We tell stories about who we are. Through telling these stories, we connect with others and affirm our own sense of self. Spaces, be they online or offline; private or public; physical, augmented or virtual; or of a hybrid nature, present the performative realms upon which our stories unfold. This volume focuses on how digital platforms support, enhance, or confine the networked self. Contributors examine a range of issues relating to storytelling, platforms, and the self, including the live-reporting of events, the curation of information, emerging modalities of journalism, collaboratively formed memories, and the instant historification of the present.

This book provides an essential update for experienced data processing professionals, transaction managers and database specialists who are seeking system solutions beyond the confines of traditional approaches. It provides practical advice on how to manage complex transactions and share distributed databases on client servers and the Internet. Based on extensive research in over 100 companies in the USA, Europe, Japan and the UK, topics covered include : * the challenge of global transaction requirements within an expanding business perspective *how to handle long transactions and their constituent elements *possible benefits from object-oriented solutions * the contribution of knowledge engineering in transaction management * the Internet, the World Wide Web and transaction handling * systems software and transaction-processing monitors * OSF/1 and the Encina transaction monitor * active data transfers and remote procedure calls * serialization in a transaction environment * transaction locks, two-phase commit and deadlocks * improving transaction-oriented database management * the successful development of an increasingly complex transaction environment.

Social Networks in China provides an in-depth guide to Chinese social networks, covering behaviors, usage, key issues, and future developments. Chinese scholarship and cultural idiosyncrasies in technology remain a relatively under-researched area. While such issues may be sporadically reported in popular media, it is often difficult to obtain a true understanding of authentic Chinese behaviors and practices. One such study area delves into whether Chinese users utilize technology to socialize in the same ways as people from western societies. As no book currently exists to address issues concerning Chinese social networks, this book takes on that shortage and opportunity.

The Art of Teaching Online: How to Start and How to Succeed as an Online Instructor focuses on professionals who are not teachers, but who wish to enter the online education field as instructors in their disciplines. This book focuses mainly on how potential online instructors can create and maintain the human aspect of live, face-to-face education in an online course to successfully teach and instruct their students. Included are interviews with experienced online instructors who use their emotional intelligence skills and instruction skills (examples included) to teach their students successfully.

An important outcome of the Fourth World Internet Conference, this book provides a comprehensive account of the status quo and trends in global Internet development. Covering network infrastructure, information technology, digital economy, e-governance, cyber security, and international cyberspace governance, it presents the Global Internet Development Index System to assess the Internet development of various major countries and emerging economies.

Covering key areas of evaluation and methodology, client-side applications, specialist and novel technologies, along with initial appraisals of disabilities, this important book provides comprehensive coverage of web accessibility. Written by leading experts in the field, it provides an overview of existing research and also looks at future developments, providing a much deeper insight than can be obtained through existing research libraries, aggregations, or search engines.

This book presents state of the art theoretical and empirical research on the ubiquitous internet: its everyday users and its economic stakeholders. The book offers a 360-degree media analysis of the contemporary terrain of the internet by examining both user and industry perspectives and their relation to one another. Contributors consider user practices in terms of internet at your fingertips-the abundance, free flow, and interconnectivity of data. They then consider industry's use of user data and standards in commodification and value-creation.

Buddhism, the Internet and Digital Media: The Pixel in the Lotus explores Buddhist practice and teachings in an increasingly networked and digital era. Contributors consider the ways Buddhism plays a role and is present in digital media through a variety of methods including concrete case studies, ethnographic research, and content analysis, as well as interviews with practitioners and cyber-communities. In addition to considering Buddhism in the context of technologies such as virtual worlds, social media, and mobile devices, authors ask how the Internet affects identity, authority and community, and what effect this might have on the development, proliferation, and perception of Buddhism in an online environment. Together, these essays make the case that studying contemporary online Buddhist practice can provide valuable insights into the shifting role religion plays in our constantly changing, mediated, hurried, and uncertain culture.

Academic Crowdsourcing in the Humanities lays the foundations for a theoretical framework to understand the value of crowdsourcing, an avenue that is increasingly becoming important to academia as the web transforms collaboration and communication and blurs institutional and professional boundaries. Crowdsourcing projects in the humanities have, for the most part, focused on the generation or enhancement of content in a variety of ways, leveraging the rich resources of knowledge, creativity, effort and interest among the public to contribute to academic discourse. This book explores methodologies, tactics and the "citizen science" involved.

