Digitized Lives: Culture, Power, and Social Change in the Internet Era - Softcover

Reed, T.V.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415819318 ISBN 13: 9780415819312

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

In a remarkably short period of time the Internet and associated digital communication technologies have deeply changed the way millions of people around the globe live their lives. But what is the nature of that impact? In chapters examining a broad range of issues―including sexuality, politics, education, race, gender relations, the environment, and social protest movements―Digitized Lives seeks answers to these central questions: What is truly new about so-called "new media," and what is just hype? How have our lives been made better or worse by digital communication technologies? In what ways can these devices and practices contribute to a richer cultural landscape and a more sustainable society?

Cutting through the vast―and often contradictory―literature on these topics, Reed avoids both techno-hype and techno-pessimism, offering instead succinct, witty and insightful discussions of how digital communication is impacting our lives and reshaping the major social issues of our era. The book argues that making sense of digitized culture means looking past the glossy surface of techno gear to ask deeper questions about how we can utilize technology to create a more socially, politically, and economically just world.

Companion website available at: culturalpolitics.net/digital_cultures

About this title

About the Author:

T. V. Reed is Buchanan Distinguished Professor of American Studies and English at Washington State University. He is the author of The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle.

Review:

"This is it: the book on meanings digital that we are waiting to use. Share it with students, friends, colleagues, family, and neighbors. It speaks both in depth but also in conversation, with that touch for communication uniquely T. V. Reed’s. Reed’s care for details that matter is crucial for collectives of all kinds, especially when drawn properly as glimpses of bigger pictures always only just emerging, working with and toward sustainability."
―Katie King, University of Maryland, College Park, author of Networked Reenactments: Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell

"T. V. Reed’s Digitized Lives makes an important contribution to today's increasingly mediated society and culture, in which nearly every aspect of our everyday lives is touched by digital technology. This clear-eyed demystification of digital cultures’ benefits and threats functions as an indispensable guidebook for understanding the Internet today and its status as one of the most powerful communication tools of our modern age."
―Anna Everett, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Digitized Lives approaches a wide range of complex questions about digital media in our lives and does so with a thoughtfulness and curiosity that will keep readers engrossed page after page. Tracing the enormous impacts that digital media have on an array of topics ― such as identity, equality, access, material culture, e-waste, sex, politics, games, and education ― T. V. Reed’s provocative book will start meaningful conversations, intercede in important debates, and point us in new directions as digital technology continues to become a central character in our everyday lives."
―Jason Farman, University of Maryland, College Park

"The subjects Reed brings up should lead readers to think about and discuss the new "digitized lives" on which we embarked just a few decades ago. This readable text and its companion website, Digital Cultures , will be valuable for anyone interested in communication and the impact of the Internet... Summing Up: Recommended. All Readers." ―C. L. Clements, Richland College, in CHOICE

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0415819318
• ISBN 13: 9780415819312
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 258