Big Ideas

The Essential Guide to the Latest Thinking

James Harkin

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781848872646
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Big Ideas explains where concepts like 'the long tail', 'urban tribes' and 'soft power' came from, what they mean, and what their critics say about them. It includes explanations of key terms such as: Maturialism: the name given to the new trend among middle-aged people of spending their money on expensive 'youth' gadgets and services, and the new habit among advertisers of targeting the mid-life market, repositioning their brands as accessories to the distinctive joys of mid-life; The Tipping Point: the controversial idea that the best way to understand everything from changing fashions to the rise of teenage smoking is to imagine people as viruses and social phenomena as contagious epidemics; And Social Jet Lag: an ailment suffered by up to half the population, social jet lag is said to arise when our body clocks falls out of synch with the demands of our environments, thus putting us at risk of chronic fatigue and an increased susceptibility to disease.

Contents

Introduction ix

The Advocacy Revolution 1

Badvertising 3

Bare Branches 5

Boomergeddon 7

Brand America 9

Citizen Journalism 11

Compassion Fatigue 13

The Cosmetic Underclass 15

Cosmopolitanism 17

Crowd-Sourcing 19

Crunchy Conservatism 21

Curation Nation 23

The Cyborg 24

Declinology 27

Democratization 29

Digital Maoism 31

Digital Mapping 33

The Economy of Prestige 34

Electronic Frontier Justice 36

The European Empire 38

The Experience Economy 40

The Free Rider or Collective Action Problem and the Prisoner's Dilemma 42

Futurology 44

Generation Gap 46

Good Business 48

Gotcha Politics 49

Happiness 52

Incentivization 54

Infomania 56

Libertarian Paternalism 58

Life-Caching 60

The Long Tail 61

Maturialism 63

The Menaissance 65

Musc...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction
• The Advocacy Revolution
• Badvertising
• Bare Branches
• Boomergeddon
• Brand America
• Citizen Journalism
• Compassion Fatigue
• The Cosmetic Underclass
• Cosmopolitanism
• Crowd-Sourcing
• Crunchy Conservatism
• Curation Nation
• The Cyborg
• Declinology
• Democratization
• Digital Maoism
• Digital Mapping
• The Economy of Prestige
• Electronic Frontier Justice
• The European Empire
• The Experience Economy
• The Free Rider or Collective Action Problem and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
• Futurology
• Generation Gap
• Good Business
• Gotcha Politics
• Happiness
• Incentivization
• Infomania
• Libertarian Paternalism
• Life-Caching
• The Long Tail
• Maturialism
• The Menaissance
• Muscular Liberalism
• Neurotheology
• The New Puritans
• The New Utopianism
• The Paradox of Choice
• Peer-to-Peer Surveillance
• Pension Fund Capitalism
• Philoanthrocapitalism
• Playtime
• Positive Liberty
• The Precautionary Principle
• Pre-heritance
• Proletarian Drift
• Protirement
• Public Value
• Regretful Loners
• Resilience
• Slacktivism
• Smart Mobs/Flash Mobs
• Social Jet Lag
• Social Networking
• Social Physics
• Soft Power
• Status Anxiety
• The Support Economy
• Synthetic Worlds
• The Time Economy
• The Tipping Point
• Transhumanism or The Singularity Thesis
• True Cost Economics
• Urban Gaming
• Urban Villages
• Virtual Anthropology
• Virtual Politics
• War Porn
• Wild Card Theory or Black Swan Theory
• Worst-Case Scenarios
• Yeppies