by pj.rey The New School held a conference last week that may be of interest to many Sociology Lens readers, so I have decided to devote this week’s entry to sharing some notes from the conference. The implosion of work and play was the most recurrent theme in the panels that I attended. The term … Continue reading »
Tagged with consumption …
Augmented Reality: Going the Way of the Dildo
by pj.rey While the term “augmented reality” uttered in a sexual context might immediately conjure the perennial problematic of the boozed, buzzed, and befuddled (commonly referred to as “beer goggles”), more nuanced analysis may prove fruitful. Fellow Sociology Lens news editor, nathan jurgenson, recently argued in “towards theorizing an augmented reality” that we need to … Continue reading »
When Prosumption is Law, the Prosumer is King (for Now)
by pj.rey Smokers, if I told you that I could get you high-quality cigarettes for half the usual price, you’d probably smartly ask, “What’s the catch?” “The catch,” I might respond, “is that I need five minutes of your labor-time per pack.” This is precisely the bargain customers are making with a Brookline, New Hampshire … Continue reading »
Out of Print: Prosumption and the Triumph of New Media
[Old Books] Continue reading »
The G8 protests and the logically inconsistent foundations of neoclassical economics
This post has been moved to http://williampaulbell.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/the-g8-protests-and-the-logically-inconsistent-foundations-of-neoclassical-economics/ <About> <Portfolio> <Academia> <LinkedIn> <Twitter> <Blog>
weightless capitalism
by nathan jurgenson Google announced that its new operating system, Chrome OS, will be free of charge. Further, it is designed to operate in the “cloud,” meaning that most of its functionality will exist online, using internet applications like GMail and Google Documents instead of programs installed on a hard drive (as Windows does). The … Continue reading »
facebook, the transumer and liquid capitalism
by nathan jurgenson During this “great recession” capitalism might become lighter and more liquid while older and more solidified traditions wash away in the flux of unstable markets (potentially an economic “reboot,” similar to Schumpeter’s notion of capitalism as “creative destruction”). Zygmunt Bauman’s “liquidity” thesis about our late-modern world becoming more fluid seems relevant in … Continue reading »
George Ritzer Guest Post: Are Today’s Globalized Cathedrals of Consumption Tomorrow’s Global Dinosaurs?
By: George Ritzer Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland A decade ago I wrote a book dealing with what I called the “cathedrals of consumption”. These are consumption settings that had, in the main, come into existence in the United States in the post-WWII era. Of particular interest were the most grandiose of these consumption … Continue reading »
Obama and the Spectacle in an Era of Diminishing Consumption
by nathan jurgenson Less Credit/Less Consumption Consumption is down. While this might be a momentary hiccup, it could very well be the case that Western societies will have to “reset” and pull back on consumption levels for a long time to come. Much of the consumption literature has pointed to Western conspicuous and hyper-consumption as … Continue reading »
prosumers of the world unite
by nathan jurgenson Lately, we have been doing lots of work, for others. For free. Millions of users of sites like Facebook and MySpace are clicking away at their profiles, adding detailed information about themselves and others. “We” are uploading content to sites like Flickr, YouTube, the microblogging service Twitter and many others, and our … Continue reading »
