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.

What do search engines do? And what should they do? These questions seem relatively simple but are actually urgent social and ethical issues. The influence of Google's search engine is enormous. It does not only shape how Internet users find pages on the World Wide Web, but how we think as individuals, how we collectively remember the past, and how we communicate with one another. This book explores the impact of search engines within contemporary digital culture, focusing on the social, cultural, and philosophical influence of Google. Using case studies like Google's role in the rise of fake news, instances of sexist and misogynistic Autocomplete suggestions, and search queries relating to LGBTQ+ values, it offers original evidence to intervene practically in existing debates. It also addresses other understudied aspects of Google's influence, including the profound implications of its revenue generation for wider society. In doing this, this important book helps to evaluate the real cost of search engines on an individual and global scale.

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.

We are so used to living in a media-saturated world that we do not notice just how much damage is being done to us daily by the images we see and the articles and posts we read. If you are often anxious or find it hard to sleep, or you regularly want to give up on your fellow human beings, the reason may come down to the relentless influence of the modern media. How Modern Media Destroys Our Minds is a guide for navigating the media today. The book encourages the reader to consider the many peculiarities of the modern media: its excessive focus on scandal, its emphasis on novelty, its capacity to breed envy and self-hatred, its high-minded defence of itself, its ever shorter attention span and its obsession with fame. The book teaches us how to liberate ourselves from the media, in order to achieve calm and a more generous, original and imaginative state of mind. We are shown how to redress the balance and emerge with a stronger, more positive outlook on life.

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.

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.

In an era where digital media converges with new technologies that allow for cropping, remixing, extracting, and pirating, a second life for traditional media appears via the internet and emerging platforms. Pink 2.0 examines the mechanisms through which the internet and associated technologies both produce and limit the intelligibility of contemporary queer cinema. Challenging conventional conceptions of the internet as an exceptionally queer medium, Noah A. Tsika explores the constraints that publishers, advertisers, and content farms place on queer cinema as a category of production, distribution, and reception. He shows how the commercial internet is increasingly characterized by the algorithmic reduction of diverse queer films to the dimensions of a highly valued white, middle-class gay masculinity-a phenomenon that he terms "Pink 2.0." Excavating a rich set of online materials through the practice of media archaeology, he demonstrates how the internet's early and intense associations with gay male consumers (and vice versa) have not only survived the medium's dramatic global expansion but have also shaped a series of strategies for producing and consuming queer cinema. Identifying alternatives to such corporate and technological constraints, Tsika uncovers the vibrant lives of queer cinema in the complex, contentious, and libidinous pockets of the internet where resistant forms of queer fandom thrive.

The Hands-On Guide to Flash Video is a professional reference book written by industry experts that are currently helping professionals produce Web video and implement Flash Media Server. This book covers Flash Video production from soup to nuts, beginning with how to configure your camcorder and ending to advanced server techniques like bandwidth detection and FMS logging and reporting. Real word lessons from case studies of successful Flash Video deployments are also included. Supplemental files located at: www.flashvideobook.comBy reading this book, you'll learn to: Shoot high quality video for streaming Choose the best encoder and encoding techniques for producing Flash Video Deploy Flash Video via progressive download or via the Flash Media Server. Create and light a compression friendly set Deinterlace and pre-process your video prior to encoding Choose encoding parameters like data rate, resolution and frame rate Optimize encoding with Sorenson Squeeze, Flix Pro and the Adobe Flash Video Encoder Shoot and produce chromakey video for alpha channel delivery Customize a Flash player via skinning, and use Cue Points for navigation. Setup, install, and maintain Flash Media Server

Why do enterprise systems have complicated search pages, when Google has a single search box that works better? Why struggle with an expense reimbursement system that is not as easy as home accounting software? Although this seems like comparing apples to oranges, as information and communication technologies increasingly reach into every industry the demand for easy-to-use work tools continues to grow. An exploration of cutting-edge approaches for evaluating the usability of complex user interaction, Usability of Complex Information Systems: Evaluation of User Interaction focuses on improving design and communicating content to the end user. The book continues the conversation about the evolution of usability, asking how we can design and evaluate these complex systems and the complex work they support. It describes and analyzes approaches to teaching, testing, analyzing, or managing usability studies-approaches that involve technical communicators making novel contributions to how we think about and evaluate increasingly complex systems. The book contains case studies on different types of complexity, including: A complex work environment, requiring collaboration among different people or a goal sustained over time, and often in the face of distractions, interruptions, and planned pauses A complex information context, one with no single answer, where the data changes dynamically or where the best answer may rely on other aspects of a fluid environment A complex technology, in which people use many different applications in their work and collaboration A complex topic, requiring advanced technical or domain knowledge Even systems that seem simple are, in fact, complex. The shopping interface for an e-commerce system may not be complex, but the databases, business processes, and logistics behind it certainly are. The examination of different aspects of designing and examining complexity presented in this book brings you a step further in developing a deeper understanding of what it takes to make complex systems work.

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.

Getting Web projects done right and delivered on time is all about efficiency. Putting the information you need and tools you can rely on at your ready disposal-Managing Web Projects-is a complete guide for project managers in the Internetworking industry. Whether you are a Web developer or an Internet Service Provider, whether your project is a quick fix, a complete overhaul, or a new start-up, this resource provides you with an organized path. It will walk you through a typical project life cycle, while providing you with all the tools and definitions needed to take charge and instill confidence in your staff and your customers. Invaluable for those seeking ISO 9001 certification, the text includes a number of detailed Work Instructions that can be used to develop a formal quality management system specific to a project management organization. They can also be leveraged in a TQM (Total Quality Management) or a Six Sigma environment. The book includes: Management guidelines for web hosting, data center migrations, site security, content development, application and Web site loading and testing, VPNs, VoIP, business continuity, and disaster recovery An Internet project management glossary, a technical Internetworking glossary, and a project management acronym table A tools suite with a proven record of success for project initiation, planning, execution, control, and close out This complete resource provides the resources needed-including dozens of time-tested templates, schedules, checklists, and flow charts-to become fully versed in and aligned with the nine knowledge areas and five major processes codified by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK (R)).

In 1998, Internet-related industries created over a million jobs and generated more than $330 billion in revenue. As of December 1999, almost five million commercial websites had emerged, and that number was increasing at a rate of almost half a million per month. The explosive growth of the Internet economy has drastically changed the way commercial transactions are conducted, making anything from books to databases available at the click of a mouse. This book investigates the underlying economics of the Internet, focusing specifically on the pricing of access, the pricing of goods and services sold online, the relationship between network effects, technological innovation and business strategy, and the issues surrounding taxation of electronic commerce. Addressing the economic aspects of the Internet and electronic commerce as well as traditional pricing practices and market structure, this volume will serve as a roadmap for the current and future terrain of the Internet economy.

Online churches are Internet-based Christian communities, pursuing worship, discussion, friendship, support, proselytization, and other key religious goals through computer-mediated communication. The first examples appeared in the mid-1980s, but this genre of online activity has been revolutionized over the last decade by considerable institutional investment and the rise of new low-cost social media platforms. Hundreds of thousands of people are now involved with online congregations, generating new kinds of ritual, leadership, and community as well as new networks of global influence.

Creating Church Online is the first large-scale sociological investigation of this area, offering a significant and timely advance in the study of religion, media, and culture. Five ethnographic case studies are presented, based primarily in the UK, USA, and Australasia, providing levels of detail, scope, and variety previously unexplored by researchers in this field. Comparative analysis of these case studies demonstrates the emergence of intriguing new hybrids of digital, local, and institutional religion, reflecting major shifts in contemporary patterns of religious commitment. Author Tim Hutchings constructs a rich account of the culture and practice of five online churches, emphasizing worship, leadership, and community and the relationship between online and everyday life. Through such in-depth analysis, this book explores the significance and impact of online churchgoing in the religious and social lives of participants, as well as the relationship between online and everyday life, in search of a new theoretical framework to map religious users engagement with new media."

