Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- "A bureau for the promotion of honesty" : the birth of systematic credit surveillance -- Coming to terms with credit : the nineteenth-century origins of consumer credit surveillance -- Credit workers unite : professionalization and the rise of a national credit infrastructure -- Running the credit gauntlet : extracting, ordering, and communicating consumer information -- "You are judged by your credit" : teaching and targeting the consumer -- "File clerk's paradise" : postwar credit reporting on the eve of automation -- Encoding the consumer : the computerization of credit reporting and credit scoring -- Database panic : computerized credit surveillance and its discontents -- From debts to data : credit bureaus in the new information economy -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

The first consumer credit bureaus appeared in the 1870s and quickly amassed huge archives of deeply personal information about millions of Americans. Today, the three leading credit bureaus are among the most powerful institutions in modern life--yet we know almost nothing about them. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are multi-billion-dollar corporations that track our movements, spending behavior, and financial status. This data is used to predict our riskiness as borrowers and to judge our trustworthiness and value in a broad array of contexts, from insurance and marketing to employment and housing. In Creditworthy, the first comprehensive history of this crucial American institution, Josh Lauer explores the evolution of credit reporting from its nineteenth-century origins to the rise of the modern consumer data industry. By revealing the sophistication of early credit reporting networks, Creditworthy highlights the leading role that commercial surveillance has played—ahead of state surveillance systems—in monitoring the economic lives of Americans. Lauer charts how credit reporting grew from an industry that relied on personal knowledge of consumers to one that employs sophisticated algorithms to determine a person's trustworthiness. Ultimately, Lauer argues that by converting individual reputations into brief written reports—and, later, credit ratings and credit scores—credit bureaus did something more profound: they invented the modern concept of financial identity. Creditworthy reminds us that creditworthiness is never just about economic "facts." It is fundamentally concerned with—and determines—our social standing as an honest, reliable, profit-generating person.

During the 1970s and 1980s, telephone answering machines became widely available in the United States. Their use immediately disrupted long-established patterns of interpersonal communication and self-presentation. While solving the temporal limitations and lopsided power of telephone calls, answering machines introduced a range of new techno-social problems. Significantly, they required callers to interact with a machine instead of a human being. The history of the household answering machine provides insight into how telephone users were habituated to changing communication norms during the closing decades of the 20th century. This study examines cultural responses to the answering machine during the 1970s and 1980s, drawing attention to the following three key themes: the perils of perpetual contact, mediated performances, and social surveillance. These themes would shape understandings of digital mediation and become defining characteristics of an emergent "participatory condition."

New media are often addressed within the growing field of surveillance studies, but technologies predating the late twentieth century are rarely considered. This essay challenges conventional histories of modern surveillance by highlighting the cultural impact of three 'old' new media: photography, the phonograph, and the telephone. Drawing upon the work of historian Carlo Ginzburg (1990) , I argue that new media produce new evidence and that late nineteenth-century media contributed to an emergent 'evidential paradigm'. From this perspective, the intensification of contemporary surveillance can be seen as an elaboration of late nineteenth-century new media and the proliferation of evidence-producing communication technologies.

The Good Consumer offers a historical account of consumer credit reporting in the United States, from its nineteenth-century antecedents in commercial credit reporting through its professionalization and transformation into a key communication infrastructure during the first half of the twentieth century. While describing the technical and institutional development of the modern credit bureau, The Good Consumer draws special attention to one of the most consequential effects of credit reporting: the invention of financial identity. Formalized systems of credit evaluation produced their own categories of social reality and fostered new forms of economic objectification. The title refers to the "goodness" of credit consumers in several contexts: as prompt paying customers, trustworthy and morally upright citizens, profitable target markets, and collectively as a vital force behind the growth of the twentiethcentury American economy.

Chap. 1. Enslaved watchmen : surveillance and sousveillance in Jamaica and the British Atlantic world / Caitlin Rosenthal and Cameron Black -- Chap. 2. The information bazaar : mail-order magazines and the Gilded Age trade in consumer data / Richard K. Popp -- Chap. 3. The case of the competing Pinkertons : managing reputation through the paperwork and bureaucracy of surveillance / Jamie L. Pietruska -- Chap. 4. Mystery shoppers and self-monitors : managing emotional labor to improve the corporate image / Daniel Robert -- Chap. 5. The watchful gaze behind the welcoming smile : surveilling the guest in American hotels in the interwar period / Megan Elias -- Chap. 6. Seeing straight : policing sexualities in 1930s Manhattan nightclubs / Jennifer Le Zotte -- Chap. 7. High priority : business's war on drugs and the expansion of surveillance in the United States / Jeremy Milloy -- Chap. 8. Why did Uptown go down in flames? Uptown cigarettes and the targeted marketing crisis / Dan Guadagnolo -- Chap. 9. Surveillance capitalism online : cookies, notice and choice, and web privacy / Meg Leta Jones -- Afterword / Sarah E. Igo.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Introduction: Surveillance Under Capitalism -- Chapter 1. Enslaved Watchmen: Surveillance and Sousveillance in Jamaica and the British Atlantic World -- Chapter 2. The Information Bazaar: Mail- Order Magazines and the Gilded Age Trade in Consumer Data -- Chapter 3. The Case of the Competing Pinkertons: Managing Reputation Through the Paperwork and Bureaucracy of Surveillance -- Chapter 4. Mystery Shoppers and Self- Monitors: Managing Emotional Labor to Improve the Corporate Image -- Chapter 5. The Watchful Gaze Behind the Welcoming Smile: Surveilling the Guest in American Hotels in the Interwar Period -- Chapter 6. Seeing Straight: Policing Sexualities in 1930s Manhattan Nightclubs -- Chapter 7. High Priority: Business's War on Drugs and the Expansion of Surveillance in the United States -- Chapter 8. Why Did Uptown Go Down in Flames? Uptown Cigarettes and the Targeted Marketing Crisis -- Chapter 9. Surveillance Capitalism Online: Cookies, Notice and Choice, and Web Privacy -- Afterword -- NOTES -- CONTRIBUTORS -- INDEX -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS