The Network Society; the essential guide to the past, current consequences and future of digital communication, remaining an accessible, comprehensive, must-read introduction to how new media function in contemporary society.

Noting that the globalization of the economy has become an irreversible, universally dominant trend, the author argues that the countries that will meet with the greatest success at the century's end will not be unleashed market economies but rather what he terms "active and learning societies" that attempt to solve their problems on the basis of an organizational and governance-related pluralism. Lacks an index. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In The Network Society, Darin Barney provides a compelling examination of the social, political and economic implications of network technologies and their application across a wide range of practices and institutions. Are we in the midst of a digital revolution? Have new information and communication technologies given birth to a new form of society, or do they reinforce and extend existing patterns and relationships? This book provides a clear and engaging discussion of these and other questions. Using a sophisticated model of the relationship between technology and society, Barney investigates both what has changed, and what has remained the same, in the age of the Internet. Among the issues discussed are debates concerning the emergence of a 'knowledge economy'; digital restructuring of employment and work; globalization and the status of the nation-state; the prospects of digital democracy; the digital divide; new social movements; and culture, community and identity in the age of new media. This book provides an accessible resource for a thoughtful engagement with life in the network society. It will be essential reading for students in sociology and media and communication studies. This will be a valuable textbook for undergraduate students of sociology and media and communication studies.

This book maps, describes and further explores all contemporary forms of interaction between radio and its public, with a specific focus on those forms of content co-creation that link producers and listeners. Each essay will analyze one or more case studies, piecing together a map of emerging co-creation practices in contemporary radio. Contributors describe the rise of a new class of radio listeners: the networked ones. Networked audiences are made up of listeners that are not only able to produce written and audio content for radio and co-create along with the radio producers (even definitively bypassing the central hub of the radio station, by making podcasts), but that also produce social data, calling for an alternative rating system, which is less focused on attention and more on other sources, such as engagement, sentiment, affection, reputation, and influence. What are the economic and political consequences of this paradigm shift? How are radio audiences perceived by radio producers in this new radioscape? What’s the true value of radio audiences in this new frame? How do radio audiences take part in the radio flow in this age? Are audiences’ interactions and co-creations overrated or underrated by radio producers? To what extent listeners' generated content can be considered a form of participation or "free labour" exploitation? What’s the role of community radio in this new context? These are some of the many issues that this book aims to explore. Visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Radio-Audience-and-Participation-in-the-Age-of-Network-Society/869169869799842 for the book's Facebook page.

Editors are well known experts in the field as are many of the contributors Spatial and technological networks are of high interest and this book examines their relationship and deals with the challenges that they raise for planners and policy makers A strong focus on the political and sociological aspect of network-based societies and cities

This book is devoted to discussion of the views of Pierre Musso and starts with a central chapter written by Musso, entitled Network Ideology: from Saint-Simonianism to the Internet . Pierre Musso is a French philosopher and is one of the most original thinkers in the history of the network society. His thought develops a critique of information and communication technologies through their imaginary and social representations and of the information society, based on the network metaphor. The main question on which Musso has focused his attention is how the network metaphor is one of the most powerful ways of understanding the complex societies in which we live. Showing characteristic attention to detail, and drawing on the history of ideas, political philosophy and sociology, Musso traces the genealogy of the network imaginary, and points out that it did not emerge with the Internet. He shows how its modern roots can be found in Henri de Saint-Simon and his disciples, engineers and entrepreneurs such as Michel de Chevalier, and Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, who developed channel networks, railroads, and the telegraphic network in France in the nineteenth century. In addition to the central piece written by Musso, the book includes a general introduction and six commentaries from experts on information technologies and networks. It displays a wide range of perspectives from a diverse set of authors in terms of nationalities and universities, as well as disciplinary backgrounds.

The Internet and the many applications it supports continue to transform and expand the ways in which it is possible to relate, communicate, collaborate, and perform human service work. In this book, human service researchers and practitioners explore major opportunities and challenges to well being, social justice, and human service work that technology use in everyday life has exposed. Drawing on the latest research their contributions examine issues associated with human service practices in the network society, including: the implications of an expanded capacity to share human service data across agency and national boundaries; ethical issues associated with the use of remote sensing and surveillance technologies (e.g. the satellite tracking of offenders, and telecare services for older people); the risks and benefits of social network sites including issues associated with online privacy, intimacy, and safety; and the influence of technology-mediated services on human relationships and the sense of ‘being present’ with another person. Human Services in the Network Society will be of considerable interest to human service professionals, academics and researchers who are concerned about the social impact of networked technologies. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Technology in Human Services.

How computer professionals and communities can work together to shape sociotechnical systems that will meet society's challenges. Information and computer technologies are used every day by real people with real needs. The authors contributing to Shaping the Network Society describe how technology can be used effectively by communities, activists, and citizens to meet society's challenges. In their vision, computer professionals are concerned less with bits, bytes, and algorithms and more with productive partnerships that engage both researchers and community activists. These collaborations are producing important sociotechnical work that will affect the future of the network society. Traditionally, academic research on real-world users of technology has been neglected or even discouraged. The authors contributing to this book are working to fill this gap; their theoretical and practical discussions illustrate a new orientation—research that works with people in their natural social environments, uses common language rather than rarefied academic discourse, and takes a pragmatic perspective. The topics they consider are key to democratization and social change. They include human rights in the "global billboard society"; public computing in Toledo, Ohio; public digital culture in Amsterdam; "civil networking" in the former Yugoslavia; information technology and the international public sphere; "historical archaeologies" of community networks; "technobiographical" reflections on the future; libraries as information commons; and globalization and media democracy, as illustrated by Indymedia, a global collective of independent media organizations.

`A highly topical, interesting and lively analysis of ordinary internet use, based on both theoretically competent reflections and sound ethnographic material′ - Joost van Loon, Reader in Social Theory at Nottingham Trent University Internet Society investigates internet use and it′s implications for society through insights into the daily experiences of ordinary users. Drawing on an original study of non-professional, ′ordinary′ users at home, this book examines how people interpret, domesticate and creatively appropriate the Internet by integrating it into the projects and activities of their everyday lives. Maria Bakardjieva′s theoretical framework uniquely combines concepts from several schools of thought (social constructivism, critical theory, phenomenological sociology) to provide a conception of the user as an agent in the field of technological development and new media shaping. She: - examines the evolution of the Internet into a mass medium - interrogates what users make of this new communication medium - evaluates the social and cultural role of the Internet by looking at the immediate level of users′ engagement with it - exposes the dual life of technology as invader and captive; colonizer and colonized This book will appeal to academics and researchers in social studies of technology, communication and media studies, cultural studies, philosophy of technology and ethnography.

Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis, first published in 2005, presents the most important developments in quantitative models and methods for analyzing social network data that have appeared during the 1990s. Intended as a complement to Wasserman and Faust's Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications, it is a collection of articles by leading methodologists reviewing advances in their particular areas of network methods. Reviewed are advances in network measurement, network sampling, the analysis of centrality, positional analysis or blockmodelling, the analysis of diffusion through networks, the analysis of affiliation or 'two-mode' networks, the theory of random graphs, dependence graphs, exponential families of random graphs, the analysis of longitudinal network data, graphical techniques for exploring network data, and software for the analysis of social networks.