Understanding Digital Culture

Vincent Miller is Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent

• IntroductionRevolutionary Technologies?The Structure of the BookChapter 1: Key Elements of Digital MediaTechnical ProcessesCultural FormsImmersive ExperiencesChapter 2: The Economic Foundations of the Information AgePost-IndustrialismThe Information SocietyPost-Fordism and GlobalisationInformationalism and the Network SocietyWeightless Economies, Intellectual Property and the Commodification of KnowledgeChapter 3: Convergence and the Contemporary Media ExperienceTechnological ConvergenceRegulatory ConvergenceMedia Industry ConvergenceConvergence Culture ad the Contemporary Media ExperienceProducers, Consumers, Prosumers and ′Produsage′Chapter 4: ′Everyone is Watching′: Privacy and Surveillance in Digital LifeThe Changing Cultural Contexts of PrivacyDigital Surveillance: Spaces, Traces and ToolsThe Rise Surveillance: Causes and ProcessesCommercial Imperatives and the Political Economy of SurveillanceWhy Care about a Surveillance Society?Chapter 5: Information Politics and the Online Public SphereThe Poltical Context of Information PoliticsICT-Enabled PoliticsAn Internet Public Sphere?Chapter 6: Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism and CyberwareCybercrime: A Muddy FieldThe Tools and Techniques of Cybercrime, Cyberactivism and CyberwarfareCyber Politics by Another Means: Cyber WarfareChapter 7: Digital Identity′Objects to Think with′: Early Internet Studies and PoststructuralismPersonal Homepages and the ′Re-Centring′ of the IndividualPersonal Blogging, Individualisation and the Reflexive Project of the SelfAvatar and IdentitySocial Networks, Profiles and Networked IdentityWho needs Identity?Chapter 8: Digital Community? Space, Networks and RelationshipsSearching for Lost Community: Urbanisation, Space and Scales of ExperienceGlobalisation, Technology and the Rise of Individualism′Virtual′ Communities Over Before they Began?Network Societies, Network Socialities and Networked IndividualismBeing Together Online: Networks, Instrumentalism and IntimacyChapter 9: The Body and Information TechnologyThe Body, Technology and SocietyThe PosthumanTechnology, Embodiment Relations and ′Homo Faber′Conclusion: Base, Superstructure, Infrastructure (Revisited)

The first edition of Understanding Digital Culture set a new benchmark as the most comprehensive, scholarly and accessible introduction to the area. This latest edition, thoroughly updated and substantially expanded, is even better – a perfectly balanced book that combines theory and empirical analysis to illuminate the cutting-edge of cultural and social change.