{"product_id":"there-are-no-facts-isbn-9780262047470","title":"There Are No Facts","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe entanglements of people and data, code and space, knowledge and power: how data and algorithms shape the world—and shape us within that world.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the emergence of a post-truth world, we have witnessed the dissolution of the common ground on which truth claims were negotiated, individual agency enacted, and public spheres shaped. What happens when, as Nietzsche claimed, there are no facts, but only interpretations? In this book, Mark Shepard examines the entanglements of people and data, code and space, knowledge and power that have produced an uncommon ground—a disaggregated public sphere where the extraction of behavioral data and their subsequent processing and sale have led to the emergence of micropublics of ever-finer granularity.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eShepard explores how these new post-truth territories are propagated through machine learning systems and social networks, which shape the public and private spaces of everyday life. He traces the balkanization and proliferation of online news and the targeted distribution of carefully crafted information through social media. He examines post-truth practices, showing how truth claims are embedded in techniques by which the world is observed, recorded, documented, and measured. Finally, he shows how these practices play out, at scales from the translocality of the home to the planetary reach of the COVID-19 pandemic—with stops along the way at an urban minimarket, an upscale neighborhood for the one percent, a Toronto waterfront district, and a national election.Introduction 1\u003cbr\u003eI Practices\u003cbr\u003e1 Alternative Facts 29\u003cbr\u003e2 Ground Fictions 47\u003cbr\u003e3 The Data Blasé 67\u003cbr\u003eII Contexts\u003cbr\u003e4 Artificial Cohabitants 85\u003cbr\u003e5 Spurious Correlations 103\u003cbr\u003e6 From Tools to Environments 121\u003cbr\u003e7 Right to the (Wrong) City 137\u003cbr\u003e8 The Ruse and the Exploit 159\u003cbr\u003e9 Pandemic Exceptionalism 175\u003cbr\u003eCoda 199\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments 213\u003cbr\u003eNotes 217\u003cbr\u003eBibliography 247\u003cbr\u003eIndex 267“Titled after Nietzsche’s famous statement and richly illustrated, this is a manual for intellectual self-defense.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNeural \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Compellingly argued and richly illustrated, Shepard recasts lying with statistics for the algorithmic age. Essential reading for anyone interested in how knowledge production is contextualized, corrupted, and used in pernicious ways.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Data Revolution\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Internationally recognized as a media theorist and interdisciplinary artist, in his first book Mark Shepard brilliantly explores the way that contemporary algorithms shape discourse on the Internet and exposes the biases inherent to those algorithms.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Kazys Varnelis, Director of the Network Architecture Lab and co-founder of Architecture Urbanism Design Collaborative\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“The compelling episodes and examples in \u003ci\u003eThere Are No Facts\u003c\/i\u003e draw the contours of the post-truth landscape. Now is the time for Mark Shepard’s captivating book!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Molly Wright Steenson, Vice Provost for Faculty and Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, author of \u003ci\u003eArchitectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape \u003c\/i\u003eand co-editor of \u003ci\u003eBauhaus Futures\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eMark Shepard is Associate Professor of Architecture and Media Study at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, where he directs the Media Arts and Architecture Program (MAAP) and the Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies (CAST). He is the editor of \u003ci\u003eSentient City \u003c\/i\u003e(MIT Press). His work has been exhibited at museums, galleries, and festivals internationally.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303220695269,"sku":"NP9780262047470","price":27.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262047470.jpg?v=1767742388","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/there-are-no-facts-isbn-9780262047470","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}