Software, Infrastructure, Labor ─ A Media Theory of Logistical Nightmares

Ned Rossiter, a recognized expert at the forefront of network and software studies, explores how the global logistics industry increasingly affects how knowledge production is governed and undertaken. Using examples ranging from the Cold War legacy of cybernetics, the Chinese port of Ningbo, and the e-waste industry, Rossiter considers the logistical infrastructures of global supply chains, the software systems they depend on, their relationship with labor, and the crises and accidents such informational coercion can precipitate.

Ned Rossiter is an Australian media theorist and author of Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions (2006). He was based in Perth, Melbourne, Northern Ireland, Beijing, Shanghai and Ningbo before taking up an appointment as Professor of Communication in 2011 at the University of Western Sydney where he is a member of the Institute for Culture and Society and teaches into the School of Humanities and Communication Arts. Ned is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Creative Industries, Beida (Peking) University. He is a co-researcher on Logistical Worlds: Infrastructure, Software, Labour, http://logisticalworlds.org. His writings have been translated into Italian, Spanish, German, French, Finnish, Dutch, Chinese, Greek, Latvian and Hungarian and can be found at http://nedrossiter.org.