Marx and Digital Machines: Alienation, Technology, Capitalism (Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies) - Softcover

Healy, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1912656795 ISBN 13: 9781912656790

Verlag: University of Westminster Press, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

“Healy closes his marvellous book by saying that ‘alienation is a constant feature and is experienced as a norm rather than as an aberration’.” - https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19718_marx-and-digital-machines-alienation-technology-capitalism-by-mike-healy-reviewed-by-thomas-klikauer/

This book explores the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the digital environment: technology offers all manner of promises, yet habitually fails to deliver. This failure often arises from numerous problems: the proficiency of the technology or end-user, policy failure at various levels, or a combination of these. Solutions such as better technology and more effective end-user education are often put into place to solve these failures.

Mike Healy argues that such approaches are inherently faulty drawing upon qualitative research informed by Marx’s theory of alienation. Using Marx’s theory, he considers participants in three distinct settings: the workplace of information and communications technology (ICT) professionals; university scholars researching the ethical and societal implications of our digital environment; and a group of pensioners living in South London, UK, undertaking ICT training. By delving beneath the surface of how digital technologies are created, researched and experienced, this study illustrates the contradictory nature of our digital lives, as they directly arise from the needs of capitalism.

The book also places Marx’s theory in contrast to the mainstream approaches derived from Seaman and Blauner. In researching and comprehending ICT, this book reaffirms the superior explanatory power of Marx’s theory of alienation.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

MIKE HEALY is an independent researcher, was previously a Senior Lecturer at Westminster Business School, University of Westminster. His published work includes papers on ethics and ICT, diversity and employment in the ICT sector, problems of e-government and (using Marx's theory of alienation) dignity in the IT sector. He is currently researching Covid-19 and digital technologies.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Westminster Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1912656795
• ISBN 13: 9781912656790
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 172
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar