Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines

Extract

Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines. By Mark Poster. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. 393p. $79.95 Cloth, $22.95 paper.

In this book, Mark Poster attempts to provide a philosophical framework for understanding the significance of the rise of computers, the Internet, and the other digital technologies. His argument is that the diffusion of these new technologies results in “complex couplings of humans and machines” (p. 9) that call into question some of the central ideas of our time. The discussion starts with postcolonial theory and then moves on to recent theories of empire, citizenship, identity, ethics, psychoanalysis, intellectual property rights, everyday life, and consumer culture. It is an ambitious work and difficult to read in passages, but the effort is worth it.