The Future of Digital Politics

Summer of Unrest: Activism or Slacktivism?

SUMMER OF UNREST: Tom Chatfield investigates the role of the internet and social networking in the protest movements and how these tools are changing our political culture.

Tom Chatfield is a freelance author and commentator. His first book, Fun Inc. (Virgin), was published in 2010. He has done design, writing and consultancy work for games and media companies including Google, Mind Candy, VCCP, Preloaded, Grex, Red Glasses and Intervox; and has spoken widely on technology, media and gaming at forums including TED Global, the Cannes Lions Festival, the House of Commons, the RSA, ICA, authors@Google and the World IT Congress. 
 
A former senior editor at Prospect magazine, he has a doctorate from St. John's College, Oxford, and has written widely in the national and international press, including for the Observer, Independent, Sunday Times, Wired, New Statesman, Evening Standard, Times Literary Supplement, and the website Boing Boing. He also writes fiction, and plays jazz piano.

The student protests during the closing months of 2010 were organised online via Facebook, Twitter, university forums, Google Maps and other networks. They came in the wake of a surge of activity on the web that confonted the traditional media channels when Wikileaks and Anonymous disrupted them, creating a New World Order of breaking news. 
 
The fluid organisation of the protests showed that the internet and social media were key tools for organising dissent. Then in the Spring 2011, a wave of uprisings broke over North Africa with Tunisia, Egypt and Libya swept up in revolts also galvanised online. 
 
Tom Chatfield explores how the internet is re-shaping society and affecting identity in a period of acute political turbulence. 
 
BRAIN SHOTS is the pre-eminent source for high quality, short-form digital non-fiction. The Summer of Unrest series brings together stellar writers to explore the issues surrounding the austerity measures in the UK, uprisings in the Middle East and the nature of the protest movements springing up all over the world.

Why games are the 21st Century's most serious business

Fun Inc.

'A thought-provoking read for those already won over to the delights of computer games, and an even more important introduction to them for those who remain sceptical' Observer

A lively, thought-provoking and thoughtful read on an entertainment juggernaut many of us have failed to properly recognise. A good book, too, for parents, who might feel far more comfortably informed about a sector that can come across as - literally - an alien world their kids inhabit.

A detailed and engaging analysis on an increasingly influential medium. Even non-gamers may find themselves seduced.

Games are invading our downtime. They are becoming the dominant form of distraction, stealing thousands of hours from television. And they have, as Chatfield says, escaped from the gloom of the teenage bedroom.

In exploring the potential of the medium, Chatfield covers much territory, briskly and with intent ... His conclusion on what the future could hold is in equal parts daunting and lip-smacking. It should be read by gamers and non-gamers alike.

Sparklingly intelligent and nuanced ... Fun Inc. is fresh and engaging

A thought-provoking read for those already won over to the delights of computer games, and an even more important introduction to them for those who remain sceptical

The most elegant and comprehensive defence of the status of computer games in our culture I have read

Tom Chatfield completed his doctorate at St John's College, Oxford, before moving to London to work as a full-time writer and editor. He is currently the arts and books editor at Prospect magazine.

'Tom Chatfield's Fun Inc. is the most elegant and comprehensive defence of the status of computer games in our culture I have read, as well as a helpful compendium of research ... The numbers surrounding the sector are certainly thudding. By the end of 2008, annual sales of video games - not including consoles or devices - was $40 billion, comfortably outstripping the movie business. In the same year, Nintendo's employees were more profitable per head than Google's. The sheer pervasiveness of game experience - 99 per cent of teenage boys and 94 per cent of teenage girls having played a video game - means that instant naffness falls upon those who express a musty disdain for the medium. In fact, as Fun Inc. elegantly explains, computer game-playing has a very strong claim to be one of the most vital test-beds for intellectual enquiry.' 
Independent

Tom Chatfield

In an age when we struggle to switch off, Live This Book helps you to create time and thinking space for yourself. 
 
Based around a series of prompts, including famous quotes, challenges and questions, the reader is taken on a journey of self-discovery. Rather than Wreck This Journal, the reader will cherish this journal and come back to it again and again as a way to reflect. 
 
Live This Book is both a thought-provoking and fun way to reconnect with what really matters to each individual reader.

Tom Chatfield

Live This Book

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