Name: Cultures of the Internet By Robert M Shields
SKU: 9780803975194
Price: 18.49 AUD
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Cultures of the Internet Summary

Cultures of the Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies by Robert M Shields

The Internet is here but have we caught up with all the implications for culture and everyday life? This collection of original articles on the development of computer-mediated communications brings together many of the most accomplished writers on the Net and cyberspace.

Cultures of Internet examines the arrival of e-mail and online discussion groups, and considers the prospect of an `online world' - a playground for virtual bodies in which identities are flexible, swappable and disconnected from real-world bodies. The book traces the rise of virtual conviviality and how it supplements the physical encounters between actors in public spaces that are abandoned to the homeless.

The book is distinguished by a critical and social tone. It presents systematic descriptions of the development of the Internet, its history in the military-industrial complex, the role of state policies leading, for example, to the creation of Minitel, and the building of information `superhighways'. It also explores the development of this technology as a commercialized leisure form and a forum for underground political organization and critique.

Cultures of the Internet Reviews

'The Internet, as the editor notes, has been "over-hyped and over-sensationalised", and has also generated an enormous amount of vacuous and pretentious commentary, much taken with the visionary possibilities of elaborating on Internet life. This collection is not immune to such excesses, but does have a lot of thoughtful and informed commentary.... The collection as a whole is lively and often provocative, and...will be useful to researchers still uncertain about what kind of a beast the Internet is evolving into' - European Journal of Communication

`Eight of his [Shields] contributors are graduate students, which gives the book a much more grounded sense of participation in as well as observation of the cultures with which it engages.... [a] preoccupation with the politics of identity runs through the assembled pieces. Interrogated in well-researched case studies of network censorship in Canada, the institutional struggles over the French Minitel system and the practical contradictions of connectivity in Jamaica, the question of identity is placed solidly in the material world.... among the better contributions to the publishing boom of the last two years... very useful in undergraduate teaching' - Sociology

About Robert M Shields

Rob Shields lectures in Culture and Communication at Lancaster University and maintains links with Carleton University, where he is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. He is author of Places on the Margin (1990) and Lifestyle Shopping (1993), and co-editor of Social Engineering: The Technics of Change (1995). CONTRIBUTORS OUTSIDE WESTERN HEMISPHERE David Chaney Durham UniversitySadie Plant University of BirminghamMike Featherstone Goldsmiths, UKAndre Lemos Universite Paris V

Introduction - Rob Shields Virtual Spaces, Real Histories and Living Bodies Is There Free Speech on the Net? - Leslie Regan Shade Censorship in the Global Information Infrastructure The Labyrinth of Minitel - Andr[ac]e Lemos Cool Runnings - Joerge Dyrkton The Coming of Cybereality in Jamaica Is There a Body in the Net? - Katie Argyle and Rob Shields A Geography of the Eye - Ken Hillis The Technologies of Virtual Reality The Coming of Cyberspacetime and the End of the Polity - Dan Thu Nguyen and Jon Alexander Contradictions in Cyberspace - Interrogate the Internet Collective Response Life After Death - Katie Argyle Are MUDs Communities? - Heather Bromberg Identity, Belonging and Consciousness in Virtual Worlds Psychoanalysis and Cyberspace - Mark Lajoie On the Matrix - Sadie Plant Cyberfeminist Simulations

Additional information

Sku

GOR003897279

ISBN 13

9780803975194

ISBN 10

0803975198

Title

Cultures of the Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies by Robert M Shields

Author

Robert M Shields

Condition

Used - Very Good

Binding type

Paperback

Publisher

SAGE Publications Ltd

Year published

1996-02-22

Number of pages

208

Prizes

N/A

Cover note

Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.

Note

This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Cultures of the Internet Robert M Shields

Cultures of the Internet by Robert M Shields

Summary

Cultures of the Internet Summary

Cultures of the Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies by Robert M Shields

Cultures of the Internet Reviews

About Robert M Shields

Table of Contents

Additional information

Customer Reviews - Cultures of the Internet