The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age by Turow, Joseph

The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226837338)

Vendor: Joseph Turow
Product type: Books
Format: Hardcover
$27.50
$27.50
$27.50
Subtotal: $27.50
The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age by Turow, Joseph

The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age

$27.50
The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age by Turow, Joseph

The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age

$27.50
Format: Hardcover
Description
Description
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A respected voice on technology shows how seemingly simple ads help dismantle democracy and public discourse.

Whether you're intentionally shopping or casually browsing social media, something is following you: ads. Their creators seem to know your income bracket, your tastes in clothing, food, location, politics, age, medical conditions, and romantic partners. As predictive AI tells firms what your hot buttons are and generative AI produces messages tailored to those buttons, your online world becomes an increasingly comfortable--and isolated--place. The fervid competition around personalization in digital marketing, now ubiquitous, has given rise to an ecosystem of advertisers, media outlets, tech companies, and retailers who monetize your data, while threatening the health of our media, our discourse, and our sense of community. In this urgent book, award-winning author Joseph Turow shows how we got here, and how to change direction.

The Problem with Personalization shatters common beliefs about advertising history by showing that individualizing ads is not new. Today's high-velocity AI versions draw on past aspirations and assumptions about personalization while weaponizing it in unprecedented ways that drive social fragmentation and the disappearance of shared social reality. Informed by interviews with marketing insiders and covering the latest technology advances, Turow accessibly explains how artificial intelligence sifts our data to tag and target us wherever we go with personalized videos, pictorial billboards, audio messages, and more. A logical next step for advertiser support is tailored entertainment and news, a shift that further destroys the common ground necessary for a functioning democracy.

A must-read for all who care about the future of public discourse, The Problem with Personalization reveals how targeted advertising has altered how we're seen and what we see in return.

Author: Joseph Turow
ISBN-10: 0226837335
ISBN-13: 9780226837338
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 06/11/2026
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs
By Joseph Turow
By Joseph Turow
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Joseph Turow is the Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries Emeritus in the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of thirteen books and the editor of five, including The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In to Exploit Your Emotions, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet; The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power; and The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth.

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