Paul Frosh: The Image Factory. Consumer Culture, Photography and the Visual Content Industry (2003)

Quietly but implacably, powerful transnational corporations are gaining power over our visual world. A ‘global, visual content industry’ increasingly controls images supplied to advertisers, marketers and designers, yet so far the process has, paradoxically, evaded the public eye. This book is the first to expose the interior workings of the visual content industry, which produces approximately 70% of the images that define consumer cultures. The corporate acquisition of major photographic and film archives, as well as the digital rights to much of the worlds fine art, is having a profound effect on what we see. From stock photography to new technologies, this book powerfully engages with the historical and cultural issues relating to visual culture and new media. How has stock photography, the system of renting out ready-made images, transformed the role of marketing and advertising? What impact are digital technologies having on the practices of industry professionals? How have software programs such as Photoshop enabled professionals to play God with photographs and how does this influence our belief in the integrity of images? Combining original research on stock photography with a new theoretical take on the circulation of images in contemporary culture, The Image Factory provides a comprehensive and in-depth exploration of industrialized commercial photography, its uses and abuses.

Publisher Berg Publishers, 2003
ISBN 1859736424, 9781859736425
237 pages

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PDF (updated on 2013-6-19)

Byron Hawk, David M. Rieder, Ollie O. Oviedo (eds.): Small Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools (2008)

Experts examine the ways digital tools affect social and cultural experience.

The essays in Small Tech investigate the cultural impact of digital tools and provide fresh perspectives on mobile technologies such as iPods, digital cameras, and PDAs and software functions like cut, copy, and paste and WYSIWYG. Together they advance new thinking about digital environments.

Contributors: Wendy Warren Austin, Jim Bizzocchi, Collin Gifford Brooke, Paul Cesarini, Veronique Chance, Johanna Drucker, Jenny Edbauer, Robert A. Emmons Jr., Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Richard Kahn, Douglas Kellner, Karla Saari Kitalong, Steve Mann, Lev Manovich, Adrian Miles, Jason Nolan, Julian Oliver, Mark Paterson, Isabel Pedersen, Michael Pennell, Joanna Castner Post, Teri Rueb, James J. Sosnoski, Lance Strate, Jason Swarts, Barry Wellman, Sean D. Williams, Jeremy Yuille.

Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2008
ISBN 0816649782, 9780816649785
236 pages

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PDF (updated on 2012-7-29)

Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944–) [EN, IT, CR, ES, BR-PT, LT, GR, PT, CN]

“In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the “great transformation” of the Industrial Revolution. His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism. New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi’s seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade.”

Keywords and phrases: fascism, gold standard, Concert of Europe, economic liberalism, market economy, protectionism, laissez-faire, Industrial Revolution, Statute of Artificers, nomic, commodity money, Chartist, trade unions, token money, Adam Smith, Robert Owen, labor power, economic system, outdoor relief.

English, 2nd edition
Foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz.
With a New Introduction by Fred Block
Publisher Beacon Press, 2001
ISBN 080705643X, 9780807056431
317 pages

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The Great Transformation (English, 2nd ed., 1944/2001, 21 MB, updated on 2021-10-30)
La grande trasformazione (Italian, trans. Roberto Vigevani, 1974, added on 2021-10-30)
Velika preobrazba (Croatian, trans. Luka Marković, 1999, added on 2021-10-30)
La gran transformación (Spanish, trans. Julia Várela and Fernando Álvarez-Uría, 2000, added on 2021-10-30)
A Grande Transformação (BR-Portuguese, trans. Fanny Wrabel, 2nd ed., 2000, added on 2021-10-30)
Didžioji transformacija (Lithuanian, trans. Jūratė Musteikytėir and Rimantas Grikienis, 2002, added on 2021-10-30)
Ο μεγάλος μετασχηματισμός (Greek, trans. Κώστας Γαγανάκης, 2007, added on 2021-10-30)
A Grande Transformação (Portuguese, trans. Miguel Serras Pereira, 2012, EPUB, added on 2021-10-30)
Ju bian (Chinese, trans. Shumin Huang, 2013, added on 2021-10-30)