Lana Swartz
Biographic Data
| ID | 3583943 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lana Swartz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lana |
| FAMILY NAME | Swartz |
| SIGNATURE | SWARTZ L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Virginia |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0409-7332 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 128 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Social Media in the Scam Age
This essay examines scams as a central organizing logic of contemporary social media rather than peripheral criminal activity. Drawing on research in cryptocurrency and financial technology alongside childhood experiences in 1990s Miami, the piece argues that social media is entering a “scam age” where boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate economic activity increasingly blur and the technological and social systems that make those distin…
The money tree
Central banks worldwide are developing, piloting and launching new central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). As the hub for the central banking community, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) promotes a curiously botanical CBDC imaginary. From 'money flowers' to 'tree trunks' and a 'strong canopy', This helps to naturalize CBDC without clarifying its sociopolitical implications or envisioned monetary future, such as geopolitical tensions a…
Covid relief as 'dangerous money' for Black business owners
The present study examines Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) experiences of a sample of Black business owners in a mid-sized city amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how Black business owners made sense of the Paycheck Protection Program, and how they came to regard it as an untrustworthy source of economic relief or even a dangerous trap. Less than half of the small business owners we interviewed applied for PPP, and those who did, did so wi…
Theorizing the 2017 blockchain ICO bubble as a network scam
In the popular imagination and in academic literature, scams are usually seen as dyadic, involving a con artist and a mark. This article retheorizes scams as networked, collective activity. Scams, like all commerce, are shaped by and in turn shape communication channels. The “network scam” is therefore offered as a lens for understanding scams in the digital economy more broadly. As a case study, this article documents the 2017 Initial Coin Offer…
What was Bitcoin, what will it be? The techno-economic imaginaries of a new money technology
In its first decade, Bitcoin has not proven to be a practical money form for most circumstances, but it has become a staging ground for debate around the cultural role of money in society. This debate is poised between two related but ultimately incompatible techno-economic imaginaries: infrastructural mutualism and digital metallism. Each offers a theory not just of money, but also of relations, identities, and the larger imaginaries we call ‘so…
Paid
For over a hundred years, many have envisioned a cashless society, whether utopian or dystopian. Now, in an era of mobile money and Bitcoin, it seems that cashlessness might not be far off. In recent years, there has been a flurry of payment innovation. Many of these new technologies offer a dream of money as pure information: seamless andinstantaneous. But instead of becoming dematerialized, new money technologies rely on as much, if not more, s…
Gendered Transactions
Gendered Transactions:Identity and Payment at Midcentury Lana Swartz (bio) According to company lore, the idea for Diners' Club1, the first "universal charge card," emerged in 1949 when Frank X. McNamara, a New York City businessman, was dining out with a client and realized that he had forgotten his wallet at home. He was able to sneak to off to call his wife, who drove in from Long Island "with cash in her pocket and a hot look in her eye" (and…
Youtube, Twitter and the Occupy Movement
Videos stored on YouTube served as a valuable set of communicative resources for publics interested in the Occupy movement. This article explores this loosely bound media ecology, focusing on how and what types of video content are shared and circulated across both YouTube and Twitter. Developing a novel data-collection methodology, a population of videos posted to YouTube with Occupy-related metadata or circulated on Twitter alongside Occupy-rel…
When perhaps the real problem is money itself
This paper investigates the semiotics of Bitcoin, an electronic cash system that uses decentralized networking to enable irreversible payments. For enthusiasts, Bitcoin provides an alternative to currencies and payment systems that are seen to threaten users' privacy, limit personal liberty, and undermine the value of money through state and corporate oversight. Bitcoin's promise lies in its apparent capacity to resolve these concerns not through…
When perhaps the real problem is money itself
This paper investigates the semiotics of Bitcoin, an electronic cash system that uses decentralized networking to enable irreversible payments. For enthusiasts, Bitcoin provides an alternative to currencies and payment systems that are seen to threaten users' privacy, limit personal liberty, and undermine the value of money through state and corporate oversight. Bitcoin's promise lies in its apparent capacity to resolve these concerns not through…
Theorizing the 2017 blockchain ICO bubble as a network scam
In the popular imagination and in academic literature, scams are usually seen as dyadic, involving a con artist and a mark. This article retheorizes scams as networked, collective activity. Scams, like all commerce, are shaped by and in turn shape communication channels. The “network scam” is therefore offered as a lens for understanding scams in the digital economy more broadly. As a case study, this article documents the 2017 Initial Coin Offer…
