The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies by Darren Wershler, Lori Emerson, and Jussi Parikka (review)

Abstract

of payoff in the afterword that comprises an urgent essay on the perils of habits and reflexes in the twenty-first century. In some ways it recombines the split strands of argumentation and application in order to bring the concerns of prior generations back to the present, although stylistically it is very different from the rest of the book. Readers familiar with Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019), or who are attentive to controversies in recent decades about the data troves of tech companies, will recognize the deep significance of those earlier scientific and social experiments in the manipulation of behavior. Unlike the more measured scholarship of the book until that point, the afterword comes across as a heartfelt diatribe based on the chilling realities explored in embryonic form within previous chapters, and serves as an effective wake-up call. Yes, this historical conjunction of science and literature may be fascinating, but forget to learn from it at your peril, Wientzen rightly implores the reader.