Exploring Technology and Social Space: Communications and Agency at the End of the 20th Century (New Media Cultures)

John Macgregor Wise

ISBN 10: 0761904220 / ISBN 13: 9780761904229

Published by SAGE Publications, Inc 1997-10-10, 1997

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-IUK-9780761904229

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Exploring Technology and Social Space: Communications and Agency at the End of the 20th Century (New Media Cultures)
• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc 1997-10-10
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761904220
• ISBN 13: 9780761904229
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Examining the fundamental assumptions that we hold about the role of technology in our lives, Technology and Social Space describes the possibilities and limitations of human agency within the new wired world. In a patient and thoughtful style, author J. Macgregor Wise elaborates a critical, philosophical, and epistemological framework from which to better understand our relations to technology and social space. The book argues that most treatments of technology and society arise from a modernist episteme (or set of assumptions) that radically separates humans from technologies, focusing on questions of determination and identity. In an attempt to provide a clearer view of technology and social space, the book explores alternative perspectives centered on notions of agency. Working from within these alternative epistemes, the book turns its attention to the burgeoning technological assemblage of communication and information characterized by the Internet and cyberspace. Technology and Social Space draws on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and the actor-network sociology of Bruno Latour, and brings together diverse examples from cyborg films, television, museums, cyberspace, and debates over a New World Information and Communication Order. Ultimately, the book describes the possibilities and limitation of human agency within the new wired world. This groundbreaking volume will be of interest to professionals and academics in popular culture, media studies, mass communication, and sociology.