**A critical reexamination of techno-optimism’s empty promises, and how the lessons of the past can help us regain control of our future."David Karpf has done us a great service by clearly and succinctly articulating the hollow rhetoric at the heart of Big Tech’s power. Vaporware, Inc. is equal parts funny and infuriating—I devoured most of it in a day. Let’s regulate Silicon Valley and tax these tech barons already!" —Adam Becker, author of More Everything Forever

Among the ways that digital media has transformed political activism, the most remarkable is not that new media allows disorganized masses to speak, but that it enables organized activist groups to listen. Beneath the waves of e-petitions, "likes," and hashtags lies a sea of data - a newly quantified form of supporter sentiment - and advocacy organizations can now utilize new tools to measure this data to make decisions and shape campaigns. In this book, David Karpf discusses the power and...

A critical reexamination of techno-optimism’s empty promises, and how the lessons of the past can help us regain control of our future.For thirty years, Silicon Valley leaders have promised dramatic technological innovation as long as we—the public, journalists, regulators, and policymakers—keep out of the way. The results have been great for Silicon Valley but haven’t gone so well for the rest of us. Venture capitalists and the companies they fund have amassed wealth, status, and p...

The Internet is facilitating a generational transition among American political advocacy organizations. This book provides a detailed exploration of how “netroots” advocacy groups - MoveOn.org, DailyKos.com, DemocracyforAmerica.com, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee - differ from “legacy” peer organizations. It also explains the partisan character of these technological innovations.

The Disinformers uncovers the people and the organizations behind the disinformation campaigns that began on social media with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and reached a violent crescendo with the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Edited by social media researcher Lance Porter, this vital collection of interdisciplinary scholarship analyzes how foreign interference destabilized political conversations, stoked racial tensions, and spread disinformation across ...

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize.In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop.Hardborough becomes a battleground. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too. Her fate will strike a chord with anyone who knows that life has treated them with le...

There is something about the number 3.The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two.Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore them...

The far South-West of England, this limb of land that extends away into the ocean, and some would say away from reality, from comfort and safety.Upon its beautiful rugged landscape of wild nature and pretty tourist laden villages have been seared some of the darkest stories from our author’s pens. For them Cornwall is malevolent, it veers towards evil and the dark arts of supernatural and ghostly hell.But don’t just take our word, take the words of Edgar Allan Poe, F Marion...

Animal Poems. We all love animals, even if sometimes its only from afar on TV or at a zoo. But many of us have felt friendship and companionship with our friends in the animal world. We talk and react to them as if they really do understand us. Perhaps they do. In this volume Hardy, Thackeray, Carroll, DH Lawrence, Emily Dickinson and many others share their words with our ears.

There is something about the number 3.The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two.Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore them...

Being curious, learning from all of our experiences, is one of our most pleasing traits as human beings.In this series we examine particular facets of ourselves and, with the aid of many classic authors, delve into characters and stories that not only entertain us, but inform us on how short stories can help us both deal and understand issues that touch and weave into our lives with the words and narratives of many wise talents.In this volume our authors have a fine flip si...

The Brontes – Volume 2. Perhaps England’s greatest literary family. To find one brilliant novelist in a family is extremely rare. But two? Three? The Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily Jane and Anne together with their brother Patrick are famed throughout the World. But amongst their many talents was poetry. Of course being Bronte’s they were rather good at that too. In Volume 2 we bring you; Emily Bronte – Remembrance, Anne Bronte - Lines Composed In A Wood On A Windy Day, Patrick Branwell ...