Handbook on Networked Multipoint Multimedia Conferencing and Multistream Immsersive Telepresence using SIP: Scalable Distributed Applications and Media Control over Internet is the first book to put together all IETF request for comments (RFCs), and the internet drafts standards related to the multipoint conferencing and immersive telepresence. This book includes mandatory and optional texts of all standards in a chronological and systematic way almost with one-to-one integrity from the beginning to end, allowing the reader to understand all aspects of the highly complex real-time applications. It is a book that network designers, software developers, product manufacturers, implementers, interoperability testers, professionals, professors, and researchers will find to be immensely useful. Practitioners and engineers in all spectrums who are concentrating on building the real-time, scalable, interoperable multipoint applications, can use this book to make informed choices based on technical standards in the market place, on all proprietary non-scalable and non-interposable products. This book will provide focus and foundation for these decision makers.

Broad in scope, Semantic Multimedia Analysis and Processing provides a complete reference of techniques, algorithms, and solutions for the design and the implementation of contemporary multimedia systems. Offering a balanced, global look at the latest advances in semantic indexing, retrieval, analysis, and processing of multimedia, the book features the contributions of renowned researchers from around the world. Its contents are based on four fundamental thematic pillars: 1) information and content retrieval, 2) semantic knowledge exploitation paradigms, 3) multimedia personalization, and 4) human-computer affective multimedia interaction. Its 15 chapters cover key topics such as content creation, annotation and modeling for the semantic web, multimedia content understanding, and efficiency and scalability. Fostering a deeper understanding of a popular area of research, the text: Describes state-of-the-art schemes and applications Supplies authoritative guidance on research and deployment issues Presents novel methods and applications in an informative and reproducible way Contains numerous examples, illustrations, and tables summarizing results from quantitative studies Considers ongoing trends and designates future challenges and research perspectives Includes bibliographic links for further exploration Uses both SI and US units Ideal for engineers and scientists specializing in the design of multimedia systems, software applications, and image/video analysis and processing technologies, Semantic Multimedia Analysis and Processing aids researchers, practitioners, and developers in finding innovative solutions to existing problems, opening up new avenues of research in uncharted waters.

Whether you're already in the cloud, or determining whether or not it makes sense for your organization, Cloud Computing and Software Services: Theory and Techniques provides the technical understanding needed to develop and maintain state-of-the-art cloud computing and software services. From basic concepts and recent research findings to future directions, it gathers the insight of 50 experts from around to present a global perspective on the range of technical topics related to cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS). The book also: Reviews real cases and applications of cloud computing Discusses the infrastructure cloud and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Considers data- and compute-intensive environments Examines security and reliability in the cloud Witten in a manner that makes this complex subject easy to understand, this is an ideal one-stop reference for anyone interested in cloud computing. The accessible language and wealth of illustrations also make it suitable for academic and research-oriented settings. The comprehensive coverage supplies you with the understanding of cloud computing technologies and trends in parallel computing needed to establish and maintain effective and efficient computing and software services.

Internet-of-Things (IoT) Analytics are an integral element of most IoT applications, as it provides the means to extract knowledge, drive actuation services and optimize decision making. IoT analytics will be a major contributor to IoT business value in the coming years, as it will enable organizations to process and fully leverage large amounts of IoT data, which are nowadays largely underutilized. The Building Blocks of IoT Analytics is devoted to the presentation the main technology building blocks that comprise advanced IoT analytics systems. It introduces IoT analytics as a special case of BigData analytics and accordingly presents leading edge technologies that can be deployed in order to successfully confront the main challenges of IoT analytics applications. Special emphasis is paid in the presentation of technologies for IoT streaming and semantic interoperability across diverse IoT streams. Furthermore, the role of cloud computing and BigData technologies in IoT analytics are presented, along with practical tools for implementing, deploying and operating non-trivial IoT applications. Along with the main building blocks of IoT analytics systems and applications, the book presents a series of practical applications, which illustrate the use of these technologies in the scope of pragmatic applications. Technical topics discussed in the book include: Cloud Computing and BigData for IoT analytics Searching the Internet of Things Development Tools for IoT Analytics Applications IoT Analytics-as-a-Service Semantic Modelling and Reasoning for IoT Analytics IoT analytics for Smart Buildings IoT analytics for Smart Cities Operationalization of IoT analytics Ethical aspects of IoT analytics This book contains both research oriented and applied articles on IoT analytics, including several articles reflecting work undertaken in the scope of recent European Commission funded projects in the scope of the FP7 and H2020 programmes. These articles present results of these projects on IoT analytics platforms and applications. Even though several articles have been contributed by different authors, they are structured in a well thought order that facilitates the reader either to follow the evolution of the book or to focus on specific topics depending on his/her background and interest in IoT and IoT analytics technologies. The compilation of these articles in this edited volume has been largely motivated by the close collaboration of the co-authors in the scope of working groups and IoT events organized by the Internet-of-Things Research Cluster (IERC), which is currently a part of EU's Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI).

