Digital Media and Society: An Introduction

The rise of digital media has been widely regarded astransforming the nature of our social experience in thetwenty-first century. The speed with which new forms ofconnectivity and communication are being incorporated into oureveryday lives often gives us little time to stop and consider thesocial implications of those practices. Nonetheless, it iscritically important that we do so, and this sociologicalintroduction to the field of digital technologies is intended toenable a deeper understanding of their prominent role in everydaylife.

The fundamental theoretical and ethical debates on the sociologyof the digital media are presented in accessible summaries, rangingfrom economy and technology to criminology and sexuality. Keytheoretical paradigms are explored through a broad range ofcontemporary social phenomena - from social networking andvirtual lives to the rise of cybercrime and identity theft, fromthe utopian ideals of virtual democracy to the Orwellian nightmareof the surveillance society, from the free software movement to theimplications of online shopping.

As an entry-level pathway for students in sociology, media, communications and cultural studies, the aim of this work is tosituate the rise of digital media within the context of a complexand rapidly changing world.