What are we to make of our digital social lives and the forces that shape it? Should we feel fortunate to experience such networked connectivity? Are we privileged to have access to unimaginable amounts of information? Is it easier to work in a digital global economy? Or is our privacy and freedom under threat from digital surveillance? Our security and welfare being put at risk? Our politics undermined by hidden algorithms and misinformation? Written by a distinguished group of leading scholars from around the world, the Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Communication provides a comprehensive, unique, and multidisciplinary exploration of this rapidly growing and vibrant field of study. The Handbook adopts a three-part structural framework for understanding the sociocultural impact of digital media: the artifacts or physical devices and systems that people use to communicate; the communicative practices in which they engage to use those devices, express themselves, and share meaning; and the organizational and institutional arrangements, structures, or formations that develop around those practices and artifacts. Comprising a series of essay-chapters on a wide range of topics, this volume crystallizes current knowledge, provides historical context, and critically articulates the challenges and implications of the emerging dominance of the network and normalization of digitally mediated relations. Issues explored include the power of algorithms, digital currency, gaming culture, surveillance, social networking, and connective mobilization. More than a reference work, this Handbook delivers a comprehensive, authoritative overview of the state of new media scholarship and its most important future directions that will shape and animate current debates.

Democracy in the Digital Age is a fascinating philosophical exploration of how the emerging information and communication technologies are impacting political participation in the United States. Rather than being the antidote to democratic ills, the political conversations occurring online are neither inclusive nor deliberative, suggesting that new technologies, as currently designed and used, are as much threats to progress as they are vehicles of progress. Wilhelm finds that there is often an appearance of progress, but negligible advancement of the human condition. He discusses the four features of digitally-mediated political life (resources, inclusiveness, deliberation, and design) and demonstrates the need for a strong public policy.

European and International Media Law considers the rapidly changing relationship between the media and the liberal democratic state. It explores key contemporary media issues and captures the extraordinary impact of the liberal media model on European and international law as well as exploring its profound weaknesses.

Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status explores how and why television is gaining a new level of cultural respectability in the 21st century. Once looked down upon as a "plug-in drug" offering little redeeming social or artistic value, television is now said to be in a creative renaissance, with critics hailing the rise of Quality series such as Mad Men and 30 Rock. Likewise, DVDs and DVRs, web video, HDTV, and mobile devices have shifted the longstanding conception of television as a household appliance toward a new understanding of TV as a sophisticated, high-tech gadget. Newman and Levine argue that television’s growing prestige emerges alongside the convergence of media at technological, industrial, and experiential levels. Television is permitted to rise in respectability once it is connected to more highly valued media and audiences. Legitimation works by denigrating "ordinary" television associated with the past, distancing the television of the present from the feminized and mass audiences assumed to be inherent to the "old" TV. It is no coincidence that the most validated programming and technologies of the convergence era are associated with a more privileged viewership. The legitimation of television articulates the medium with the masculine over the feminine, the elite over the mass, reinforcing cultural hierarchies that have long perpetuated inequalities of gender and class. Legitimating Television urges readers to move beyond the question of taste—whether TV is "good" or "bad"—and to focus instead on the cultural, political, and economic issues at stake in television’s transformation in the digital age.

This comprehensive Handbook provides a synthesis of current work and research in media management and economics. The volume has been developed around two primary objectives: assessing the state of knowledge for the key topics in the media management and economics fields; and establishing the research agenda in these areas, ultimately pushing the field in new directions. The Handbook's chapters are organized into parts addressing the theoretical components, key issues, analytical tools, and future directions for research. Each chapter offers the current state of theory and scholarship of a specific area of study, and the volume contributors--all well established in their areas of specialty--represent domestic and international scholarship. With its unparalleled breadth of content from expert authors, the Handbook provides background knowledge of the various theoretical dimensions and historical paradigms, and establishes the direction for the next phases of research in this growing arena of study. The Handbook of Media Management and Economics will serve to stimulate future thought and research in the media management and economics disciplines. As such, this volume will be a required reference for students, professors, and industry practitioners for years to come.

Digital television (DTV) is a new type of broadcasting technology that will transform television as we now know it. DTV technology will allow broadcasters to offer television with movie-quality picture and CD-quality sound, along with a variety of other enhancements. DTV technology can also be used to transmit large amounts of other data into the home, which may be accessible by using one's computer or television set. DTV enables broadcasters to offer television with movie-quality picture and sound. It also offers greater multicasting and interactive capabilities. This book explores the many enhancing features, legal policies and reasons why consumers are now switching to digital television.

Political web sites and e-mail lists were novelties in 1996. By 2000, they were a news trend. By 2004, they will be a part of every electoral and policy campaign. News-seekers, activists, and decision-makers increasingly turn to the Net as a matter of course. The Civic Web delineates the basic issues, opportunities, and dilemmas posed by the introduction of computer-networked communications into U.S. national politics. Leading scholars from several academic disciplines join pioneer practitioners of online advocacy, discussion, and law in considering how the Internet can host, and even advance, enlightened self-government by a free people in a constitutional republic. Visit our website for sample chapters!