In this volume, author Urs Gattiker offers a broad overview of Internet and technology-related theory. He examines Internet and multimedia issues from an international perspective, outlining issues of international sovereignty and the potential impact of national interests on global technology policy. He also surveys the issues of regulation and institutionalization of the Internet, examines ways for reducing the inequality of benefits from such technology, and explores the opportunities and challenges the Internet offers for consumers, firms, governments, and interest groups. In assembling this treatise, Gattiker synthesizes a vast body of literature from communication, economics, philosophy, political science, management, psychology, science policy, telecommunication engineering, and other areas.
"The Internet as a Diverse Community" provides readers with a framework for analyzing and selecting between many different Internet choices. It explores issues from a social-impact perspective, using examples from a variety of contexts and firms around the world. The work also offers a wealth of new social theory on such topics as moral and ethical issues and the opportunities, choices, and challenges the Internet offers for consumers, investors, managers, and public policy decision makers. It examines the current and future challenges that computer-mediated technologies present, and sets forth new theoretical perspectives on such areas as multimedia and the profit-maximizing firm; the Internet and the private user; managing multimedia productively; and the social and moral costs of various Internet options and choices. Taken as a whole, this resource provides valuable insights on the Internet and is essential reading for business, telecommunication, public policy, and technology decision makers around the globe.

Digital Participation through Social Living Labs connects two largely separate debates: On the one hand, high speed internet access and associated technologies are often heralded as a means to bring about not only connectivity, but also innovation, economic development, new jobs, and regional prosperity. On the other hand, community development research has established that access by itself is necessary but not sufficient to foster digital participation for the broadest possible range of individuals. Edited by leading scholars from the fields of education, youth studies, urban informatics, librarianship, communication technology, and digital media studies, this book is positioned as a link to connect these debates. It brings together an international collection of empirically grounded case studies by researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds. They advance knowledge that fosters digital participation by identifying the specific digital needs, issues and practices of different types of communities as they seek to take advantage of access to digital technologies. Collectively, these cases propose new ways for enabling residents to develop their digital confidence and skills both at home and in their local community, particularly through a 'social living labs' approach. The book is organised around key focus areas: digital skills enhancement, youth entrepreneurship, connected learning, community digital storytelling, community-led digital initiatives and policy development.

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business.

A complete and applicable guide to Internet GIS technology and software

Internet GIS addresses a suite of emerging new technologies aimed at making GIS more mobile, powerful, and flexible, as well as better able to share and communicate geographic information. This groundbreaking book is the first of its kind to thoroughly cover basic Internet GIS issues–such as state-of-the-art technology, implementation practices, applications, and data, as well as future trends in Internet GIS–in preparation for using and getting the most out of newly available, off-the-shelf Internet GIS software packages.

Broad, in-depth coverage of Internet GIS introduces basic network architecture, establishes a practical framework for applications, and demonstrates how the technology functions in the real world. One-of-a-kind material features:

• Thirty-three informative case studies illustrating applied techniques
• Product reviews of software packages performing in a variety of applications and environments
• Web resources and references at the end of each chapter

More than a fundamentals book, this progressive text discusses application development, metadata, recent open standard initiatives, and methods for ensuring that current systems will be compatible with future trends.

Internet GIS offers professionals and students a peerless guide to navigating both the field and the best technology available.

Game studies has been an understudied area within the emerging field of digital media and religion. Video games can reflect, reject, or reconfigure traditionally held religious ideas and often serve as sources for the production of religious practices and ideas. This collection of essays presents a broad range of influential methodological approaches that illuminate how and why video games shape the construction of religious beliefs and practices, and also situates such research within the wider discourse on how digital media intersect with the religious worlds of the 21st century. Each chapter discusses a particular method and its theoretical background, summarizes existing research, and provides a practical case study that demonstrates how the method specifically contributes to the wider study of video games and religion. Featuring contributions from leading and emerging scholars of religion and digital gaming, this book will be an invaluable resource for scholars in the areas of digital culture, new media, religious studies, and game studies across a wide range of disciplines.

