Understanding Digital Culture

Abstract

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; and, 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.