Summary Of Traffic By Ben Smith Genius Rivalryand Delusion In The Billion Dollar Race To Go Viral

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Summary of Traffic by Ben Smith: Genius, Rivalry,and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral

Author : GP SUMMARY
Publisher : BookRix
ISBN 13 : 3755441187
Total Pages : 111 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (554 download)

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Book Synopsis Summary of Traffic by Ben Smith: Genius, Rivalry,and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral by : GP SUMMARY

Download or read book Summary of Traffic by Ben Smith: Genius, Rivalry,and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral written by GP SUMMARY and published by BookRix. This book was released on 2023-05-04 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DISCLAIMER This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book. Summary of Traffic by Ben Smith: Genius, Rivalry,and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET: Chapter astute outline of the main contents. Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis. Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book Ben Smith's Traffic is the story of two online media rivals, Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and BuzzFeed and Nick Denton of Gawker Media, whose pursuit of attention at scale helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society. It explores one of the great ironies of our time: the internet, which was going to help the left remake the world in its image, has become the motive force of right populism. It is essential and enthralling reading to understand how we got here.

Traffic

Author : Ben Smith
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593299779
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Traffic by : Ben Smith

Download or read book Traffic written by Ben Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Engrossing and suspenseful." —The New York Times “Expertly pulls readers in.” —The Guardian “Smith sharply chronicles the revolutionary moment.” — Financial Times The origin story of the post-truth age: the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Nick Denton of Gawker Media and Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and BuzzFeed, whose delirious pursuit of attention at scale helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society If attention is the new oil, Traffic is the story of the time between the first gusher and the perceptible impact of climate change. The curtain opens in Soho in the early 2000s, after the first dot-com crash but before Google, Apple, and Facebook exploded, when it seemed that New York City, rather than Silicon Valley, might become tech’s center of gravity. There, Nick Denton’s merry band of nihilists at his growing Gawker empire and Jonah Peretti’s sunnier team at HuffPost and BuzzFeed were building the foundations of viral internet media. Ben Smith, who would go on to earn a controversial reputation as BuzzFeed News’s editor in chief, was there to see it, and he chronicles it all with marvelous lucidity underscored by dark wit. Traffic explores one of the great ironies of our time: The internet, which was going to help the left remake the world in its image, has become the motive force of right populism. People like Steve Bannon and Andrew Breitbart initially seemed like minor characters in the narrative in which Nick and Jonah were the stars. But today, anyone might wonder if the opposite wasn’t the case. To understand how we got here, Traffic is essential and enthralling reading.

The Men Who Killed the News

Author : Eric Beecher
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1761428055
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (614 download)

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Book Synopsis The Men Who Killed the News by : Eric Beecher

Download or read book The Men Who Killed the News written by Eric Beecher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-07-31 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor lifts the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs. What’s gone wrong with our media? The answer: its owners. From William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk, from the British press barons to colonial upstarts Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, media proprietors have manipulated the news to accumulate wealth and influence as they meddled with democracy. Eric Beecher knows the news business from bottom to top. He has been a journalist, editor and media proprietor (of Text Media and Crikey), with the rare distinction of having both worked for and been sued (unsuccessfully) by the Murdochs. This book reveals the distorted role of the media moguls of the past two centuries: their techniques, strategies, behind-closed-doors machinations, and indulgent lifestyles. It explains how they have exploited the shield of the freedom of the press to undermine journalism – and truth. In an era of fake news, AI and misinformation, this is democracy’s chillingly important story: how a small coterie of flawed and narcissistic moguls created a shadow of power that has contributed to making the media an agent of mistrust.

Blur

Author : Bill Kovach
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1608193012
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (81 download)

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Book Synopsis Blur by : Bill Kovach

Download or read book Blur written by Bill Kovach and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two journalists provide a guide for navigating through the Internet Age's viral and opinion-based news sources, explaining how to discern what sources or facts are reliable and how to think like a journalist and unearth the truth.

