Deciphering Cyberspace: Making the Most of Digital Communication Technology

Deciphering Cyberspace: Making the Most of Digital Communication Technology, a collection of new chapters by media experts, social-psychologists, and legal scholars, lucidly explores the modern digital information revolution with one goal: to demystify digital communication technology. By examining its subject matter from the three perspectives of technology, markets, and policy, Deciphering Cyberspace provides an impressively comprehensive view of the technical nature of cyberspace, its social impact, and legal significance for individuals, institutions, and society. Marrying the broad social and psychological impact of technology to the personal, this text goes beyond mere operation of technology and illuminates how systems work.

This text is recommended for courses examining digital media communication in mass media, communication technology, and telecommunications. Deciphering Cyberspace is a must-have volume for anyone interested in keeping connected and learning about the ever-changing world of technology in our increasingly mediated world.

Leonard Shyles (Ph.D., Communication, Ohio State University) is Associate Professor of Communication at Villanova University. His publications include journal articles and book chapters dealing with the content and impact of televised political advertising in presidential campaigns. He is co-editor and co-author of The 1000 hour war: communication in the gulf (1994) for Greenwood Press, dealing with the use of telecommunications technologies to conduct the war in the Persian Gulf and to provide journalistic coverage of the conflict. Most recently, Shyles has published a comprehensive television production textbook, Video production handbook (1997) for Houghton Mifflin Company. Shyles’ current research focuses on understanding digital technology in the contexts of markets and policy.