New Media Invasion

John David Ebert is the author of four previous books and has published essays in such periodicals as the Antioch Review, Utne Reader, Parabola, and Whole Earth. He has also been a featured scholar on A&E’s Ancient Mysteries.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgments      Incipit      Incipit      Introduction to a Catastrophic Bifurcation      When Worlds Close DownExtinction EventThe Internet vs. the Printing PressThe Internet and RadioDestabilizationsFirst, a Brief Note on the Self-Luminous Nature of the New Technologies      PART I: IN WHICH THE INTERNET RECREATES THE WORLD-AS-CAVERN      1. Amazon.com, the Kindle and the Collapse of the Book Industry      Word vs. ByteNot a BookstoreA Transcendentalist OperationE-ReadersRetrievals and Disappearances2. YouTube and the Twilight of Copyright      Glass-Cased InstallationAn Evanescent HorizonPartial ObjectsElectronic Decay RateFoundersCultural MemoryFree MoviesThe Gutenberg EpistemeDiasporic Public SpheresThe Hitler Parodies3. On Facebook We’re All Being Flattened Together      FacialityThe Mask Is Inimical to FacebookYou HaveFriend RequestThe Disappearance of NeighborhoodsThe World Isn’t Flat, You Are4. Wikipedia; or, The Catastrophe of Knowledge      Not an EncyclopediaA Miniature History of the BookBack to WikipediaKnowledge CrisisBorges, Prophet of WikipediaWho Needs It?5. WikiLeaks and the Death of Culture      Intelligible SphereArmor of LightThe Cultural Function of SecretsDisrupting CultureThe Death of the EventThe Event That Never HappenedInformation War6. On the Metaphysics of Google Earth      Some Concluding Comments to Part I: A Miniature History of Capitalism (or, The Evolution of Aladdin’s Cave)      PART II: A COLLECTION OF GADGETS FOR A MUSEUM OF THE FUTURE      7. The Mythology and Metaphysics of the Macintosh      The MythThe CommercialThe Subtle Body of the TextLuminous TechnologyThe One Non-Negotiable Element of the Personal ComputerA Brief History of Invisible WorldsDigitalSubtle Matter in Cyberspace8. Digital Photography and the End of the Visionary Image      The World’s First PhotographSyncopated ImagesA ConfessionThe Necessity of the NegativeLiteral ImagesPhotographic HaikuEdward WestonMapplethorpe’s DaydreamThe Luminous Images of Edward BurtynskyThe Loss of Visionary CoherenceThe Elimination of the HandElegy for Analogue9. How Cell Phones Disrupt the Flows      DerailmentRevolutionsHuman Prostheses of the MatrixThe InvasionDisembodied Voices10. The Killing Eye: Video Games, Surrogate Violence and the Dismantling of Social Machines      Prophet of the LabyrinthDecoding the FlowsThe Individual as Epic HeroGrand Theft Auto and J.G. BallardWorld of Warcraft: Hell Is Other People11. Robots, Drones and the Disappearance of the Human Being      How Drones Retrieve Aristotelian PhysicsVideo Game TrainingThe Eye of HorusHeroicThe Two Revolutions BecomeThe EquationFacts and FiguresThe Superfluous HumanThe Hive Society12. A Few Words on the Ovei Pod and the End of History      Electronic Isolation TankThe Bygone Age of the MacrosphereThe Personal (and Very Private) MicrosphereSome Concluding Comments to Part II: A Miniature History of War and Technology (Since 1815)      Postscript on the Dialectic of Art and Technology      Appendix: Chronology of Key Events      Notes      Bibliography      Index