With the spread of mobile augmented reality, it has become very difficult to consider digital space and physical space independently. In this book, the authors identify and discuss the state 'Second Offline' which refers to a real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual information and one in which individuals are constantly referring to the online world. ‘Second Offline’ is observed across a wide range of social contexts and the relationship between superimposed digital online information and physical offline information is increasingly important. This book analyses the cooperative relationship between online and offline and also examines situations where there may be a conflict between these realities. Furthermore, the authors discuss the possibility that in addition to influencing the physical space, the digital world actually causes some of the physical world to be lost. Offering a discussion of the implications of a post-mobile society in which second offline is widespread, this edited collection will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in sociology, mobile media and cultural studies more generally.

This book offers a multidisciplinary approach to locative media, concentrating on specific authors and practitioners whose works exist in print and digital manifestations. The book shapes the discourse for an extensive theorization of locative media works from a narrative perspective. It investigates how different genres ⸺ print novels, fictional and non-fictional locative narratives, locative games, and audio texts ⸺ are affected by locative media practice. Part I examines print manifestations of locative media in William Gibson’s fiction. Part II discusses e-book and audio book locative narrative experimentations, suggesting ways to create and categorize locative texts. Drawing on hypertext theory, Part III views Niantic locative games as an instantiation of locative media storytelling practice that challenges digital narrativity. This study captures a transition from a print-based textuality to a digital locative textuality and culture, and proposes flexible innovative models of interpreting narrative textual forms emerging from the convergence of locative and narrative media. ​

What would a de-carbonised society be like? What are the implications of a general de-globalisation for our social futures? How will our high-carbon patterns of life be restructured in a de-energized world? As global society gradually wakes up to the new reality of peak oil, these questions remain unanswered. For the last hundred years oil made the world go round, and as we move into the century of 'tough oil' this book examines some profound consequences. It considers what societies would be like that are powering down; what lessons can be learned from the past about de-energized societies; will there be rationing systems or just the market to allocate scarce energy? Can virtual worlds solve energy problems? What levels of income and wellbeing would be likely? In this groundbreaking book, John Urry analyzes how the twentieth century created a kind of mirage of the future that is unsustainable into even the medium term and envisions the future of an oil-dependent world facing energy descent. Without a large-scale plan B, how can the energizing of society possibly be going into reverse?

In this clear-eyed, candid, and ultimately reassuring

This book throws light onto the nature and causes of three different but strongly interconnected crises in contemporary societies worldwide: an economic crisis, an ecological crisis and a normative (moral and political) crisis. These crises are reflected in the profoundly inequitable distribution of wealth, resources and life opportunities around the world. If we follow the causal roots of these crises, we are led back to an inherent dynamic in the capitalist economic system itself, discursively expressed as neoclassical, mainstream economics. For instance, by conflating human needs with market demand, mainstream economics disregards the needs of those who do not have sufficient purchasing power, as well as any needs that cannot be quantified or monetised in some way. Mainstream economics also ignores the notion of natural limits. Furthermore, it seems that everything that is quantifiable is potentially for sale and this results in the substitution of nature, indigenous cultural traditions and various life forms with commodities and ‘human capital’. The latter is defined as the skills instrumental for continual economic growth. Besides critiquing the academic discipline of economics, this book also points to a number of dysfunctional and crisis-prone structures and practices of substantive economic life. It will be of interest to students and scholars working in philosophy, economics and environmental studies.

Professor Margaret Archer is a leading critical realist and major contemporary social theorist. This edited collection seeks to celebrate the scope and accomplishments of her work, distilling her theoretical and empirical contributions into four sections which capture the essence and trajectory of her research over almost four decades. Long fascinated with the problem of structure and agency, Archer’s work has constituted a decade-long engagement with this perennial issue of social thought. However, in spite of the deep interconnections that unify her body of work, it is rarely treated as a coherent whole. This is doubtless in part due to the unforgiving rigour of her arguments and prose, but also a byproduct of sociology’s ongoing compartmentalisation. This edited collection seeks to address this relative neglect by collating a selection of papers, spanning Archer’s career, which collectively elucidate both the development of her thought and the value that can be found in it as a systematic whole. This book illustrates the empirical origins of her social ontology in her early work on the sociology of education, as well as foregrounding the diverse range of influences that have conditioned her intellectual trajectory: the systems theory of Walter Buckley, the neo-Weberian analysis of Lockwood, the critical realist philosophy of Roy Bhaskar and, more recently, her engagement with American pragmatism and the Italian school of relational sociology. What emerges is a series of important contributions to our understanding of the relationship between structure, culture and agency. Acting to introduce and guide readers through these contributions, this book carries the potential to inform exciting and innovative sociological research.

The concept of ’mobility’ has sparked lively academic debate in recent years. Drawing on research from the fields of anthropology, geography, sociology and tourism studies, this volume examines the intersection between mobility and hospitality, highlighting the issues that emerge as we encounter strangers in a mobile world. Through a series of diverse empirical accounts, it focuses on the transnational movement of people in the contexts of migration and tourism and examines how hospitality serves as a way of promoting and policing encounters, questioning how these relations are marked by exclusion as well as inclusion, and by violence as well as by kindness. In addition to exploring the power relations between mobile populations (hosts and guests) and attitudes (hospitality and hostility), the book also examines spaces of hospitality and mobility, such as cities, hotels, clubs, cafes, spas, asylums, restaurants, homes and homepages. In doing so, it makes a significant contribution to the political and ethical dimensions of mobile social relations.

"There has never been," Nunberg writes, "an age as wary as ours of the tricks words can play, obscuring distinctions and smoothing over the corrugations of the actual world . . . Yet as advertisers and marketers know, our mistrust of words doesn't inoculate us against them." These are the years of talking dangerously, and Nunberg is a sure guide to the pitfalls. With illuminating intelligence and devastating humor, Nunberg decodes the changing syntax of Time Magazine, explains why grammar buffs are drawn to sarcasm, and deftly unpacks the telling phrases of our national conversation, from progressive to elite to change -- not to mention national conversation itself.

As seen in Time, USA TODAY, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and on CBS This Morning, BBC, PBS, CNN, and NPR, iGen is crucial reading to understand how the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later are vastly different from their Millennial predecessors, and from any other generation. With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults. Born in the mid-1990s up to the mid-2000s, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person—perhaps contributing to their unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality. With the first members of iGen just graduating from college, we all need to understand them: friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation—and the world.