Books by "Kate O'Riordan"
3 books found
The Genome Incorporated examines the proliferation of human genomics across contemporary media cultures. It explores questions about what it means for a technoscience to thoroughly saturate everyday life, and places the interrogation of the science/media relationship at the heart of this enquiry. The book develops a number of case studies in the mediation and consumption of genomics, including: the emergence of new direct-to-the-consumer bioinformatics companies; the mundane propagation of testing and genetic information through lifestyle television programming; and public and private engagements with art and science institutions and events. Through these novel sites, this book examines the proliferating circuits of production and consumption of genetic information and theorizes this as a process of incorporation. Its wide-ranging case studies ensure its appeal to readers across the social sciences.
Science and technology are playing increasingly important roles in our lives. New projects in development today will fundamentally shape the world around us, and manipulate our lived experience. But how and why are such important scientific and technological projects chosen, and what are the consequences of this process? In this book, Kate O'Riordan answers these crucial question. She discovers that many objects, such as genomes and genomic projects, smart grids, de-extinction projects and biosensors cannot be granted scientific legitimacy and developed without extraordinary amounts of media, public relations, celebrity endorsements and private investment. As a result of these filters, only certain projects take centre stage when it comes to funding and political attention. O'Riordan calls these 'unreal objects' - scientific projects and technologies where utopian visions for the future are combined with investment and materialisation in the here and now. This attention to these unreal objects hides many current social issues, especially injustices and inequalities. At the same time they conjure utopian visions for how life might be improved.
Fast-paced, wickedly funny and full of zest, this is popular columnist Sarah-Kate Lynch's debut novel, the first of a string of works that will make you cry and laugh out loud. Molly Brown is having what you might call a shit day. Her wedding dress has just revealed it can't contain more than one bosom and the gorgeous man she was about to marry has just revealed that more than one is his favourite number too. If you're talking about women, that is. In a desperate bid to escape her life as it horribly unravels before her eyes, Molly escapes to the other side of the world with her $4000 wedding dress and her terrifying aunt Vivian. She embarks on a rollercoaster ride through the Irish countryside in search of her long-lost uncle. When she arrives in the seemingly sleepy seaside town of Ballymahoe, she has greasy hair, a fractured arm, a broken heart, three extra kilos and no time at all for the charm of the locals . . .