[ecrea] new book: technologies of consumer labor: a history of self-service

Michael Palm, /Technologies of Consumer Labor: A History of Self-Service 
/(Routledge, 2017)


available in hardback, paperback, and as an e-book, or email 
(mpalm /at/ unc.edu) for a free pdf.


https://www.routledge.com/Technologies-of-Consumer-Labor-A-History-of-Self-Service/Palm/p/book/9781138186477


This book documents and examines the history of technology used by 
consumers to serve oneself. The telephone’s development as a 
self-service technology functions as the narrative spine, beginning with 
the advent of rotary dialing eliminating most operator services and 
transforming every local connection into an instance of self-service. 
Today, nearly a century later, consumers manipulate 0-9 keypads on a 
plethora of digital machines. Throughout the book Palm employs a 
combination of historical, political-economic and cultural analysis to 
describe how the telephone keypad was absorbed into business models 
across media, retail and financial industries, as the interface on 
everyday machines including the ATM, cell phone and debit card reader. 
He argues that the naturalization of self-service telephony shaped 
consumers’ attitudes and expectations about digital technology.


Introduction: Phoning It In, or Consumer Labor and the Telephone

1. Please Help Yourself: Self-Service Shopping and the "Revolution in 
Distribution"

2. Phantom of the Operator: Rotary Dialing and the Automation of 
Everyday Life

3. Then Press #: Touch-Tone Phones and Digital Interface

4. What’s in a PIN? ATMs and Keypads beyond the Telephone

Conclusion: Smart Phones and the Costs of Payment


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