The Mode of Information: poststructuralism and social context.

Poster, Mark.

ISBN 10: 0226675955 / ISBN 13: 9780226675954

Published by Univ of Chicago Pr, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., 1990

About this Item

179 pages. No dust jacket.

Seller Inventory # 38806

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Mode of Information: poststructuralism and social context.
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226675955
• ISBN 13: 9780226675954
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • English and American Literature

About this title

Synopsis

When we make phone calls and use computers, electronic devices mediate how we communicate. In each instance, we exchange symbols and information just as we have since humans began speaking and writing. What, then—besides economy of space and time—differentiates electronic communications from ordinary speech and writing?

The difference, Mark Poster argues, is the profound effect electronic mediation exerts on the very way we perceive ourselves and reality. To help decode the linguistic dimensions of our multiple forms of social interaction, he plays upon Marx's theory of the mode of production—the shift to late capitalism has a parallel in the shift from the mode of production to that of information.

Enlisting poststructuralist theory, he links four modes of communication with four poststructuralists: TV ads with Baudrillard, data bases with Foucault, electronic writing with Derrida, and computer science with Lyotard. Mode of Information points the way to a poststructuralist strategy for writing history, a framework well suited to unearthing structures of domination and the means to their disruption.

"An informed, insightful, provocative account of phenomena that have transformed virtually every area of public and private life on our time."—Robert Anchor, American Historical Review

"The importance of Poster's book is unmistakable for he skillfully negotiates between and juxtaposes two wide theoretical domains—electronically mediated communications and poststructuralist theory—about which much has been written, but hardly with the acumen that he brings to bear in a long-awaited critical rapprochement."—Charles J. Stivale, Criticism