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Rewire, June 2013
Hardcover / e-Book
Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection
W.W. Norton
June 2013
On Sale: June 10, 2013
288 pages ISBN: 0393082830 EAN: 9780393082838 Kindle: B00AV7JV48 Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
A rousing call to action for those who would be
citizens of the world—online and off. We live in
an age of connection, one that is accelerated by the
Internet. This increasingly ubiquitous, immensely powerful
technology often leads us to assume that as the number of
people online grows, it inevitably leads to a smaller, more
cosmopolitan world. We’ll understand more, we think. We’ll
know more. We’ll engage more and share more with people from
other cultures. In reality, it is easier to ship bottles of
water from Fiji to Atlanta than it is to get news from Tokyo
to New York. In Rewire, media scholar and
activist Ethan Zuckerman explains why the technological
ability to communicate with someone does not inevitably lead
to increased human connection. At the most basic level, our
human tendency to “flock together” means that most of our
interactions, online or off, are with a small set of people
with whom we have much in common. In examining this
fundamental tendency, Zuckerman draws on his own work as
well as the latest research in psychology and sociology to
consider technology’s role in disconnecting ourselves from
the rest of the world. For those who seek a wider
picture—a picture now critical for survival in an age of
global economic crises and pandemics—Zuckerman highlights
the challenges, and the headway already made, in truly
connecting people across cultures. From voracious xenophiles
eager to explore other countries to bridge figures who are
able to connect one culture to another, people are at the
center of his vision for a true kind of cosmopolitanism. And
it is people who will shape a new approach to existing
technologies, and perhaps invent some new ones, that embrace
translation, cross-cultural inspiration, and the search for
new, serendipitous experiences. Rich with Zuckerman’s
personal experience and wisdom, Rewire offers a map
of the social, technical, and policy innovations needed to
more tightly connect the world.
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