"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 John This 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.

From Facebook to the iPhone, from YouTube to Wikipedia, from Grand Auto Theft to Second Life, this book explores media's important issues and debates. It covers topics such as digital television, digital cinema, game culture, digital democracy, the World Wide Web, digital news, online social networking, music & multimedia and virtual communities.

From our bank accounts to supermarket checkouts to the movies we watch, strings of ones and zeroes suffuse our world. Digital technology has defined modern society in numerous ways, and the vibrant digital culture that has now resulted is the subject of Charlie Gere’s engaging volume. In this revised and expanded second edition, taking account of new developments such as Facebook and the iPhone, Charlie Gere charts in detail the history of digital culture, as marked by responses to digital technology in art, music, design, film, literature and other areas. After tracing the historical development of digital culture, Gere argues that it is actually neither radically new nor technologically driven: digital culture has its roots in the eighteenth century and the digital mediascape we swim in today was originally inspired by informational needs arising from industrial capitalism, contemporary warfare and counter-cultural experimentation, among other social changes. A timely and cutting-edge investigation of our contemporary social infrastructures, Digital Culture is essential reading for all those concerned about the ever-changing future of our Digital Age. “This is an excellent book. It gives an almost complete overview of the main trends and view of what is generally called digital culture through the whole post-war period, as well as a thorough exposition of the history of the computer and its predecessors and the origins of the modern division of labor.”—Journal of Visual Culture

The rapid development of digital technologies continues to have far reaching effects on our daily lives. This book explains how digital media—in providing the material and infrastructure for a host of practices and interactions—affect identities, bodies, social relations, artistic practices, and the environment. Theorizing Digital Cultures: Shows students the importance of theory for understanding digital cultures and presents key theories in an easy-to-understand way Considers the key topics of cybernetics, online identities, aesthetics and ecologies Explores the power relations between individuals and groups that are produced by digital technologies Enhances understanding through applied examples, including YouTube personalities, Facebook’s ‘like’ button and holographic performers Clearly structured and written in an accessible style, this is the book students need to get to grips with the key theoretical approaches in the field. It is essential reading for students and researchers of digital culture and digital society throughout the social sciences.

There are an increasing number of courses on digital games and gaming, following the rise in the popularity of games themselves. Amongst these practical courses, there are now theoretical courses appearing on gaming on media, film and cultural studies degree programmes. The aim of this book is to satisfy the need for a single accessible textbook which offers a broad introductions to the range of literatures and approaches currently contributing to digital game research. Each of the chapters will outline key theoretical perspectives, theorists and literatures to demonstrate their relevance to, and use in, the study of digital games.

Confronting the digital revolution in academia, this book examines the application of new computational techniques and visualisation technologies in the Arts & Humanities. Uniting differing perspectives, leading and emerging scholars discuss the theoretical and practical challenges that computation raises for these disciplines.

This book explores the interrelations between food, technology and knowledge-sharing practices in producing digital food cultures. Digital Food Cultures adopts an innovative approach to examine representations and practices related to food across a variety of digital media: blogs and vlogs (video blogs), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, technology developers’ promotional media, online discussion forums and self-tracking apps and devices. The book emphasises the diversity of food cultures available on the internet and other digital media, from those celebrating unrestrained indulgence in food to those advocating very specialised diets requiring intense commitment and focus. While most of the digital media and devices discussed in the book are available and used by people across the world, the authors offer valuable insights into how these global technologies are incorporated into everyday lives in very specific geographical contexts. This book offers a novel contribution to the rapidly emerging area of digital food studies and provides a framework for understanding contemporary practices related to food production and consumption internationally.

This book critically analyses the functions and interconnectedness between religion and digital media in a range of East Asian countries. It discusses both how religious organizations make use of new technologies, and also explores how new technologies are reshaping religion in novel and interesting ways. Based on extensive research, the book focuses in particular on Christianity in South Korea, Neo-Shintoism in Japan, Falun Gong in China and Islam in Southeast Asia. Offering a comparative perspective on a broad range of media practices including video gaming, virtual worship, social networking and online testimonials, the book also investigates the idea that use of technology in itself mirrors religious practices. With an analysis of the impact of religion and new technology on national consciousness in a range of geographical locations, the authors offer a broadening of the scope of the study of religion, culture and media.

The first generation of Digital Natives children who were born into and raised in the digital world are coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Our economy, our politics, our culture, and even the shape of our family life will be forever transformed. But who are these Digital Natives? And what is the world theyre creating going to look like? In Born Digital, leading Internet and technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser offer a sociological portrait of these young people, who can seem, even to those merely a generation older, both extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow. Exploring a broad range of issues, from the highly philosophical to the purely practical, Born Digital will be essential reading for parents, teachers, and the myriad of confused adults who want to understand the digital present and shape the digital future.

Taking “Gangnam Style” seriously: what Internet memes can tell us about digital culture. In December 2012, the exuberant video “Gangnam Style” became the first YouTube clip to be viewed more than one billion times. Thousands of its viewers responded by creating and posting their own variations of the video—“Mitt Romney Style,” “NASA Johnson Style,” “Egyptian Style,” and many others. “Gangnam Style” (and its attendant parodies, imitations, and derivations) is one of the most famous examples of an Internet meme: a piece of digital content that spreads quickly around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience. In this book, Limor Shifman investigates Internet memes and what they tell us about digital culture. Shifman discusses a series of well-known Internet memes—including “Leave Britney Alone,” the pepper-spraying cop, LOLCats, Scumbag Steve, and Occupy Wall Street's “We Are the 99 Percent.” She offers a novel definition of Internet memes: digital content units with common characteristics, created with awareness of each other, and circulated, imitated, and transformed via the Internet by many users. She differentiates memes from virals; analyzes what makes memes and virals successful; describes popular meme genres; discusses memes as new modes of political participation in democratic and nondemocratic regimes; and examines memes as agents of globalization. Memes, Shifman argues, encapsulate some of the most fundamental aspects of the Internet in general and of the participatory Web 2.0 culture in particular. Internet memes may be entertaining, but in this book Limor Shifman makes a compelling argument for taking them seriously.