Culture of Efficiency

The Editor: Sharon Kleinman is Professor of Communications at Quinnipiac University. Her research focuses on the social implications of communication technologies and on issues concerning online and place-based communities. She is the editor of the critically acclaimed book Displacing Place: Mobile Communication in the Twenty-first Century (Peter Lang, 2007). She holds a B.A. in English and American literature from Brandeis University and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in communication from Cornell University.

• Contents: Sharon Kleinman: Introduction – Suzy D’Enbeau/Patrice M. Buzzanell: Efficiencies of Pregnancy Management: From Penciling in Pregnancy to Elective C-Sections – Yvonne Houy: From Taylor to Just-in-Time Sustainability: A Short History of Efficient Eating – Michael L. Maynard: Hyping the Efficiencies of Fast(er) Food: The Glocalization of McDonald’s Snack Wrap in Japan – Nathan Jurgenson/George Ritzer: Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Web 2.0 – Corey Anton: Clocks, Synchronization, and the Fate of Leisure: A Brief Media Ecological History of Digital Technologies – Brenda L. Berkelaar: No Punctuation: Searching for an Architecture of Time in the Culture of Efficiency – Mickey Brazeal: Varieties of Efficiency: How Automatic Asset Tracking Changes the Way Businesses Work – J. David Johnson: Profiling the Likelihood of Success of Electronic Medical Records – Daniel G. McDonald/Jingbo Meng: The Multitasking of Entertainment – Dominika Bednarska: Rethinking Access: Why Technology Isn’t the Only Answer – Michael Bugeja: E-tymology of Inefficiency: How the Business World Colonized Academe – Letizia Caronia/André H. Caron: Mobile Learning in the Digital Age: A Clash of Cultures? – Julian Kilker: Procrustean Pedagogy: The Architecture of Efficiency in a New Medium – Penny A. Leisring: Stalking Made Easy: How Information and Communication Technologies Are Influencing the Way People Monitor and Harass One Another – Mikaela L. Marlow/Howard Giles: The Politics of Disaster: Crises, Communication, and Marginalization in the United States – Gene Burd: Efficiency Techniques in Journalistic Practice, Scientific Rigor, and Religious Rhetoric – Peg Oliveira: Mind over Multitasking: What Would Buddha Do? – Holly Parker: Transportation Transformation – David F. Donnelly: The Future Starts at 5:00 – Mark E. Hoffman/Carrie A. Bulger: Whither Boundaries? The Internet and the Blurring of Work and Personal Life – Annis G. Golden: A Technologically Gendered Paradox of Efficiency: Caring More About Work While Working in More Care – Sharon Kleinman: Conclusion: Win-Win Sustainability in the Culture of Efficiency – Jarice Hanson: Afterword: Reflections.

«The authors have presented provocative contexts, and the editor has organized and shaped the sequence of the individual chapters to unfold before us, allowing us to lose ourselves in the moments of the words, only to feel refreshed and renewed. I think you will agree with me, reading this book has been time well spent.» (From Jarice Hanson’s Afterword)