Overview

A new vision of money as a communication technology that creates and sustains invisible--often exclusive--communities One of the basic structures of everyday life, money is at its core a communication media. Payment systems--cash, card, app, or Bitcoin--are informational and symbolic tools that integrate us into, or exclude us from, the society that surrounds us. Examining the social politics of financial technologies, Lana Swartz reveals what's at stake when we pay. This accessible and insightful analysis comes at a moment of disruption: from fin-tech startups to cryptocurrency schemes, a variety of technologies are poised to unseat traditional financial infrastructures. Swartz explains these changes, traces their longer histories, and demonstrates their consequences. Getting paid and paying determines whether or not you can put food on the table. She shows just how important these invisible systems are. The data that payment produces is uniquely revelatory--and newly valuable. New forms of money create new forms of identity, new forms of community, and new forms of power.

Full Product Details

9781665198905

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Teri Schnaubelt is a Chicago-based stage, on-camera, and voice actor as well as oil painter and photographer. An Earphones Award-winning narrator, she has voiced over a hundred books for New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors, in addition to helping independent authors get their stories heard. Lana Swartz is assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. She is coeditor of Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Stuff.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available