"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 profiling databases and mashups to cybersex and the truth about social networking, Miller′s insightful second edition traces the pervasive influence of ′digital culture′ throughout contemporary life.

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.

The book explores contemporary selfie-taking practices; digital experiences of love, romance and infidelity; sexting rituals; self-tracking habits; strategies used by the Internet famous; and the power of hashtag campaigns and memes in espousing a cause. Rejecting binary narratives on digital cultures, it showcases the fascinating ways in which we use our digital devices, social media platforms, and apps by drawing upon academic research, everyday observations and a determination to challenge assumptions and hasty generalizations. It also engages with emerging narratives on online authenticity, privacy, digital detox, and the digital divides prevalent both in India and abroad.

In Asia, amidst its varied levels of economic development and diverse cultural traditions and political regimes, the Internet and mobile communications are increasingly used in every aspect of life. Yet the analytical frames used to understand the impact of digital media on Asia predominantly originate from the Global North, neither rooted in Asia’s rich philosophical traditions, nor reflective of the sociocultural practices of this dynamic region. This volume examines digital phenomena and its impact on Asia by drawing on specifically Asian perspectives. Contributors apply a variety of Asian theoretical frameworks including guanxi, face, qing, dharma and karma. With chapters focusing on emerging digital trends in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan, the book presents compelling and diverse research on identity and selfhood, spirituality, social networking, corporate image, and national identity as shaped by and articulated through digital communication platforms.

In the globalization era, social media become more popular in everyone's daily life with its user friendly and effective functions. Social media support the people across the world in communicating, meeting new people, making socialization, sharing knowledge, learning different experiences and interacting with each other instead of distance and separation between persons. Moreover, social media can encourage the increasing of intercultural adaptation level of people who are facing different cultural experiences in new communities. The study shows that people use social media to become more adaptable with the new cultures of the host countries and to preserve their connections with home countries.

An Introduction to Design and Culture provides a comprehensive guide to the changing relationships between design and culture from 1900 to the present day with an emphasis on five main themes: Design and consumption Design and technology The design profession Design theory Design and identities. This fourth edition extends the traditional definition of design as covering product design, furniture design, interior design, fashion design and graphic design to embrace its more recent manifestations, which include service design, user-interface design, co-design, and sustainable design, among others. It also discusses the relationship between design and the new media and the effect of globalisation on design. Taking a broadly chronological approach, Professor Sparke employs historical methods to show how these themes developed through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century and played a role within modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Over a hundred illustrations are used throughout to demonstrate the breadth of design and examples – among them design in Modern China, the work of Apple Computers Ltd., and design thinking – are used to elaborate key ideas. The new edition remains essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of design studies, cultural studies and visual arts.

We are witnessing an unprecedented technological revolution. Every sphere of life from communications, work, economy, leisure, our homes, and health care is being digitised. These far-reaching changes demand careful consideration and discernment by churches participating in God’s redemptive work around the world. Digitalization of society is radically changing both the methods and conditions of missions. For the first time, this book explores the implications of digitality for Missio Dei in thought and practice. Bringing together theologians, missiologists, computer scientists and practitioners, the book considers a diverse range of topics from evangelism to pastoral care, cyber pilgrimages to biases in algorithms, public theology to homiletics and inculturation to contextualization.

While the term ‘culture’ has come to be very widely used in both popular and academic discourse, it has a variety of meanings, and the differences among these have not been given sufficient attention. This book explores these meanings, and identifies some of the problems associated with them, as well as examining the role that values should play in cultural analysis. The development of four, very different, conceptions of culture is traced from the nineteenth century onwards: a notion of aesthetic cultivation associated with Matthew Arnold; the evolutionary view of culture characteristic of nineteenth-century anthropology; the idea of diverse cultures characteristic of twentieth and twenty-first century anthropology; and a conception of culture as a process of situated meaning-making – found today across anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. These conceptions of culture are interrogated, and a reformulation of the concept is sketched. This book will be of interest to students and scholars across a variety of fields, including anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and education.

Metapolitics, Algorithms and Violence argues that we need a more finegrained approach to understand contemporary far-right violence – an approach that takes language and cultural production in a digital economy seriously. This book underlines the importance of socio-political, economic, historical and technological context in understanding the rise of the new right. More concretely, based on a digital ethnographic approach, it argues that we should understand this violence and the contemporary rise of new far-right practices and actors in relation to the theoretical renewal of ‘La Nouvelle Droite’ in the 20th century; the ‘democratization’ of new right metapolitics in the 21st century as a result of the rise of digital media; and the development of a layered, transnational and polycentric new right cultural niche in which far-right activists and terrorists produce identity, discourse, digital cultures and practices. This work will be an engaging and necessary read for researchers interested in social media, digital culture, far-right politics, extremism and terrorism.