Merchants of Truth

Author : Jill Abramson
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1473523974
Total Pages : 403 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (735 download)

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Book Synopsis Merchants of Truth by : Jill Abramson

Download or read book Merchants of Truth written by Jill Abramson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping and definitive in-the-room account of the revolution that has swept the news industry over the last decade and reshaped our world. The last decade has seen the News industry face unprecedented change. The sometimes-century old institutions which were once the bastions of truth have had their dominance eroded by vast innovations in viral technology and, as millennial appetites force the industry to choose between principles of objectivity and impartiality, the survivors must confront the horrifying cost of their success: sexual scandal, fake news, the election of President Trump and the shaking of democracy. Taking us behind the scenes at four media titans - BuzzFeed, VICE, The New York Times and The Washington Post - Abramson reveals the human drama behind this shift: one involving deal-making tycoons, thrusting reporters, hard-bitten editors, egomaniacs, bullshitters, provocateurs and bullies, with some surfing and others drowning in the breaking wave of change. 'A cracking, essential read... Abramson knows where most of the bodies are buried and is prepared to draw the reader a detailed map' Guardian

The Content Trap

Author : Bharat Anand
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0812995392
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis The Content Trap by : Bharat Anand

Download or read book The Content Trap written by Bharat Anand and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “My favorite book of the year.”—Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Harvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand presents an incisive new approach to digital transformation that favors fostering connectivity over focusing exclusively on content. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Success for flourishing companies comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors’ best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the front lines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves. Praise for The Content Trap “A masterful and thought-provoking book that has reshaped my understanding of content in the digital landscape.”—Ariel Emanuel, co-CEO, WME | IMG “The Content Trap is a book filled with stories of businesses, from music companies to magazine publishers, that missed connections and could never escape the narrow views that had brought them past success. But it is also filled with stories of those who made strategic choices to strengthen the links between content and returns in their new master plans. . . . The book is a call to clear thinking and reassessing why things are the way they are.”—The Wall Street Journal

Tech Panic

Author : Robby Soave
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982159618
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis Tech Panic by : Robby Soave

Download or read book Tech Panic written by Robby Soave and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning journalist and author of the “methodical, earnest, and insightful” (The Guardian) Panic Attack, an examination of recent kneejerk calls to regulate Big Tech from both sides of the aisle. Not so long ago, we embraced social media as a life-changing opportunity to connect with friends and family all across the globe. Today, the pendulum of public opinion is swinging in the opposite direction as Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and similar sites are being accused of corrupting our democracy, spreading disinformation, and fanning the flames of hatred. We once marveled at the revolutionary convenience of ordering items online and having them show up on our doorsteps overnight. Now we fret about Amazon outsourcing our jobs overseas or building robots to do them for us. With insightful analysis and in-depth research, Robby Soave offers “a refreshing dose of sanity and common sense about big tech” (David French, author of Divided We Fall) and explores some of the biggest issues animating both the right and the left: bias, censorship, disinformation, privacy, screen addiction, crime, and more. Far from polemical, Tech Panic is grounded in interviews with insiders at companies like Facebook and Twitter, as well as expert analysis by both tech boosters and skeptics—from Mark Zuckerberg to Josh Hawley. You will learn not just about the consequences of Big Tech, but also the consequences of altering the ecosystem that allowed tech to get big. Offering a fresh and crucial perspective on one of the biggest influences of the 21st century, Soave seeks to stand athwart history and yell, Wait, are we sure we really want to do this?

Three Blind Mice

Author : Ken Auletta
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307766330
Total Pages : 657 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Three Blind Mice by : Ken Auletta

Download or read book Three Blind Mice written by Ken Auletta and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-10-06 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happened to network television in the 1980s? How did CBS, NBC, and ABC lose a third of their audience and more than half of their annual profits? Ken Auletta, author of Greed and Glory on Wall Street, tells the gripping story of the decline of the networks in this epically scaled work of journalism. He chronicles the takeovers and executive coups that turned ABC and NBC into assets of two mega-corporations and CBS into the fiefdom of one man, Larry Tisch, whose obsession with the bottom line could be both bracing and appalling. Auletta takes us inside the CBS newsroom on the night that Dan Rather went off-camera for six deadly minutes; into the screening rooms where NBC programming wunderkind Brandon Tartikoff watched two of his brightest prospects for new series thud disastrously to earth; and into the boardrooms where the three networks were trying to decide whether television is a public trust or a cash cow. Rich in anecdote and gossip, scalpel-sharp in its perceptions, Three Blind Mice chronicles a revolution in American business and popular culture, one that is changing the world on both sides of the television screen.

