[Air-L] Book Announcement: Off-Track and Online - The Networked Spaces of Horse Racing

Holly Kruse holly.kruse at gmail.com
Wed Apr 13 12:45:40 PDT 2016


I would ordinarily not want to post an announcement promoting my own
book, but the Association of Internet Researchers was crucial to me as
I was writing it (over the course of many years) and so many AoIRers
were terribly important to me throughout the process, that I can't
help myself. I wrote this in the preface:

"The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) has given me a
scholarly home, a source of inspiration, a system of support, and an
outlet for ideas for many years. AoIR and its brilliant people have
kept me going and kept me thinking."

So, thank you! Here's the book description from
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/track-and-online

(the book is also available at:
http://www.amazon.com/Off-Track-Online-Networked-Spaces-Racing/dp/0262034417)

Holly

-----

Off-Track and Online

The Networked Spaces of Horse Racing
By Holly Kruse

Overview

The horse racing industry has been a pioneer in interactive media,
information networks, and their deployment. The race track and the
off-track betting parlor offer interactive media environments that
reconfigure the relationships among private and public space and
presence and copresence. In this book, Holly Kruse explores how horse
racing has used media over the last several decades, arguing that
examining the history and context of horse racing and gambling gives
us a clearer understanding of the development of data networks, media
complexes, public entertainment, and media publics.

Kruse describes an enormous industry that depends on global
information and communication flows made possible by a network linking
racetracks, homes, off-track betting, farms, and auction sites.
Racetrack architecture now allows for the presence of screens, most
showing races from other locations. Online betting sites enable
bettors to wager from home. Off-track betting facilities collect
wagers on races from all over the country. Odds are set interactively
through the pari-mutuel market system. Kruse considers the uses of
public space, and its redefinition by public screens; the effect of
interactive media on the racing industry, including networked, in-home
betting; the “technopanic” over online poker and the popularity of
in-home pari-mutuel wagering; and the use of social media by racing
fans to share information and creative work with no financial payoff.

Holly Kruse is Associate Professor of Communications at Rogers State University


Endorsements

“The seemingly low-tech world of horse racing, we learn in this
fascinating book, has long served as a test bed—and, sometimes, a
hotbed—for innovations in communication and information technology.
Moving from Victorian racetracks to off-track betting shops,
contemporary ‘racinos,’ and the living rooms of online gamblers, Kruse
approaches each site as an experiment with the new media of the
day—from the telegraph to the telephone, mechanical ‘totalizers’ to
computerized wagering software, simulcast screens to at-home
interactive television. Off-Track and Online offers a novel and timely
vantage on the ways in which digital media are reorganizing public and
private life today.”

—Natasha Dow Schüll, author of Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling
in Las Vegas


“This carefully researched study explores how horse racing has adapted
to new media technologies, placing its recent evolution into a rich
historical context. Kruse is to be applauded for giving racing the
attention it deserves as it transitions to the social media age and
for providing valuable insights to those interested in gambling,
media, and technology.”

—David G. Schwartz, Director, Center for Gaming Research, University
of Nevada, Las Vegas; author of Roll the Bones: The History of
Gambling



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