Understanding Digital Culture

Author: Vincent Miller
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446246485
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
"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.

Digital Culture: Understanding New Media

Author: Creeber, Glen
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335221971
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
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.

Digital Culture

Author: Charlie Gere
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861895607
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
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

Theorizing Digital Cultures

Author: Grant D. Bollmer
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 152645307X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Explaining how digital media affect identities, bodies, social relations, artistic practices and the environment, this book helps students understand the key theoretical approaches in the field.

Memes in Digital Culture

Author: Limor Shifman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262317702
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
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.

Understanding Digital Games

Author: Jason Rutter
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1847877664
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
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.

Digital Culture and Religion in Asia

Author: Sam Han
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317580168
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 139

Book Description
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.

Introduction to Digital Media

Author: Alessandro Delfanti
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119276217
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Book Description
New and updated English translation of the highly successful book on digital media This book introduces readers to the vast and rich world of digital media. It provides a strong starting point for understanding digital media’s social and political significance to our culture and the culture of others—drawing on an emergent and increasingly rich set of empirical and theoretical studies on the role and development of digital media in contemporary societies. Touching on the core points behind the discipline, the book addresses a wide range of topics, including media economics, online cooperation, open source, social media, software production, globalization, brands, marketing, the cultural industry, labor, and consumption. Presented in six sections—Media and Digital Technologies; The Information Society; Cultures and Identities; Digital Collaboration; Public Sphere and Power; Digital Economies—the book offers in-depth chapter coverage of new and old media; network infrastructure; networked economy and globalization; the history of information technologies; the evolution of networks; sociality and digital media; media and identity; collaborative media; open source and innovation; politics and democracy; social movements; surveillance and control; digital capitalism; global inequalities and development; and more. Delivers a reliable, compact and quick introduction to the core issues analyzed by digital culture studies and sociology of information societies Interweaves main topics and theories with several examples and up-to-date case studies, often linked to our everyday lives on the internet, as well as suggestions for further readings Anchors examples to discussions of the main sociological, political, and anthropological theoretical approaches at stake to help students make sense of the changes brought about by digital media Uses critical sociological and political theory alongside every day examples to discuss concepts such as online sociality, digital labor, digital value creation, and the reputation economy Clear and concise throughout, Introduction to Digital Media is an excellent primer for those teaching and studying digital culture and media.

Understanding Digital Cinema

Author: Charles S. Swartz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0240806174
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
The definitive work on digital cinema by all the Hollywood insiders!

Understanding Digital Humanities

Author: D. Berry
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230371930
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
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.