Automating the News

Author : Nicholas Diakopoulos
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674239318
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Automating the News by : Nicholas Diakopoulos

Download or read book Automating the News written by Nicholas Diakopoulos and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From hidden connections in big data to bots spreading fake news, journalism is increasingly computer-generated. An expert in computer science and media explains the present and future of a world in which news is created by algorithm. Amid the push for self-driving cars and the roboticization of industrial economies, automation has proven one of the biggest news stories of our time. Yet the wide-scale automation of the news itself has largely escaped attention. In this lively exposé of that rapidly shifting terrain, Nicholas Diakopoulos focuses on the people who tell the stories—increasingly with the help of computer algorithms that are fundamentally changing the creation, dissemination, and reception of the news. Diakopoulos reveals how machine learning and data mining have transformed investigative journalism. Newsbots converse with social media audiences, distributing stories and receiving feedback. Online media has become a platform for A/B testing of content, helping journalists to better understand what moves audiences. Algorithms can even draft certain kinds of stories. These techniques enable media organizations to take advantage of experiments and economies of scale, enhancing the sustainability of the fourth estate. But they also place pressure on editorial decision-making, because they allow journalists to produce more stories, sometimes better ones, but rarely both. Automating the News responds to hype and fears surrounding journalistic algorithms by exploring the human influence embedded in automation. Though the effects of automation are deep, Diakopoulos shows that journalists are at little risk of being displaced. With algorithms at their fingertips, they may work differently and tell different stories than they otherwise would, but their values remain the driving force behind the news. The human–algorithm hybrid thus emerges as the latest embodiment of an age-old tension between commercial imperatives and journalistic principles.

This Is Rage

Author : Ken Goldstein
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781611880717
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (87 download)

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Book Synopsis This Is Rage by : Ken Goldstein

Download or read book This Is Rage written by Ken Goldstein and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vignettes portray the world of Silicon Valley businesses and politics filtered through the world of an Internet radio host.

All the News That’s Fit to Click

Author : Caitlin Petre
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691254931
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis All the News That’s Fit to Click by : Caitlin Petre

Download or read book All the News That’s Fit to Click written by Caitlin Petre and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-27 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Over the past fifteen years, journalism has experienced a rapid proliferation of data about online reader behavior in the form of web metrics. These newsroom metrics influence which stories are written, how news is promoted, and which journalists get hired and fired. Some argue that metrics help journalists better serve their audiences. Others worry that metrics are the contemporary equivalent of a stopwatch-wielding factory manager. In Desperate Measures, Caitlin Petre offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at how metrics are reshaping the work of journalism. Over a period of four years, Petre conducted a mix of in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation at three sites. The book first shows how metrics tools are designed and marketed, via Petre's research at the prominent news analytics company Chartbeat. Petre then follows Chartbeat's tool into the newsrooms of two of the company's highest-profile clients: Gawker Media and The New York Times. She finds that newsroom metrics are a powerful form of managerial surveillance and discipline. However, unlike the manager's stopwatch that preceded them, digital metrics are designed to gain the trust of wary journalists by providing a habit-forming user experience that mimics key features of addictive games. She details how the ambiguous nature of the data lead journalists to draw seemingly arbitrary boundaries around uses of audience metrics that are either legitimate or illegitimate. And she examines how metrics intersect with existing newsroom hierarchies. As performance analytics spread to virtually every professional field, Petre's findings speak to the future of expertise and labor relations in contexts far beyond journalism"--

Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

Author : Marlene Zuk
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 039308986X
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live by : Marlene Zuk

Download or read book Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live written by Marlene Zuk and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “With…evidence from recent genetic and anthropological research, [Zuk] offers a dose of paleoreality.” —Erin Wayman, Science News We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them—are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence. Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized, meaning that we are not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors. Contrary to what the glossy magazines would have us believe, we do not enjoy potato chips because they crunch just like the insects our forebears snacked on. And women don’t go into shoe-shopping frenzies because their prehistoric foremothers gathered resources for their clans. As Zuk compellingly argues, such beliefs incorrectly assume that we’re stuck—finished evolving—and have been for tens of thousands of years. She draws on fascinating evidence that examines everything from adults’ ability to drink milk to the texture of our ear wax to show that we’ve actually never stopped evolving. Our nostalgic visions of an ideal evolutionary past in which we ate, lived, and reproduced as we were “meant to” fail to recognize that we were never perfectly suited to our environment. Evolution is about change, and every organism is full of trade-offs. From debunking the caveman diet to unraveling gender stereotypes, Zuk delivers an engrossing analysis of widespread paleofantasies and the scientific evidence that undermines them, all the while broadening our understanding of our origins and what they can really tell us about our present and our future.

Content Strategy for the Web

Author : Kristina Halvorson
Publisher : New Riders
ISBN 13 : 0132883244
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (328 download)

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Book Synopsis Content Strategy for the Web by : Kristina Halvorson

Download or read book Content Strategy for the Web written by Kristina Halvorson and published by New Riders. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FROM CONSTANT CRISIS TO SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS BETTER CONTENT MEANS BETTER BUSINESS. Your content is a mess: the website redesigns didn’t help, and the new CMS just made things worse. Or, maybe your content is full of potential: you know new revenue and cost-savings opportunities exist, but you’re not sure where to start. How can you realize the value of content while planning for its long-term success? For organizations all over the world, Content Strategy for the Web is the go-to content strategy handbook. Read it to: Understand content strategy and its business value Discover the processes and people behind a successful content strategy Make smarter, achievable decisions about what content to create and how Find out how to build a business case for content strategy With all-new chapters, updated material, case studies, and more, the second edition of Content Strategy for the Web is an essential guide for anyone who works with content.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Author : Neil Postman
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9780143036531
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (365 download)

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Book Synopsis Amusing Ourselves to Death by : Neil Postman

Download or read book Amusing Ourselves to Death written by Neil Postman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-12-27 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. "It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. “A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

Beyond Belief

Author : Jenna Miscavige Hill
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062248499
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond Belief by : Jenna Miscavige Hill

Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Jenna Miscavige Hill and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige, was raised as a Scientologist but left the controversial religion in 2005. In Beyond Belief, she shares her true story of life inside the upper ranks of the sect, details her experiences as a member Sea Org—the church's highest ministry, speaks of her "disconnection" from family outside of the organization, and tells the story of her ultimate escape. Piercing the veil of secrecy that has long shrouded the world of Scientology, this insider reveals unprecedented firsthand knowledge of the religion, its obscure rituals, and its mysterious leader—David Miscavige. From her prolonged separation from her parents as a small child to being indoctrinated to serve the greater good of the Church, from her lack of personal freedoms to the organization's emphasis on celebrity recruitment, Jenna goes behind the scenes of Scientology's oppressive and alienating culture, detailing an environment rooted in control in which the most devoted followers often face the harshest punishments when they fall out of line. Addressing some of the Church's most notorious practices in startling detail, she also describes a childhood of isolation and neglect—a childhood that, painful as it was, prepared her for a tough life in the Church's most devoted order, the Sea Org. Despite this hardship, it is only when her family approaches dissolution and her world begins to unravel that she is finally able to see the patterns of stifling conformity and psychological control that have ruled her life. Faced with a heartbreaking choice, she mounts a courageous escape, but not before being put through the ultimate test of family, faith, and love. At once captivating and disturbing, Beyond Belief is an eye-opening exploration of the limits of religion and the lengths to which one woman went to break free.

E-mail for Dummies

Author : John R. Levine
Publisher : For Dummies
ISBN 13 : 9780764501319
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis E-mail for Dummies by : John R. Levine

Download or read book E-mail for Dummies written by John R. Levine and published by For Dummies. This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guide to using E-mail, with advice on exchanging E-mail, keeping E-mail private and secure, and using all of the major E-mail software. Includes a CD-ROM with Internet software for Windows and Machintosh computers.

The Truth about Crime

Author : Jean Comaroff
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022642491X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth about Crime by : Jean Comaroff

Download or read book The Truth about Crime written by Jean Comaroff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book by the well-known anthropologists Jean and John L. Comaroff explores the global preoccupation with criminality in the early twenty-first century, a preoccupation strikingly disproportionate, in most places and for most people, to the risks posed by lawlessness to the conduct of everyday life. Ours in an epoch in which law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcement are ever more critical registers in which societies construct, contest, and confront truths about themselves, an epoch in which criminology, broadly defined, has displaced sociology as the privileged means by which the social world knows itself. They also argue that as the result of a tectonic shift in the triangulation of capital, the state, and governance, the meanings attached to crime and, with it, the nature of policing, have undergone significant change; also, that there has been a palpable muddying of the lines between legality and illegality, between corruption and conventional business; even between crime-and-policing, which exist, nowadays, in ever greater, hyphenated complicity. Thinking through Crime and Policing is, therefore, an excursion into the contemporary Order of Things; or, rather, into the metaphysic of disorder that saturates the late modern world, indeed, has become its leitmotif. It is also a meditation on sovereignty and citizenship, on civility, class, and race, on the law and its transgression, on the political economy of representation.