Readings for LIT 6855: Information as Capital

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From Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution ed. by Robert W. McChesney, Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998).

"The Political Economy of Global Communication" by Robert W. McChesney

"Challenging Capitalism in Cyberspace" by Heather Menzies

"Selling Our Children: Channel One and the Politics of Education" by Michael W. Apple

"Work, New Technology, and Capitalism" by Peter Meiksins

A selection from A is for Ox: The Collapse of Literacy and the Rise of Violence in an Electronic Age by Barry Sanders (New York: Vintage, 1994).

"The DNA of Information" from Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte (New York: Vintage, 1995).

From Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information edited by James Brook and Iain A. Boal (San Francisco: City Lights, 1995)

"The Global Information Highway: Project for an Ungovernable World" by Herbert I. Schiller "Info Fetishism" by Doug Henwood

"Digital Palsy: RSI and Restructuring Capital" by R. Dennis Hayes

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Questions: Sanders and Negroponte have both written best-selling, "accessible" texts regarding the Information or Digital or Electonic Age. Judging from these excerpts, how is the popular conception of this Age being shaped? What relationship do you see between these popular texts and the other essays we've read for today? How is capitalism being situated by these critics--who has the most sophisticated grasp and/or most compelling argument?

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