The rapid growth of our digital world has brought huge advantages - access to information anywhere, at any time, and the ability to communicate with colleagues, family and friends around the globe in real-time. But in other ways, the same technology has also disconnected us. Computers risk becoming less of a productivity tool and more like information firehoses, drowning us in a deluge of data that can keep us from doing meaningful, real work. The devices in our hands connect us like never before, but they vie for our attention to the point where they are beginning to disconnect us from the real world. In this book, Dave Coplin argues that right now it feels like the machines are taking over but if we stop thinking about the digital deluge as a problem and instead see it as an incredible opportunity we will be able to redress the balance. Technology offers our society so much but it is up to us, the humans, to rise to that potential.

In this book, I offer a firsthand account of my journey through the unfolding and evolution of the Digital Age. Originating from Hong Kong, a former British Colony, I grew up in a financially struggling family marked by low literacy levels. My parents, survivors of war, grappled with their own hardships, leading to frequent physical and verbal clashes fueled by financial difficulties. Despite these challenges, my life took a turn when I immigrated to Canada, opening doors for me to pursue my aspirations in the software industry. This narrative unfolds against a backdrop of diverse experiences, spanning business software development, industrial quality control applications, computationally intensive projects in the public sector, contributions to information superhighways, involvement in digital media innovation, participation in e-discovery and computer forensics, engagement in mobile applications development, and exploration of the expansive realms of big data and data visualization. Serendipity played a pivotal role, guiding me through opportunities that allowed me to navigate these diverse fields successfully. Beyond serving as a personal memoir, this book serves as a reflective exploration of the software industry's metamorphosis since the 1980s, intertwined with my personal journey within it. Offering insights into the challenges and opportunities inherent in the ever-evolving technology sector, the narrative aims to guide individuals on navigating this dynamic landscape.

This book covers the developing field of open source research and discusses how to use social media, satellite imagery, big data analytics, and user-generated content to strengthen human rights research and investigations. The topics are presented in an accessible format through extensive use of images and data visualization (éditeur).

Digital Governance of Education explores the multiple ways in which digital technologies are changing the experience of education. With much of the contemporary education practice either taking place or being documented digitally, a huge amount of data is constantly being collected and analysed to give sophisticated and up-to-date accounts of education practice in contemporary societies. Such 'datafication' of education, mediated through technology, gives rise to what the author defines as 'digital governance' of education – a transnational assemblage of people, technologies and policies that increasingly affects how national education systems are organized and managed. Paolo Landri argues that the emergence of digital governance is closely related to the new wave of standardization in education, exemplified by the shift towards what is measurable (for example focus on 'learning outcomes') and towards transparency in education practice - a shift that is both facilitated and augmented by digital technologies. The author places the digital governance of education within the framework of Europeanization of education, exploring how it contributes to the creation and regulation of European education arena through consolidation of digital space and tools introduced in this process (such as guidelines, country reports and online dashboards). Adopting a sociomaterial approach to education policy and drawing on actor-network theory, Paolo Landri uses empirical data to investigate how the digitization of education policy and practice is occurring in Italy, and to what extent it contributes to the growth of the digital governance of education. Pointing out the variety of risks and opportunities, he indicates future directions of critical research and the wider international implications of this global trend.

Research data are everywhere. In our everyday interactions, through social media, credit cards and even public transport, we generate and use data. The challenge for sociologists is how to collect, analyse and make best use of these vast arrays of information. The chapters in this book address these challenges using varied perspectives and approaches: The economics of big data and measuring the trajectories of recently arrived communities Social media and social research Researching 'elites', social class and 'race' across space and place Innovations in qualitative research and use of extended case studies Developing mixed method approaches and social network analysis Feminist quantitative methodology Teaching quantitative methods The book provides up to date and accessible material of interest to diverse audiences, including students and teachers of research design and methods, as well as policy analysis and social media.

