User Error: Resisting Computer Culture


User Error explodes the myth of computer technology as juggernaut. Multimedia educator Ellen Rose shows that there is no bandwagon, no out-of-control dynamo, no titanic conspiracy to overwhelm us. Instead, there is our own desire to join the fraternity of users, a fraternity that confers legitimacy and power on those who enter the brave new world.


Rose exposes how we surrender decision-making power in personal and workplace computing situations. As users we willingly grant authority to the creators of software, support materials, and the seductive infrastructure of technocracy.


“Smart” users are rewarded; reluctant users are pathologized. User identity is deliberately constructed at the crossroads of industry, consumer demand, and complicity. User Error sounds a timely alarm, calling on all of us who use the new technologies to recognize how we are being co-opted. With awareness we can reassert our own responsibility and power in this increasingly important interaction.


Savvy, accessible, and up-to-date, User Error offers insight, inspiration, and strategies of resistance to general readers, technology professionals, students, and scholars alike.

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User Error: Resisting Computer Culture


User Error explodes the myth of computer technology as juggernaut. Multimedia educator Ellen Rose shows that there is no bandwagon, no out-of-control dynamo, no titanic conspiracy to overwhelm us. Instead, there is our own desire to join the fraternity of users, a fraternity that confers legitimacy and power on those who enter the brave new world.


Rose exposes how we surrender decision-making power in personal and workplace computing situations. As users we willingly grant authority to the creators of software, support materials, and the seductive infrastructure of technocracy.


“Smart” users are rewarded; reluctant users are pathologized. User identity is deliberately constructed at the crossroads of industry, consumer demand, and complicity. User Error sounds a timely alarm, calling on all of us who use the new technologies to recognize how we are being co-opted. With awareness we can reassert our own responsibility and power in this increasingly important interaction.


Savvy, accessible, and up-to-date, User Error offers insight, inspiration, and strategies of resistance to general readers, technology professionals, students, and scholars alike.

10.99 In Stock
User Error: Resisting Computer Culture

User Error: Resisting Computer Culture

by Ellen Rose
User Error: Resisting Computer Culture

User Error: Resisting Computer Culture

by Ellen Rose

eBook

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Overview


User Error explodes the myth of computer technology as juggernaut. Multimedia educator Ellen Rose shows that there is no bandwagon, no out-of-control dynamo, no titanic conspiracy to overwhelm us. Instead, there is our own desire to join the fraternity of users, a fraternity that confers legitimacy and power on those who enter the brave new world.


Rose exposes how we surrender decision-making power in personal and workplace computing situations. As users we willingly grant authority to the creators of software, support materials, and the seductive infrastructure of technocracy.


“Smart” users are rewarded; reluctant users are pathologized. User identity is deliberately constructed at the crossroads of industry, consumer demand, and complicity. User Error sounds a timely alarm, calling on all of us who use the new technologies to recognize how we are being co-opted. With awareness we can reassert our own responsibility and power in this increasingly important interaction.


Savvy, accessible, and up-to-date, User Error offers insight, inspiration, and strategies of resistance to general readers, technology professionals, students, and scholars alike.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781926662435
Publisher: Between the Lines
Publication date: 09/19/2003
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 216
File size: 891 KB

About the Author


Ellen Rose holds the McCain/Aliant-Telecom Chair in Education and Multimedia at the University of New Brunswick. She directs a graduate program in instructional design. In addition to numerous journal articles on media, technology, and pedagogy, she has published Hyper Texts: The Language and Culture of Educational Computing.

Table of Contents

**List of Illustrations


Acknowledgements


Introduction:** Do You Compute?



1 “We Like to Be Smart”: The Mythology of Computer Use



2 The Ultimate Hack: A Sociology and History of the Computer User



3 “Problem Exists between Chair and Keyboard”: Producing the User



4
Caveat Emptor: The Emergence of the User-Consumer



5 User Documentation: Telling Stories about the User



6 Anxiety Attacks: Pathologizing the Technophobic User



7 Songs of Innocence and Experience: The Youthful User



Conclusion: The Future User


**Notes


Bibliography


Index**

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