|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
Artificial intelligence (AI) is often discussed as something
extraordinary, a dream-or a nightmare-that awakens metaphysical
questions on human life. Yet far from a distant technology of the
future, the true power of AI lies in its subtle revolution of
ordinary life. From voice assistants like Siri to natural language
processors, AI technologies use cultural biases and modern
psychology to fit specific characteristics of how users perceive
and navigate the external world, thereby projecting the illusion of
intelligence. Integrating media studies, science and technology
studies, and social psychology, Deceitful Media examines the rise
of artificial intelligence throughout history and exposes the very
human fallacies behind this technology. Focusing specifically on
communicative AIs, Natale argues that what we call "AI" is not a
form of intelligence but rather a reflection of the human user.
Using the term "banal deception," he reveals that deception forms
the basis of all human-computer interactions rooted in AI
technologies, as technologies like voice assistants utilize the
dynamics of projection and stereotyping as a means for aligning
with our existing habits and social conventions. By exploiting the
human instinct to connect, AI reveals our collective
vulnerabilities to deception, showing that what machines are
primarily changing is not other technology but ourselves as humans.
Deceitful Media illustrates how AI has continued a tradition of
technologies that mobilize our liability to deception and shows
that only by better understanding our vulnerabilities to deception
can we become more sophisticated consumers of interactive media.
In Supernatural Entertainments, Simone Natale vividly depicts
spiritualism’s rise as a religious and cultural phenomenon and
explores its strong connection to the growth of the media
entertainment industry in the nineteenth century. He frames the
spiritualist movement as part of a new commodity culture that
changed how public entertainments were produced and consumed.
Starting with the story of the Fox sisters, considered the first
spiritualist mediums in history, Natale follows the trajectory of
spiritualism in Great Britain and the United States from its
foundation in 1848 to the beginning of the twentieth century. He
demonstrates that spiritualist mediums and leaders adopted many of
the promotional strategies and spectacular techniques that were
being developed for the broader entertainment industry.
Spiritualist mediums were indistinguishable from other professional
performers, as they had managers and agents, advertised in the
press, and used spectacularism to draw audiences. Addressing the
overlap between spiritualism’s explosion and nineteenth-century
show business, Natale provides an archaeology of how the
supernatural became a powerful force in the media and popular
culture of today.
Believing in Bits advances the idea that religious beliefs and
practices have become inextricably linked to the functioning of
digital media. How did we come to associate things such as
mindreading and spirit communications with the functioning of
digital technologies? How does the internets capacity to facilitate
the proliferation of beliefs blur the boundaries between what is
considered fiction and fact? Addressing these and similar
questions, the volume challenges and redefines established
understandings of digital media and culture by employing the
notions of belief, religion, and the supernatural.
In this volume, leading scholars of photography and media examine
photography’s vital role in the evolution of media and
communication in the nineteenth century. In the first half of the
nineteenth century, the introduction of telegraphy, the development
of a cheaper and more reliable postal service, the rise of the
mass-circulation press, and the emergence of the railway
dramatically changed the way people communicated and experienced
time and space. Concurrently, photography developed as a medium
that changed how images were produced and circulated. Yet, for the
most part, photography of the era is studied outside the field of
media history. The contributors to this volume challenge those
established disciplinary boundaries as they programmatically
explore the intersections of photography and “new media” during
a period of fast-paced change. Their essays look at the emergence
and early history of photography in the context of broader changes
in the history of communications; the role of the nascent
photographic press in photography’s infancy; and the development
of photographic techniques as part of a broader media culture that
included the mass-consumed novel, sound recording, and cinema.
Featuring essays by noteworthy historians in photography and media
history, this discipline-shifting examination of the communication
revolution of the nineteenth century is an essential addition to
the field of media studies. In addition to the editors,
contributors to this volume are Geoffrey Batchen, Geoffrey Belknap,
Lynn Berger, Jan von Brevern, Anthony Enns, André Gaudreault, Lisa
Gitelman, David Henkin, Erkki Huhtamo, Philippe Marion, Peppino
Ortoleva, Steffen Siegel, Richard Taws, and Kim Timby.
In this volume, leading scholars of photography and media examine
photography’s vital role in the evolution of media and
communication in the nineteenth century. In the first half of the
nineteenth century, the introduction of telegraphy, the development
of a cheaper and more reliable postal service, the rise of the
mass-circulation press, and the emergence of the railway
dramatically changed the way people communicated and experienced
time and space. Concurrently, photography developed as a medium
that changed how images were produced and circulated. Yet, for the
most part, photography of the era is studied outside the field of
media history. The contributors to this volume challenge those
established disciplinary boundaries as they programmatically
explore the intersections of photography and “new media” during
a period of fast-paced change. Their essays look at the emergence
and early history of photography in the context of broader changes
in the history of communications; the role of the nascent
photographic press in photography’s infancy; and the development
of photographic techniques as part of a broader media culture that
included the mass-consumed novel, sound recording, and cinema.
Featuring essays by noteworthy historians in photography and media
history, this discipline-shifting examination of the communication
revolution of the nineteenth century is an essential addition to
the field of media studies. In addition to the editors,
contributors to this volume are Geoffrey Batchen, Geoffrey Belknap,
Lynn Berger, Jan von Brevern, Anthony Enns, André Gaudreault, Lisa
Gitelman, David Henkin, Erkki Huhtamo, Philippe Marion, Peppino
Ortoleva, Steffen Siegel, Richard Taws, and Kim Timby.
In Supernatural Entertainments, Simone Natale vividly depicts
spiritualism’s rise as a religious and cultural phenomenon and
explores its strong connection to the growth of the media
entertainment industry in the nineteenth century. He frames the
spiritualist movement as part of a new commodity culture that
changed how public entertainments were produced and consumed.
Starting with the story of the Fox sisters, considered the first
spiritualist mediums in history, Natale follows the trajectory of
spiritualism in Great Britain and the United States from its
foundation in 1848 to the beginning of the twentieth century. He
demonstrates that spiritualist mediums and leaders adopted many of
the promotional strategies and spectacular techniques that were
being developed for the broader entertainment industry.
Spiritualist mediums were indistinguishable from other professional
performers, as they had managers and agents, advertised in the
press, and used spectacularism to draw audiences. Addressing the
overlap between spiritualism’s explosion and nineteenth-century
show business, Natale provides an archaeology of how the
supernatural became a powerful force in the media and popular
culture of today.
|
|