To
start out my search for the right book for me, I went as generic as possible
and searched “information society” in Amazon.
From that, I found an abundance of prospects to choose from. However, nearly all of the books were
published from more than two years ago, with some of them even dating back to
the ‘80s. I decided to narrow my search
after the lack of acceptable publication dates to “information society technology”. The urge to write about any type of
technology must have sprouted in the late 2000s as there was an abundance of
books published then along with a sufficient amount published in the time frame
we are narrowed down to.
The first book I came across that I might have an
interest in reading was To the Cloud: Big
Data in a Turbulent World. It is a
284 page book published in May of 2014 and depicts the different areas the
cloud has grounded itself in in the information society. The book looks at the possible benefits as
well as the negatives the cloud has to offer, including the scandal of the
NSA. The second book I found is called Raw Data is an Oxymoron. In its 192 pages, the book, published in
January 2013, talks about how information is not a raw resource people find but
instead depicts it as a cultural resource generated by and for the people. It highlights the time of prehistory data all
the way up to the modern data age and the different challenges we face with
data. Both of these texts seemed
promising, but they did not quite have the appeal I was looking for. Luckily for me though, the third time is the
charm.
The third book I found is called Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy
Contests. In 2006, a Swedish file
sharing engine called the Pirate Bay, was taken down, resulting in the
formation of the Swedish Pirate Party after a group of computer programmers and
the like started to complain about recent government enforcements. The novel follows a political movement that
feels the internet should be used as a place for file sharing in the form of
free expression. The 240 page book,
published in January 2014, follows the new idea of “cultural environmentalism”. Even though the book is relatively recent, it
still has a strong following, being the most frequently read/purchased book of
the three I had chosen. It also had the
most positive reviews out of all of the books I had selected to look at with
Library Thing giving it three stars.
Goodread’s Miguel Caetano reviewed the book, being extremely critical
of what the author left out while also giving it three stars. If something can receive a high level of
criticism yet still receive three stars, there must be something noteworthy
about the book that is worth diving in to find out and is one of the big
reasons I chose this as my book. I am
looking forward to seeing how the information society has had its different
effects on different political systems throughout the world.
"A Review of Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests."Goodreads. Goodreads, 204. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.
"Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests (The Information Society Series) Hardcover – January 24, 2014." Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests (The Information Society Series): Patrick Burkart: 9780262026949: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., 2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.
1 comment:
This sounds like a really interesting topic. The Internet is computer programming has become a major player in political contests and it should be interesting to see how that plays out. The fact that an article is so critical of the book also will help you a lot when it comes to writing your paper. Sounds like a good choice.
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