Information and Power

This accessible and original book offers a novel analytical framework to understand the relationship between information and power as the tension between popular and personal stories. It will appeal to both students and those interested in communication and media studies, sociology, political science and international relations.

This accessible and original book offers a novel analytical framework for understanding the relationship between information and power as the tension between popular and personal stories.Information and Power: Popular and Personal Storytelling in the Digital Age describes the relationship between information and power as a pendulum that constantly shifts from popular to personal stories and never reaches its balance. Through four detailed chapters, each framed as a question, the book looks at the past, present, and future challenges of Western societies. It examines the ever-growing commercialization, selfie culture, influencers, fake news and misinformation, hate speech, national identity, international conflicts, and the race of big tech companies to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence. All those seemingly unrelated topics are explained through a single prism-the tension between popular and personal stories, and our search for more meaningful identities. Finally, the book offers various ways to address these issues by promoting modesty and trust through education and regulations as well as future technology design and usage.Written in accessible language and requiring no prior knowledge of the field, this book is intended for undergraduate students in communication and media studies, sociology, political science, international relations, and all those interested in the issues it addresses.

Autorentext

Elad Segev is a Professor of International Communication at Tel Aviv University. He studies the relationship between information and power, focusing on global information flows, Americanization, country image, search engines, and the digital divide. Segev is the author and editor of several books, including Semantic Network Analysis in Social Sciences (2022, Routledge), International News Flow Online (2016), and Google and the Digital Divide (2010). His studies are published in leading journals in the fields of communication studies, information science, and political science.

Inhalt

Introduction 1. Why has information been so powerful? 2. Who are the powerful information agents today? 3. How does powerful information affect our lives? 4. What can we do to improve our information and power-driven world?