Kirjahaku

A surprising vision of how human intelligence will coevolve with digital technology and revolutionize how we think and behave.It is natural for us to fear artificial intelligence. But does Siri really want to kill us? Perhaps we are falling into the trap of projecting human traits onto the machines we might build. In Evolutionary Intelligence, Neuman offers a surprisingly positive vision in which computational intelligence compensates for the well-recognized limits of human judgment, improves decision making, and actually increases our agency. In artful, accessible, and adventurous prose, Neuman takes the reader on an exciting, fast-paced ride, all the while making a convincing case about a revolution in computationally augmented human intelligence.Neuman argues that, just as the wheel made us mobile and machines made us stronger, the migration of artificial intelligence from room-sized computers to laptops to our watches, smart glasses, and even smart contact lenses will transform day-to-day human decision making. If intelligence is the capacity to match means with ends, then augmented intelligence can offer the ability to adapt to changing environments as we face the ultimate challenge of long-term survival.Tapping into a global interest in technology’s potential impacts on society, economics, and culture, Evolutionary Intelligence demonstrates that our future depends on our ability to computationally compensate for the limitations of a human cognitive system that has only recently graduated from hunting and gathering.

The Future of the Mass Audience focuses on how the changing technology and economics of the mass media in post-industrial society will influence public communication. It summarises the results of a five-year study conducted in cooperation with the senior corporate planners at ABC, CBS, NBC, Time Warner, The New York Times and the Washington Post. The central question is whether the new electronic media and the use of personal computers in the communication process will lead to a fragmentation of the mass audience. Some analysts have suggested that with the growth of increasingly specialised cable television channels and electronic publishing, people will filter and pre-select news concerning only their own special interests and, as a result, cultural and political life will become increasingly polarised. This study demonstrates, however, that the movement towards fragmentation will be modest. It concludes that the production and promotion costs and economies of scale for electronic media put natural constraints on special interest, small audience programming. The conclusion sets forth a policy agenda for making the most of the participatory and democratic potential of evolving electronic communications systems.

The Future of the Mass Audience focuses on how the changing technology and economics of the mass media in post-industrial society will influence public communication. It summarises the results of a five-year study conducted in cooperation with the senior corporate planners at ABC, CBS, NBC, Time Warner, The New York Times and the Washington Post. The central question is whether the new electronic media and the use of personal computers in the communication process will lead to a fragmentation of the mass audience. Some analysts have suggested that with the growth of increasingly specialised cable television channels and electronic publishing, people will filter and pre-select news concerning only their own special interests and, as a result, cultural and political life will become increasingly polarised. This study demonstrates, however, that the movement towards fragmentation will be modest. It concludes that the production and promotion costs and economies of scale for electronic media put natural constraints on special interest, small audience programming. The conclusion sets forth a policy agenda for making the most of the participatory and democratic potential of evolving electronic communications systems.

A central current in the history of democratic politics is the tensions between the political culture of an informed citizenry and the potentially antidemocratic impulses of the larger mass of individuals who are only marginally involved in the political world. Given the public’s low level of political interest and knowledge, it is paradoxical that the democratic system works at all.In The Paradox of Mass Politics W. Russell Neuman analyzes the major election surveys in the United States for the period 1948–1980 and develops for each a central index of political sophistication based on measures of political interest, knowledge, and style of political conceptualization. Taking a fresh look at the dramatic findings of public apathy and ignorance, he probes the process by which citizens acquire political knowledge and the impact of their knowledge on voting behavior.The book challenges the commonly held view that politically oriented college-educated individuals have a sophisticated grasp of the fundamental political issues of the day and do not rely heavily on vague political symbolism and party identification in their electoral calculus. In their expression of political opinions and in the stability and coherence of those opinions over time, the more knowledgeable half of the population, Neuman concludes, is almost indistinguishable from the other half. This is, in effect, a second paradox closely related to the first.In an attempt to resolve a major and persisting paradox of political theory, Neuman develops a model of three publics, which more accurately portrays the distribution of political knowledge and behavior in the mass population. He identifies a stratum of apoliticals, a large middle mass, and a politically sophisticated elite. The elite is so small (less than 5 percent) that the beliefs and behavior of its member are lost in the large random samples of national election surveys, but so active and articulate that its views are often equated with public opinion at large by the powers in Washington. The key to the paradox of mass politics is the activity of this tiny stratum of persons who follow political issues with care and expertise. This book is essential reading for concerned students of American politics, sociology, public opinion, and mass communication.

The Digital Difference examines how the transition from the industrial-era media of one-way publishing and broadcasting to the two-way digital era of online search and social media has affected the dynamics of public life.In the digital age, fundamental beliefs about privacy and identity are subject to change, as is the formal legal basis of freedom of expression. Will it be possible to maintain a vibrant and open marketplace of ideas? In W. Russell Neuman’s analysis, the marketplace metaphor does not signal that money buys influence, but rather just the opposite—that the digital commons must be open to all ideas so that the most powerful ideas win public attention on their merits rather than on the taken-for-granted authority of their authorship.“Well-documented, methodical, provocative, and clear, The Digital Difference deserves a prominent place in communication proseminars and graduate courses in research methods because of its reorientation of media effects research and its application to media policy making.”—John P. Ferré, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly