HSTM Events

The Problem with Personalization: A Talk with Joseph Turow

CBI is pleased to host Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries at the Annenberg School for Communication, as he presents a lecture from his recently published book, The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age.

Abstract (from the The University of Chicago Press): The Problem with Personalization shatters common beliefs about advertising history by showing that individualized ads are not new. Today’s AI-enabled advertisers draw on past aspirations and assumptions about personalization while weaponizing data in unprecedented ways that drive social fragmentation and the disappearance of shared social reality. Informed by interviews with marketing insiders and covering the latest technology advances, Turow accessibly explains how artificial intelligence sifts through our data to tag and target us wherever we go with personalized videos, pictorial billboards, audio messages, and more. A logical next step for advertiser support is tailored entertainment and news, a shift that further destroys the common ground necessary for a functioning democracy.

Bio: Joseph Turow is Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries at the Annenberg School for Communication. Turow is an elected Fellow of the International Communication Association and was presented with a Distinguished Scholar Award by the National Communication Association.