The authors, writing as scholars of communication and media, demonstrate how God's great gifts of media and technology can rob us of everyday Sabbath and impede spiritual growth if not faithfully stewarded through a process described as mindful media attachment. Mindful media attachment helps to promote the "holy habits" of sacred intentionality, sacred interiority, and sacred identity. These "three sacreds," which arise from a proper understanding of the "grammar and language" of media and technology, ultimately allow us to avoid treating media and technology as ends in and of themselves and to avoid divided affections that drain energy, purpose, and kingdom service.

This book covers the ever-increasing problem of information overload from both the professional and academic perspectives. Focusing on the needs of practicing engineers and professional communicators, it addresses the causes and costs of information overload, along with strategies and techniques for reducing and minimizing its negative effects. The theoretical framework of information overload and ideas for future research are also presented. The book brings together an international group of authors, providing a truly global point of view on this important, rarely covered topic.

The act of bearing witness can reveal much, but what about the figure of the witness itself? As contemporary culture is increasingly dominated by surveillance, the witness--whether artist, historian, scientist, government official, or ordinary citizen--has become empowered in realms from art to politics. In Seeing Witness, Jane Blocker challenges the implicit authority of witnessing through the examination of a series of contemporary artworks, all of which make the act of witnessing visible, open to inspection and critique.

The volume presents a selection of research projects in Digital Humanities applied to the “Biblical Studies” in the widest sense and context, including Early Jewish and Christian studies, hence the title “Ancient Worlds”. Taken as a whole, the volume explores the emergent Digital Culture at the beginning of the 21st century. It also offers many examples which attest to a change of paradigm in the textual scholarship of “Ancient Worlds”: categories are reshaped; textuality is (re-) investigated according to its relationships with orality and visualization; methods, approaches and practices are no longer a fixed conglomeration but are mobilized according to their contexts and newly available digital tools.

Gurus and Media is the first book dedicated to media and mediation in domains of public guruship and devotion. Illuminating the mediatisation of guruship and the guru-isation of media, it bridges the gap between scholarship on gurus and the disciplines of media and visual culture studies. It investigates guru iconographies in and across various time periods and also the distinctive ways in which diverse gurus engage with and inhabit different forms of media: statuary, games, print publications, photographs, portraiture, films, machines, social media, bodies, words, graffiti, dolls, sound, verse, tombs and more. The book’s interdisciplinary chapters advance, both conceptually and ethnographically, our understanding of the function of media in the dramatic production of guruship, and reflect on the corporate branding of gurus and on mediated guruship as a series of aesthetic traps for the captivation of devotees and others. They show how different media can further enliven the complex plurality of guruship, for instance in instantiating notions of ‘absent-present’ guruship and demonstrating the mutual mediation of gurus, caste and Hindutva. Throughout, the book foregrounds contested visions of the guru in the development of devotional publics and pluriform guruship across time and space. Thinking through the guru’s many media entanglements in a single place, the book contributes new insights to the study of South Asian religions and to the study of mediation more broadly. Praise for Gurus and Media 'Sight, sound, image, narrative, representation and performance in the complex world of gurus are richly illuminated and deeply theorised in this outstanding volume. The immensely important, but hitherto under-explored, visual and aural dimensions of guru-ship across several religious traditions have received path-breaking and wide-ranging treatment by best-known experts on the subject.' Nandini Gooptu, University of Oxford ‘Gurus and Media casts subtle light on a phenomenon that too often shines so brightly that it is hard to see. This collection is a tremendously rich resource for anyone trying to make sense of that ambiguous zone where authority appears at once as seduction and as salvation, as comfort and as terror.’ William Mazzarella, University of Chicago 'This remarkable collection uses the figure of the mass-mediated guru to throw light on how modern Hindu mobilization generates a highly diverse set of religious charismatics in India. Because of the diversity of the contributors to this volume, the book is also a moveable feast of cases, methods and cultural styles in a major cultural region.' Arjun Appadurai, Emeritus Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University