New Books In Communications

Dr. Elizabeth Ellcessor presents a much-needed look at the growth of emergency media and its impact on our lives in In Case of Emergency: How Technologies Mediate Crisis and Normalize Inequality (NYU Press, 2022). In an emergency, we often look to media: to contact authorities, to get help, to monitor evolving situations, or to reach out to our loved ones. Sometimes we aren’t even aware of an emergency until we are notified by one of the countless alerts, alarms, notifications, sirens, text messages, or phone calls that permeate everyday life. Yet most people have only a partial understanding of how such systems make sense of and act upon an “emergency.” In Case of Emergency argues that emergency media are profoundly cultural artifacts that shape the very definition of “emergency” as an opposite of “normal.” Looking broadly across a range of contemporary emergency-related devices, practices, and services, Dr. Ellcessor illuminates the cultural and political underpinnings and socially differential effects of e