The western economic and financial crisis began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and led the European Union countries into recession. After this, governments started to implement austerity measures, such as cuts in public spending, including public subsidies and jobs, and rising prices. In this context, Europe started to experience a wave of protest movements. Individuals started to use the manifold interactive digital media environment to both fight against the austerity measures and find alternative ways of claiming their democratic rights. Inspired by the 2011 Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York (USA), the Occupy LSX encampment in Central London (UK), The Outraged (Los Indignados)/ 15M encampment in Central Madrid (Spain), the Syntagma Square's Outraged movement in Athens (Greece) and the March 12th Movement in Lisbon (Portugal), although short-lived, epitomize an emerging alternative politics and participation via the media. This wave has promoted a debate on how the realm of politics is changing, as citizens broaden their ideas of what political issues and participation mean. Beyond the Internet examines the technological dimension of the recent wave of protest movements in the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland. Offering an opportunity to achieve a better understanding of the dynamics between society, politics and technology, this volume questions the essentialist attributes of the Internet that fuel the techno-centric discourse. The contributors illustrate how all these protest movements were active in the social media and garnered high levels of media attention and public visibility, in spite of their failure to achieve their political goals. As intra-elite dissent was pivotal in understanding the Arab uprisings, the coalition of national ruling elites with European institutions in terms of austerity strategy is essential in understanding the limits of media/technology power and, therefore, the dissociation between communication and representative power.

This handy textbook covers all you need to get started with spreadsheets.Learning Made Simple books give you skills without frills. They are matched to the main qualifications, and written by experienced teachers and authors to make often tricky subjects simple to learn. Every book is designed carefully to provide bite-sized lessons matched to your needs.Learning Made Simple titles provide both a new colorful way to study and a useful adjunct to any training course. Using full color throughout, and written by leading teachers and writers, Learning Made Simple books will help you learn new skills and develop your talents. Whether studying at college, training at work, or reading at home, aiming for a qualification or simply getting up to speed, Learning Made Simple books will give you the advantage of easy, well-organised training materials in a handy volume with two or four-page sections for each topic for ease of use.

Since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009 several hundred different 'cryptocurrencies' have been developed and become accepted for a wide variety of transactions in leading online commercial marketplaces and the 'sharing economy', as well as by more traditional retailers, manufacturers, and even by charities and political parties. Bitcoin and its competitors have also garnered attention for their wildly fluctuating values as well as implication in international money laundering, Ponzi schemes and online trade in illicit goods and services across borders. These and other controversies surrounding cryptocurrencies have induced varying governance responses by central banks, government ministries, international organizations, and industry regulators worldwide. Besides formal attempts to ban Bitcoin, there have been multifaceted efforts to incorporate elements of blockchains, the peer-to-peer technology underlying cryptocurrencies, in the wider exchange, recording, and broadcasting of digital transactions. Blockchains are being mobilized to support and extend an array of governance activities. The novelty and breadth of growing blockchain-based activities have fuelled both utopian promises and dystopian fears regarding applications of the emergent technology to Bitcoin and beyond. This volume brings scholars of anthropology, economics, Science and Technology Studies, and sociology together with GPE scholars in assessing the actual implications posed by Bitcoin and blockchains for contemporary global governance. Its interdisciplinary contributions provide academics, policymakers, industry practitioners and the general public with more nuanced understandings of technological change in the changing character of governance within and across the borders of nation-states.

7 Steps to Sharing Your School's Story on Social Media empowers school leaders to use social media through a simple and accessible plan that increases engagement and enhances the school's vision and mission. In a step-by-step guide for easy implementation, this book provides the nuts and bolts, as well as the strategic planning necessary, to ensure intentionality and impact of your social media presence. The authors explain how to measure impact and improve your strategies to ensure important information about your school is conveyed accurately, clearly, and effectively. Whether you use the 7 steps in order or you're just looking for some invigorating new ideas or you want to find new ways to connect, collaborate, and share, there is something for every school leader in this book.

7 Steps to Sharing Your School's Story on Social Media empowers school leaders to use social media through a simple and accessible plan that increases engagement and enhances the school's vision and mission. In a step-by-step guide for easy implementation, this book provides the nuts and bolts, as well as the strategic planning necessary, to ensure intentionality and impact of your social media presence. The authors explain how to measure impact and improve your strategies to ensure important information about your school is conveyed accurately, clearly, and effectively. Whether you use the 7 steps in order or you're just looking for some invigorating new ideas or you want to find new ways to connect, collaborate, and share, there is something for every school leader in this book.