Gendered Transactions
Gendered Transactions:Identity and Payment at Midcentury Lana Swartz (bio) According to company lore, the idea for Diners' Club1, the first "universal charge card," emerged in 1949 when Frank X. McNamara, a New York City businessman, was dining out with a client and realized that he had forgotten his wallet at home. He was able to sneak to off to call his wife, who drove in from Long Island "with cash in her pocket and a hot look in her eye" (and…
The money tree
Central banks worldwide are developing, piloting and launching new central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). As the hub for the central banking community, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) promotes a curiously botanical CBDC imaginary. From 'money flowers' to 'tree trunks' and a 'strong canopy', This helps to naturalize CBDC without clarifying its sociopolitical implications or envisioned monetary future, such as geopolitical tensions a…
Youtube, Twitter and the Occupy Movement
Videos stored on YouTube served as a valuable set of communicative resources for publics interested in the Occupy movement. This article explores this loosely bound media ecology, focusing on how and what types of video content are shared and circulated across both YouTube and Twitter. Developing a novel data-collection methodology, a population of videos posted to YouTube with Occupy-related metadata or circulated on Twitter alongside Occupy-rel…
When perhaps the real problem is money itself
This paper investigates the semiotics of Bitcoin, an electronic cash system that uses decentralized networking to enable irreversible payments. For enthusiasts, Bitcoin provides an alternative to currencies and payment systems that are seen to threaten users' privacy, limit personal liberty, and undermine the value of money through state and corporate oversight. Bitcoin's promise lies in its apparent capacity to resolve these concerns not through…
Gendered Transactions
Gendered Transactions:Identity and Payment at Midcentury Lana Swartz (bio) According to company lore, the idea for Diners' Club1, the first "universal charge card," emerged in 1949 when Frank X. McNamara, a New York City businessman, was dining out with a client and realized that he had forgotten his wallet at home. He was able to sneak to off to call his wife, who drove in from Long Island "with cash in her pocket and a hot look in her eye" (and…
Paid
For over a hundred years, many have envisioned a cashless society, whether utopian or dystopian. Now, in an era of mobile money and Bitcoin, it seems that cashlessness might not be far off. In recent years, there has been a flurry of payment innovation. Many of these new technologies offer a dream of money as pure information: seamless andinstantaneous. But instead of becoming dematerialized, new money technologies rely on as much, if not more, s…
What was Bitcoin, what will it be? The techno-economic imaginaries of a new money technology
In its first decade, Bitcoin has not proven to be a practical money form for most circumstances, but it has become a staging ground for debate around the cultural role of money in society. This debate is poised between two related but ultimately incompatible techno-economic imaginaries: infrastructural mutualism and digital metallism. Each offers a theory not just of money, but also of relations, identities, and the larger imaginaries we call ‘so…
Theorizing the 2017 blockchain ICO bubble as a network scam
In the popular imagination and in academic literature, scams are usually seen as dyadic, involving a con artist and a mark. This article retheorizes scams as networked, collective activity. Scams, like all commerce, are shaped by and in turn shape communication channels. The “network scam” is therefore offered as a lens for understanding scams in the digital economy more broadly. As a case study, this article documents the 2017 Initial Coin Offer…
The money tree
Central banks worldwide are developing, piloting and launching new central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). As the hub for the central banking community, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) promotes a curiously botanical CBDC imaginary. From 'money flowers' to 'tree trunks' and a 'strong canopy', This helps to naturalize CBDC without clarifying its sociopolitical implications or envisioned monetary future, such as geopolitical tensions a…
Covid relief as 'dangerous money' for Black business owners
The present study examines Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) experiences of a sample of Black business owners in a mid-sized city amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how Black business owners made sense of the Paycheck Protection Program, and how they came to regard it as an untrustworthy source of economic relief or even a dangerous trap. Less than half of the small business owners we interviewed applied for PPP, and those who did, did so wi…
Social Media in the Scam Age
This essay examines scams as a central organizing logic of contemporary social media rather than peripheral criminal activity. Drawing on research in cryptocurrency and financial technology alongside childhood experiences in 1990s Miami, the piece argues that social media is entering a “scam age” where boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate economic activity increasingly blur and the technological and social systems that make those distin…
Sociology (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security (4 works) · FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance (3 works) · Media studies (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works) · Art (2 works) · Computer Science (2 works) · Computer security (2 works)