The Problem with Personalization

Reviews / Votes

"Turow brings deep scholarship and great storytelling to present a vital, urgent warning: AI-fueled hyperpersonalization realizes advertising's core ambition but risks more than privacy violations; it pulls away at the fabric of shared media and a shared society. Turow sets personalization within the long historic sweep of marketing innovations, from peddlers and hawkers to the fragmentation of communication, and mutual understanding, that data marketing is driving today. The world needs guides who can tell us what modern American marketing is doing, diagnose problems, and provide a roadmap to remedies. Turow is our preeminent guide. The Problem with Personalization confronts advertising and media challenges in a highly readable and widely accessible way. This important and timely book is a triumph." -- Jonathan Hardy, author of "Branded Content: The Fateful Merging of Media and Marketing" "The Problem with Personalization is an extraordinary history and call to action from one of this country's most prolific and insightful media scholars. Turow brings readable prose and accessible stories alongside a critical warning about manipulation and disempowerment in today's surveillance-based economy. This book should be read by anyone and everyone who is concerned about their privacy, their autonomy, and their future." -- Ari Ezra Waldman, author of "Industry Unbound: The Inside Story of Privacy, Data, and Corporate Power" "At last. This is the book we need to understand how advertising works in our era of data-driven online personalization and generative AI. Drawing on history, interviews, and content analysis of the digital machinery of advertising, Turow offers a masterful intervention in current privacy debates, providing much-needed recommendations for improving the advertising techniques shaping our societies." -- Angele Christin, author of "Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms" "The Problem with Personalization is a timely and compelling account of how advertising and personalization have evolved throughout history. Turow offers a sharp analysis that shows how contemporary data-driven personalization and hyperfragmentation are neither accidental nor inevitable. He skillfully situates these dynamics in a legal environment that privileges advertisers and platforms over users and points toward viable ways forward. The book's vivid storytelling, paired with close attention to recent developments in social media and AI, makes it essential reading for scholars across disciplines, practitioners in the advertising and technology industries, and critical citizens alike." -- Christoph Lutz, BI Norwegian Business School and the Nordic Centre for Internet and Society