Konrad Becker: Die Politik der Infosphäre: World-Information.Org (2003) [German]

Wir leben in einer Zeit des Übergangs zwischen einem Zeitalter, das auf industrieller Produktion basiert, und einer Gesellschaft, in der die Schaffung und der Austausch von Informationen den Mittelpunkt bilden. Mit der Entwicklung von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien ist eine neue, globalisierte Wirtschaft auf dem Vormarsch, die nicht nur aktuelle politische Vorgänge beeinflusst. Gleichfalls hinterfragt sie den inneren Zusammenhalt der Gesellschaft, die traditionellen Werte und das bisherige Verständnis von Arbeit und Kultur.

“Die Politik der Infosphäre World-Information.Org” untersucht diese dramatischen Veränderungen und zeigt aktuelle Tendenzen dieses gesellschaftlichen Wandels auf.

Editors Konrad Becker, Institut für Neue Kulturtechnol
Publisher VS Verlag, 2003
ISBN 3810038660, 9783810038661
Length 272 pages

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Viktor Mayer-Schönberger: Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age (2009)

Delete looks at the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, yet it has unforeseen consequences as well. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyberspace for future employers to see. Google remembers everything we’ve searched for and when. The digital realm remembers what is sometimes better forgotten, and this has profound implications for us all.

In Delete, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger traces the important role that forgetting has played throughout human history, from the ability to make sound decisions unencumbered by the past to the possibility of second chances. The written word made it possible for humans to remember across generations and time, yet now digital technology and global networks are overriding our natural ability to forget–the past is ever present, ready to be called up at the click of a mouse. Mayer-Schönberger examines the technology that’s facilitating the end of forgetting–digitization, cheap storage and easy retrieval, global access, and increasingly powerful software–and describes the dangers of everlasting digital memory, whether it’s outdated information taken out of context or compromising photos the Web won’t let us forget. He explains why information privacy rights and other fixes can’t help us, and proposes an ingeniously simple solution–expiration dates on information–that may.

Delete is an eye-opening book that will help us remember how to forget in the digital age.

Publisher Princeton University Press, 2009
ISBN 0691138613, 9780691138619
237 pages

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Larry Gross, John Stuart Katz, Jay Ruby (eds.): Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film, and Television (1991)

This pathbreaking collection of thirteen original essays examines the moral rights of the subjects of documentary film, photography, and television. Image makers–photographers and filmmakers–are coming under increasing criticism for presenting images of people that are considered intrusive and embarrassing to the subject. Portraying subjects in a “false light,” appropriating their images, and failing to secure “informed consent” are all practices that intensify the debate between advocates of the right to privacy and the public’s right to know. Discussing these questions from a variety of perspectives, the authors here explore such issues as informed consent, the “right” of individuals and minority groups to be represented fairly and accurately, the right of individuals to profit from their own image, and the peculiar moral obligations of minorities who image themselves and the producers of autobiographical documentaries. The book includes a series of provocative case studies on: the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman, particularly Titicut Follies ; British documentaries of the 1930s; the libel suit of General Westmoreland against CBS News; the film Witness and its portrayal of the Amish; the film The Gods Must be Crazy and its portrayal of the San people of southern Africa; and the treatment of Arabs and gays on television. The first book to explore the moral issues peculiar to the production of visual images, Image Ethics will interest a wide range of general readers and students and specialists in film and television production, photography, communications, media, and the social sciences.

Publisher Oxford University Press US, 1991
ISBN 0195067800, 9780195067804
400 pages

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PDF (updated on 2012-7-14)