Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy
数字断连：资本主义如何使互联网背离民主
Authors: Robert W. McChesney（罗伯特·W. 麦切斯尼）
Publisher: The New Press
Publication Year: 2013
Pages: 320
About Book:
Celebrants and skeptics alike have produced valuable analyses of the Internet's effect on us and our world, oscillating between utopian bliss and dystopian hell. But according to Robert W. McChesney, arguments on both sides fail to address the relationship between economic power and the digital world.
McChesney's award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy skewered the assumption that a society drenched in commercial information is a democratic one. In Digital Disconnect, McChesney returns to this provocative thesis in light of the advances of the digital age. He argues that the sharp decline in the enforcement of antitrust violations, the increase in patents on digital technology and proprietary systems and massive indirect subsidies and other policies have made the internet a place of numbing commercialism. A handful of monopolies now dominate the political economy, from Google, which garners a 97 percent share of the mobile search market, to Microsoft, whose operating system is used by over 90 percent of the world's computers. Capitalism's colonization of the Internet has spurred the collapse of credible journalism and made the Internet an unparalleled apparatus for government and corporate surveillance and a disturbingly antidemocratic force.
In Digital Disconnect, Robert McChesney offers a groundbreaking critique of the Internet, urging us to reclaim the democratizing potential of the digital revolution while we still can.
关于书籍
无论是互联网的欢呼者还是怀疑论者，都对互联网对我们及世界的影响做出了有价值的分析，这些分析游走于乌托邦式的极乐与反乌托邦的地狱之间。但罗伯特·W. 麦切斯尼（Robert W. McChesney）认为，双方的论点都未能触及经济权力与数字世界之间的关系。
麦切斯尼的获奖著作《富媒体，穷民主》（Rich Media, Poor Democracy）犀利地批判了这样一种假设：即一个充斥着商业信息的社会就是一个民主社会。在《数字断连》（Digital Disconnect）一书中，麦切斯尼结合数字时代的进步，重拾了这一发人深省的命题。他认为，反垄断执法的急剧减弱、数字技术专利和专有系统的增加、以及巨额的间接补贴和其他政策，已使互联网沦为一个充满令人麻木的商业主义的场所。少数几家垄断巨头如今主宰了政治经济，从占据移动搜索市场 97% 份额的谷歌（Google），到其操作系统被全球 90% 以上计算机使用的微软（Microsoft）。资本主义对互联网的殖民加速了可信新闻业的崩溃，使互联网成为了政府和企业进行监视的无与伦比的机器，并成为一股令人不安的反民主力量。
在《数字断连》中，罗伯特·麦切斯尼对互联网进行了开创性的批判，敦促我们在为时已晚之前，重拾数字革命的民主化潜力。
About Author：
Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of some two dozen books on media and political economy, including Digital Disconnect, Communication Revolution, and the award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy; a co-author, with John Nichols, of Tragedy and Farce; and a co-editor, with Ben Scott, of Our Unfree Press, and, with Victor Pickard, of Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights (all published by The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are also the co-authors of the award-winning Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America. McChesney’s work has been translated into thirty-one languages. He lives in Champaign, Illinois, and Madison, Wisconsin.
关于作者
罗伯特·W·麦克切斯尼（Robert W. McChesney） 是伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校传播学系的古格赛尔杰出教授（Gutgsell Endowed Professor）。他撰写了约二十部关于媒体与政治经济学的著作，包括《数字断连》、《传播革命》以及屡获殊荣的《富媒体，穷民主》。他与约翰·尼科尔斯（John Nichols）合著了《悲剧与闹剧》；与本·斯科特（Ben Scott）合编了《我们不自由的出版界》；并与维克多·皮卡德（Victor Pickard）合编了《请最后一名记者关灯》。麦克切斯尼的作品已被翻译成 31 种语言。他现居住在伊利诺伊州的香槟市和威斯康星州的麦迪逊市。
编译：任艳林、刘鑫
