[ecrea] New Book - The Death of Public Knowledge? Goldsmiths-MIT Press

*The Death of Public Knowledge? *

*Edited by Aeron Davis*

*
*

*Just out with Goldsmiths-MIT Press*


https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/death-public-knowledge


'The Death of Public Knowledge?' argues for the value and importance of 
shared, publicly accessible knowledge, and suggests that the erosion of 
its most visible forms, including public service broadcasting, 
education, and the network of public libraries, has worrying outcomes 
for democracy.


With contributions from both activists and academics, this collection of 
short, sharp essays focuses on different aspects of public knowledge, 
from libraries and education to news media and public policy. Together, 
the contributors record the stresses and strains placed upon public 
knowledge by funding cuts and austerity, the digital economy, 
quantification and target-setting, neoliberal politics, and inequality. 
These pressures, the authors contend, not only hinder democracies, but 
also undermine markets, economies, and social institutions and spaces 
everywhere.


Covering areas of international public concern, these polemical, 
accessible texts include reflections on the fate of schools and 
education, the takeover of public institutions by private interests, and 
the corruption of news and information in the financial sector. They 
cover the compromised Greek media during recent EU negotiations, the 
role played by media and political elites in the Irish property bubble, 
the compromising of government policy by corporate interests in the 
United States and Korea, and the squeeze on public service media in the 
United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States. Individually and 
collectively, these pieces spell out the importance of maintaining 
public, shared knowledge in all its forms, and offer a rallying cry for 
doing so, asserting the need for strong public, financial, and 
regulatory support.


*Contributors: *Toril Aalberg, Ian Anstice, Philip Augar, Rodney Benson, 
Aeron Davis, Des Freedman, Wayne Hope, Ken Jones, Bong-hyun Lee, Colin 
Leys, Andrew McGettigan, Michael Moran, Aristotelis Nikolaidis, Justin 
Schlosberg, Henry Silke, Roger Smith, Peter Thompson, Janine R. Wedel, 
Karel Williams, Kate Wright


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