Visual Basic .NET is the most recent version of Microsoft's language for creating Windows programs and developing Internet applications. Visual Basic .NET forms part of the .NET Framework, the development environment now used for all Microsoft programming languages.Visual Basic .NET is an enhanced edition of this popular language, incorporating all the functionality of Visual Basic 6 but with the addition of new object oriented features. Some of the terminology has changed in this new version of the product and the development environment has been enhanced but the main principles remain the same.Visual Basic .NET Made Simple is intended for new programmers, as well as those who are upgrading from earlier versions of Visual Basic and those who have worked in different languages or environments and need to acquire new skills. No previous knowledge of Visual Basic, other languages or object oriented programming is required. However, readers are expected to have a basic knowledge of Windows and its operation.Main topics covered include: Creating applications for Windows XP Writing and testing Visual Basic .NET code Accessing external databases Developing Internet applications

Up relevance scores, improve page speed, optimize voice search questions, and more! Search Engine Optimization For Dummies shows website owners, developers, and search engine optimizers (SEOs) how to create a website that ranks at the top of search engines and has high-volume traffic, while answering the essential question of "how do I get people to visit my site?" By understanding search engine basics (what are they, which ones are important, how to get started), building a search engine-friendly site, registering your site with directories and indexes, using analysis tools to track results and link popularity to boost rankings, and advertising your site by using pay-per-click options, you can use the tricks of SEO masters to drive traffic to your site. You'll also discover how to write effective content, use social media to boost your profile, and manage your platform and reputation to positively impact your search engine rankings. Develop a search strategy and use new SERP features Maximize the effects of personalized search Analyze results with improved analytics tools Optimize voice search strategies There's no time like the present to create a website that ranks at the top of search engines and drives traffic to your site with these tips, tricks, and secrets.

For the first time in human history, access to information on almost any topic is accessible through the Internet. A powerful extraction system is needed to disseminate this knowledge, which for most users is Google. Google Search is an extremely powerful and important component to American political life in the twenty-first century, yet its influence is poorly researched or understood. Sean Richey and J. Benjamin Taylor explore for the first time the influence of Google on American politics, specifically on direct democracy. Using original experiments and nationally representative cross-sectional data, Richey and Taylor show how Google Search returns quality information, that users click on quality information, and gain political knowledge and other contingent benefits. Additionally, they correlate Google usage with real-world voting behavior on direct democracy. Building a theory of Google Search use for ballot measures, Google and Democracy is an original addition to the literature on the direct democracy, Internet politics, and information technology. An indispensable read to all those wishing to gain new insights on how the Internet has the power to be a normatively valuable resource for citizens.

Collective Action 2.0 explores the issues related to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in detail, providing a balanced insight into how ICTs leverage and interact with collective action, which will have an impact on the current discourse. Recent events in different authoritarian regimes, such as Iran and Egypt, have drawn global attention to a developing phenomenon in collective action: People tend to organize through different social media platforms for political protest and resistance. This phenomenon describes a change in social structure and behavior tied to ICT. Social media platforms have been used to leverage collective action, which has in some cases arguably lead, to political revolution. The phenomenon also indicates that the way information is organized affects the organization of social structures with which it interoperates. The phenomenon also has another side, which is the use of social media for activist suppression, state and corporate surveillance, commodifi cation of social processes, demobilization, or for the mobilization of collective action toward undesirable ends.

As online education becomes more familiar, so the reality of using it in teaching and learning has moved beyond the realm of the specialist. Pedagogy and best practice Delivering Learning on the Net explores the reality of online education today. Martin Weller chaired the groundbreaking Open University course You, Your computer and the Net, which is now the largest for-credit online course in Europe. Based on this and his experiences elsewhere, the book is a comprehensive resource grounded in practical reality as well as in research. Key issues covered include: *the Net and its relation to education; *developing and implementing online courses; *the key issues surrounding online education. Teachers, trainers, technologists, administrators and decision-makers working in higher and further education will all find much of value in this book.

What is Quality of Life in a society that has embraced information and communication technology (ICT)? What is Wisdom in this kind of society? And what things are helping or hindering us from having both wisdom and a good quality of life in ICT societies? Taking the reader through a quick analysis of the current social and psychological changes in the Information and Communication Society, Bradley challenges us to avoid becoming victims of technology - whether we are professionals, policymakers, parents or citizens. Indeed, she introduces a theoretical model based on four decades' worth of research to help the reader to understand this complex, technological world. In addition to focusing the reader's attention on convergence and acceleration, this model describes the interplay between technology, societal structure, organizational design and human roles, thus leading to what Bradley describes as a "good ICT society". Emphasising the necessity of a co-operative parallel between the automation and humanization of society, this innovative volume will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in the subjects such as Information and Communication Technology and Social Change, Psychology and Sociology, Computer Technology and Media Technology.