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Title:
Understanding digital culture
Personal Author:
Edition:
1st ed.
Publication Information:
London : SAGE, 2011
Physical Description:
ix, 254 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
ISBN:
9781847874962
Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010254933 | HM851 M55 2011 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
Searching... | 30000010283838 | HM851 M55 2011 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
"This is an outstanding book. It is one of only a few scholarly texts that successfully combine a nuanced theoretical understanding of the digital age with empirical case studies of contemporary media culture. The scope is impressive, ranging from questions of digital inequality to emergent forms of cyberpolitics."- Nick Gane, York University"Well written, very up-to-date with a good balance of examples and theory. It′s good to have all the major issues covered in one book." - Peter Millard, Portsmouth University"This is just the text I was looking for to enable first year undergraduates to develop their critical understanding of the technologies they have embedded so completely in their lives."
- Chris Simpson, University College of St Mark & St JohnThis is more than just another book on Internet studies. Tracing the pervasive influence of ′digital culture′ throughout contemporary life, this text integrates socio-economic understandings of the ′information society′ with the cultural studies approach to production, use, and consumption of digital media and multimedia. Refreshingly readable and packed with examples from profiling databases and mashups to cybersex and the truth about social networking, Understanding Digital Culture: Crosses disciplines to give a balanced account of the social, economic and cultural dimensions of the information society. Illuminates the increasing importance of mobile, wireless and converged media technologies in everyday life. Unpacks how the information society is transforming and challenging traditional notions of crime, resistance, war and protest, community, intimacy and belonging. Charts the changing cultural forms associated with new media and its consumption, including music, gaming, microblogging and online identity. Illustrates the above through a series of contemporary, in-depth case studies of digital culture. This is the perfect text for students looking for a full account of the information society, virtual cultures, sociology of the Internet and new media.Table of Contents
Introduction |
Revolutionary Technologies? |
Determinisms |
The Social Determinism of Technology |
Technological Enablement |
Base, Superstructure, Infrastructure |
The Structure of the Book |
Key Elements of Digital Media |
Technical Processes |
Digital |
Networked |
Interactive |
Hypertextual/ Hypermediated |
Automated |
Databased |
Cultural Forms |
Context (or lack of it) |
Variability |
Rhizome |
Process |
Immersive Experiences |
Telepresense |
Virtuality |
Simulation |
Case Study: What Are Video Games? a Conundrum of Digital Culture |
Are Video Games 'Narratives'? |
Are Video Games 'Games'? |
Are Video Games 'Simulations'? |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Notes |
The Economic Foundations of the Information Age |
Post-Industrialism |
Problems With The Post-Industrial Thesis |
The Information Society |
Post-Fordism and Globalization |
Informationalism and the Network Society |
The Structure of Networks |
The Space Flows and Timeless Time |
Network Economy and network Enterprise |
Weightless Economies, Intellectual Property and the Commodification of Knowledge |
Weightless Money |
Weightless Services |
Weightless Products |
The Advantages of a Weightless Economy |
(Intellectual) Property in a Weightless Economy |
Information Feudalism |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Convergence and the Contemporary Media Experience |
Technological Convergence |
Regulatory Convergence |
Media Industry Convergence |
Concerns About Media Convergence |
Convergence Culture and the New Media Experience |
The Creation of Cross-Media Experiences |
Participatory Media Culture |
Collective Intelligence |
Producers, Consumers and 'Produsage' |
Case Study: The Changing Culture Industry of Digital Music |
The Diginisation of Music and its Discontents |
'Mash-Ups' and the Crisis of Authorship in Digital Culture |
Digital Music Cultures and Music Consumption |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Digital Inequality: Social, Political and Infrastructural Contexts |
'Digital Divides' and 'Access' |
Domestic Digital Divides |
Global Digital Divides |
Mobile Phones, Access and the Developing World |
Economic Reasons |
Social Reasons |
Legislative Reasons |
The Benefits of Mobile Telephony for the Developing World |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
'Everyone is Watching': Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Life |
The Changing Cultural Contexts of Privacy |
Privacy as a Legal Construction: a Contradiction |
Digital Surveillance: Spaces, Traces and Tools |
Key Tools of Digital Surveillance |
The Rise of Surveillance: Causes and Processes |
Security Imperatives: Surveillance and The Nation-State |
Surveillance, Control Imperatives and Bureaucratic Structures |
Techno-logic |
Commercial Imperatives and the Political economy of Surveillance |
Marketing and Personal Data Collection |
Databases, Data-mining, and Discourses |
The Power of Profiling |
Databases and Profiling: Pro's and con's |
Why Care About Surveillance Society? |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Information Politics, Subversion and Warfare |
The Political Context of Information Politics |
ICT-Enabled Politics |
Visibility |
Internal Organisation and Mobilisation |
External Collaboration and Coordination |
Flexible Organisation and 'Smartmobs' |
Permanent Political Campaigns: Linear Collaboration |
An Internet Public Sphere? |
Digital Disobedience: ICT-Based Activism |
ICTs and Mainstream Politics |
Cyber Politics by Another Means: Cyber Warfare |
Cyber Warfare as Network-Centric Warfare |
Cyber Warfare as Information Warfare |
Cyber Warfare as Espionage |
Cyber Warfare as Economic Sabotage |
Cyber Warfare as Critical Infrastructure Attack |
Adjunct Attacks |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Notes |
Digital Identity |
'Objects to Think With': Early Internet Studies and Poststructuralism |
Personal Home Pages and the 'Re-Centring' of the Individual |
Personal Blogging, Individualisation and the Reflexive Project of the Self |
Social Networks, profiles and networked Identity |
Avatar and Identity |
Case Study: Cybersex, Online Intimacy and the Self |
The Late-Modern Context of Love and Intimacy |
Cybersex: a Novel Form of Intimacy |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Notes |
Social Media and the Problem of Community: Space, Relationships, Networks |
Searching for Lost Community: Urbanisation, Space and Scales of Experience |
Community, Globalisation, Technology and Individualism |
'Virtual' Communities: The Next Step? |
The Virtues of Virtual Communities |
The Vices of Virtual Community |
The Reality of the Situation |
Network Societies, Network Socialities and Networked Individualism |
The Network Society Revisited |
Networked Individualism |
The Truth About the Networks |
Case Study: Social Networking, Microblogging, Language and Phatic Culture |
Technology, Presence and the Post-Social |
Language, technology and Phatic Communication |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Notes |
The Body and Information Technology |
The Body, Technology and Society |
The Posthuman |
Cyborgs |
Material as Information 1: Extropianism and disembodiment, or 'Flesh Made Data' |
Material as Information 2: Technological Embodiment or 'Data Made Flesh' |
Technology, Embodiment Relations and the 'Homo Faber' |
Embodiment Relation and Mobile Technologies |
Conclusion |
Further Reading |
Notes |
Conclusion: Base, Superstructure and Infrastructure (Revisited) |