[ecrea] Book on disinformation society

The book may be too expensive for impulse buying, but please consider 
asking your library to purchase.

Jonathan Paul Marshall,  James Goodman, Didar Zowghi and Francesca da Rimini
Disorder and the Disinformation Society: The Social Dynamics of 
Information, Networks and Software.
Routledge
310 pages  US$140.00
ISBN: 0415540003;        9780415540001


This book is the first general social analysis that seriously considers 
the daily experience of information disruption and software failure 
within contemporary Western society. Through an investigation of 
informationalism, defined as a contemporary form of capitalism, it 
describes the social processes producing informational disorder. While 
most social theory sees disorder as secondary, pathological or 
uninteresting, this book takes disordering processes as central to 
social life. The book engages with theories of information society which 
privilege information order, offering a strong counterpoint centred on 
'disinformation' and information disruption as natural features of that 
society. It elucidates the structural processes underpinning and 
generating both information and its disruption.

Disorder and the Disinformation Society offers a practical agenda, 
arguing that difficulties in producing software are both inherent to the 
process of developing software and the normal social dynamics of 
informationalism. It outlines the dynamics of software failure as they 
impinge on of information workers and on daily life, explores why 
computerized finance has become inherently self-disruptive, asks how 
digital enclosure and intellectual property create conflicts over 
cultural creativity while disrupting informational accuracy and 
scholarship, and reveals how social media can extend, but also distort, 
the development of social movements.

Reviews

"Disorder and the Disinformation Society is a groundbreaking collective 
effort. The study shifts our attention from hyped possibilities to the 
dark side of our excessive information flows. After the digital rush, 
let's get analytic and study the informational impulse. We can no longer 
deny the multitudes of failures. As Freud already taught us: it is 
through the study of disorder that we hold a mirror to society and learn 
about the laws of society. In order to prevent eternal repetition of the 
same complaints, let's develop the necessary critical concepts. How will 
the data catharsis look like? This book is an excellent attempt at that 
practice."
- Geert Lovink, internet critic, Institute of Network Cultures and 
European Graduate School

"Rather than considering disorder and disinformation an undesirable 
by-product of networking, the authors make a convincing case for the 
persistence of unintended and unplanned consequences of human 
action―especially as applied to information networks. Provocative, 
creative, and meticulously researched, this remarkable study changes our 
understanding of our today’s information society in profound ways. Not 
to be missed!"
- Manfred B. Steger, Professor of Political Science, University of 
Hawai’i-Manoa, and author of Globalization: A Very Short Introduction



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