The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age

Author:   Joseph Turow
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
ISBN:  

9780226837338


Pages:   320
Publication Date:   11 June 2026
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Awaiting stock   Availability explained
The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you.

Our Price $45.95 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age


Overview

Full Product Details

Author:   Joseph Turow
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
Imprint:   University of Chicago Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.567kg
ISBN:  

9780226837338


ISBN 10:   0226837335
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   11 June 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Awaiting stock   Availability explained
The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you.

Table of Contents

1. The Long, Fraught History of Personalization 2. Mass Newspapers to Mass TV: The Mass Audience Century 3. Mailing Lists, Coupons: Direct Marketing Sets the Stage 4. Cookies, Barcodes, Smartphones, Location Targeting: The Internet Takes the Direct-Marketing Crown 5. Machine Learning, Predictive Analytics, Identity Resolution: AI and the Data Deluge 6. Dynamic Personalizations, Unprecedented Permutations, Virtual Influencers: Enter Gen AI 7. Consumer Data and the Law: Governments Push Back, Marketers Push Forward 8. Why Don’t People Revolt? Acknowledgments Notes Index

Reviews

“The Problem with Personalization is an extraordinary history and call to action from one of this country’s most prolific and insightful media scholars. Turow brings readable prose and accessible stories alongside a critical warning about manipulation and disempowerment in today’s surveillance-based economy. This book should be read by anyone and everyone who is concerned about their privacy, their autonomy, and their future.” -- Ari Ezra Waldman, author of “Industry Unbound: The Inside Story of Privacy, Data, and Corporate Power”


“Turow brings deep scholarship and great storytelling to present a vital, urgent warning: AI-fueled hyperpersonalization realizes advertising’s core ambition but risks more than privacy violations, it pulls away at the fabric of shared media and a shared society. Turow sets personalization within the long historic sweep of marketing innovations, from peddlers and hawkers to the fragmentation of communication, and mutual understanding, that data marketing is driving today. The world needs guides who can tell us what modern American marketing is doing, diagnose problems and provide a roadmap to remedies. Turow is our preeminent guide. The Problem with Personalization confronts advertising and media challenges in a highly readable and widely accessible way. This important and timely book is a triumph.” -- Jonathan Hardy, author of “Branded Content: The Fateful Merging of Media and Marketing” “The Problem with Personalization is an extraordinary history and call to action from one of this country’s most prolific and insightful media scholars. Turow brings readable prose and accessible stories alongside a critical warning about manipulation and disempowerment in today’s surveillance-based economy. This book should be read by anyone and everyone who is concerned about their privacy, their autonomy, and their future.” -- Ari Ezra Waldman, author of “Industry Unbound: The Inside Story of Privacy, Data, and Corporate Power” “At last. This is the book we need to understand how advertising works in our era of data-driven online personalization and generative AI. Drawing on history, interviews, and content analysis of the digital machinery of advertising, Turow offers a masterful intervention in current privacy debates, providing much-needed recommendations for improving the advertising techniques shaping our societies.” -- Angèle Christin, author of “Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms”


Author Information

Joseph Turow is the Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries Emeritus in the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of thirteen books and the editor of five, including The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet; The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power; and The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

MRGC26

 

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List