as it is practiced versus as free-market capitalists proclaim it to be with the optimistic expectations of how the Internet will bring down the corporations and liberate us all. This writer is an important national resource. I highly recommend this book.

What do Internet "celebrants" (Clay Shirkey, Henry Jenkins, Michael Nielsen, Yochai Benkler, Jeff Jarvis) and Internet "skeptics" (Jaron Lainer, Eli Pariser, Evgeny Morozov, Nicholas Carr) miss in their analysis? Well, capitalism, duh.This is the central thesis of Robert W. McChesney's book Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy. Drawing on his analysis of the contemporary economy in a previous work, The Endless Crisis, McChesney "attempts to connect the digital revolution... to the overriding crises of our times." McChesney believes that "most assessments of the Internet fail to ground it in political economy; they fail to understand the importance of capitalism in shaping and, for lack of a better term, domesticating the Internet."In the first chapter, McChesney sets the stage by assessing why both Internet celebrants and skeptics fail to account for the capitalist elephant in the room: "Whenever scholars examine their own society, it is generally taboo to challenge the prerogatives and privileges of those who stand atop it and benefit from the status quo, even in political democracies." Seeing as how the Internet has become of paramount social importance, McChesney concludes "The democratization of the Internet is integrally related to the democratization of the political economy. They rise and fall together."Chapter 2, "Does Capitalism Equal Democracy?" ("As you may have already guessed, the short answer to the chapter title's question is no.") gives a whirlwind tour of how capitalism is affecting contemporary American society. It briefly covers the historical origins of capitalism before diving into the topics of growing inequality, labor disempowerment, monopoly capitalism, political corruption, advertising, technology, declining growth, and public and private goods. McChesney then references many formative Americans who recognized the threats of capitalism to democracy (one highlight is Lincoln's State of the Union address in which he warns against the "returning despotism" of capital over labor). The chapter ends with a discussion of how capitalism has produced a "golden age of insincere communication" which is "a toxic environment for democracy, and it flames the flames of cynicism," leading to mass depoliticization.Chapter 3 introduces the subfield of Political Economy of Communication (PEC). McChesney introduces the idea of "critical junctures" (abrupt structural transformations that produced previous phenomena such as professional journalism) and suggests that we in the throes of another communication critical juncture. Whether this can lead to a communication transformation on par with the printing press, he opines, remains to be seen. McChesney blasts the entertainment media for not delivering what people want, contrary to conventional wisdom, and inundating children with harmful advertising. He also reviews the various giveaways to media corporations, notably copyright, that keep them afloat. The chapter then turns to an interesting history of journalism in America, and how capitalism has eroded the profession. Finally, McChesney notes that "American history is rich with popular involvement with communication policy making" and "in the coming decade there will be a series of policy debates that will be crucial for the fate of the Internet."Chapter 4 describes "how capitalism conquered the Internet." McChesney recalls the non/anti-capitalist history of the early Internet, and its sudden privatization in 1995 amidst a fury of deregulation. The Internet Service Provider market, once very competitive, is now dominated by a cartel of firms that are providing comparatively poor service by international standards and continuously lobbying the government to exclude potential competitors. The rest of the chapter relates how old-guard media companies continue their dominance in the Internet age: copyright, Digital Rights Management, proprietary systems, etc.Chapter 5 chronicles the new Internet markets that have gone "from competitive to oligopolistic at breakneck speeds." Google, for instance, has 70 percent of the Internet search market and 97 percent of the mobile search market. The Internet giants form monopolies through network effects, patents, proprietary technical standards, anticompetitive pricing, buying out competitors, and large startup costs that raise barriers to entry to potential competitors. These monopolies are dependent on favorable regulation, taxation policies (and their evasion thereof) and lack of antitrust activity for their survival. Also, they are heavily dependent on advertising which calls for "violating any known understanding of privacy." Even though this book was written before the breaking of the NSA surveillance scandals, McChesney presciently ends the chapter with details about the intermingling of Silicon Valley and the military industrial complex, and how the monopolists really don't have a choice in cooperating with the national security state.Chapter 6 tackles the subject of journalism in the Internet age. It is no news to anyone that journalism is in decline, but the Internet is not the root cause -- the Internet is only "[finishing] off the job that the market began." Declining budgets for reporting are leading to substituting corporate PR for news. Scandals abound, such as local news sites farming out reporting to low-wage countries and algorithms generating editorial content. McChesney singles out online nonprofit news media as a small bright spot among the sea of darkness that is Internet news. He proposes public investments in journalism to remedy the dismal situation, noting there are plenty of precedents in American history and sensible policy proposals for doing so.Chapter 7 finishes the book with a series of policy recommendations. He also engages in much more radical musings: "If capitalists oppose reforms to make their own system functional, why exactly do we need them?" McChesney sees a critical juncture coming for both the Internet and society as a whole, and the fortunes of the two will likely track each other.I fear that such a short summary can not do justice to this book because it is overflowing with argument, information and insight. It is truly one of the most dense books I have ever read -- dense as in having a high concentration of useful facts and commentary. It clocks in at just over 200 pages but in that space manages to squeeze the knowledge of maybe ten Internet policy books between its covers.A strength, and perhaps a fault, of the book is that it spans so many topics -- the Internet, democracy, journalism, advertising, capitalism, etc. -- that it can feel like the narrative is wandering at times. Nevertheless, the history and data presented are so enthralling that it is hard to care too much when things seem to be headed slightly off the rails.This work truly sets the standard for Internet policy books. Anyone serious about Internet affairs would be well served to master the content in order to have a realistic grasp of what the current state of the Internet is and where it is headed.

Digital Disconnect PDF
Digital Disconnect EPub
Digital Disconnect Doc
Digital Disconnect iBooks
Digital Disconnect rtf
Digital Disconnect Mobipocket
Digital Disconnect Kindle

Digital Disconnect PDF

Digital Disconnect PDF

Digital Disconnect PDF

Digital Disconnect PDF