Anthony J. Pennings, PhD

WRITINGS ON DIGITAL ECONOMICS, ENERGY STRATEGIES, AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

Symbolic Economies in the Virtual Classroom: Dead Poets and the Lawnmower Man

This post examines two films that address the production of modern educational spaces and subjectivities. Through them we can begin to figure the symbolic and energetic configurations in the “virtual classroom” and other technological environments for learning and training.

Building Dystopian Economies in Facebook’s Metaverse

Strangely relevant to the new emergence of virtual environments like Facebook’s Metaverse, the talk was held in downtown New York City at the Woolworth Building, known as the “Cathedral of Commerce” when it was built in 1913. The location was strangely appropriate given the topic, a wrap-up of a year-long project at New York University on Second Life. The project involved an animation class taught by Mechthild Schmidt-Feist, and my class, the Political Economy of Digital Media. I still have the tee-shirt my students gave me that says “Got Linden?” a reference to Second Life’s currency, the Linden.

Hypertext, Ad Inventory, and the Use of Behavioral Data

A new advertising environment emerged with the Internet and its click environment. The hypertext system, with its global connections to “new inventory” of browser-view-able webpage content divided into multiple sections of advertising potential, started a new era of personalizable “banner” ads. An offshoot of the ad economy emerged powerfully with keyword search and auctioning, exemplified by Google. This post discusses how the online ad economy emerged and became the basis of a new means of economic production based on the wide-scale collection of data and its processing into prediction products.

The North-South Politics of Global News Flows

This research argues that the road for the international Internet and e-commerce was substantially paved by the attempts to free up the global flows of financial news and information needed for the new regime of digital monetarism.

ARPA and the Formation of the Modern Computer Industry, Part 2: Memex, Personal Computing, and the NSF

With World War II winding down, President Roosevelt asked Vannevar Bush, his “czar” of all federally funded scientific research, for a set of recommendations on the application of the lessons learned during the war. The President was particularly interested in how the scientific and technological advances achieved in the war effort could improve issues like […]

Engineering the Politics of TCP/IP and the Enabling Framework of the Internet

The protocols shape flows of information. Protocols have strong influence on the flow of information.

ARPA and the Formation of the Modern Computer Industry, Part I: Transforming SAGE

Under pressure because of the USSR’s continuous rocket launches, the Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower set up ARPA despite considerable Congressional and military dissent. Although it scaled back some of its original goals, ARPA went on to subsidize the creation of computer science departments throughout the country, funded the Internet, and consistently supported projects that enhanced human/computer interactivity.

ICT and Sustainable Development: Some Origins

I teach a course called ICT for Sustainable Development (ICT4SD) every year. It refers to information and communications technologies (ICT) enlisted in the service of cities, communities, and countries to help them be economically and environmentally healthy. An important consideration for sustainability is that they don’t impose on conditions or compromise resources that will be […]

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  • About Me

    Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.

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    apennings70@gmail.com
    anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr

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    The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of my employers, past or present.