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.

Establishing adaptive control as an alternative framework to design and analyze Internet congestion controllers, End-to-End Adaptive Congestion Control in TCP/IP Networks employs a rigorously mathematical approach coupled with a lucid writing style to provide extensive background and introductory material on dynamic systems stability and neural network approximation; alongside future internet requests for congestion control architectures. Designed to operate under extreme heterogeneous, dynamic, and time-varying network conditions, the developed controllers must also handle network modeling structural uncertainties and uncontrolled traffic flows acting as external perturbations. The book also presents a parallel examination of specific adaptive congestion control, NNRC, using adaptive control and approximation theory, as well as extensions toward cooperation of NNRC with application QoS control. Features: Uses adaptive control techniques for congestion control in packet switching networks Employs a rigorously mathematical approach with lucid writing style Presents simulation experiments illustrating significant operational aspects of the method; including scalability, dynamic behavior, wireless networks, and fairness Applies to networked applications in the music industry, computers, image trading, and virtual groups by techniques such as peer-to-peer, file sharing, and internet telephony Contains working examples to highlight and clarify key attributes of the congestion control algorithms presented Drawing on the recent research efforts of the authors, the book offers numerous tables and figures to increase clarity and summarize the algorithms that implement various NNRC building blocks. Extensive simulations and comparison tests analyze its behavior and measure its performance through monitoring vital network quality metrics. Divided into three parts, the book offers a review of computer networks and congestion control, presents an adaptive congestion control framework as an alternative to optimization methods, and provides appendices related to dynamic systems through universal neural network approximators.

As multimedia applications have become part of contemporary daily life, numerous paradigm-shifting technologies in multimedia processing have emerged over the last decade. Substantially updated with 21 new chapters, Multimedia Image and Video Processing, Second Edition explores the most recent advances in multimedia research and applications. This edition presents a comprehensive treatment of multimedia information mining, security, systems, coding, search, hardware, and communications as well as multimodal information fusion and interaction. Clearly divided into seven parts, the book begins with a section on standards, fundamental methods, design issues, and typical architectures. It then focuses on the coding of video and multimedia content before covering multimedia search, retrieval, and management. After examining multimedia security, the book describes multimedia communications and networking and explains the architecture design and implementation for multimedia image and video processing. It concludes with a section on multimedia systems and applications. Written by some of the most prominent experts in the field, this updated edition provides readers with the latest research in multimedia processing and equips them with advanced techniques for the design of multimedia systems.

This book addresses the social and organisational dynamics which underlie recent technological and work developments within organisations. often referred to as 'virtual working'. It seeks to go beyond a mere description of this new work phenomenon in order to provide more rigorous ways of analysing and understanding the issues raised. In addition to providing accounts of developments such as web-based enterprises and virtual teams, each contributor focuses on the empolyment of information technology to transcend the boundaries between and within organisations, and the consequences this has for social and organisationaL relations.

Cyber Zen ethnographically explores Buddhist practices in the online virtual world of Second Life. Does typing at a keyboard and moving avatars around the screen, however, count as real Buddhism? If authentic practices must mimic the actual world, then Second Life Buddhism does not. In fact, a critical investigation reveals that online Buddhist practices have at best only a family resemblance to canonical Asian traditions and owe much of their methods to the late twentieth-century field of cybernetics. If, however, they are judged existentially, by how they enable users to respond to the suffering generated by living in a highly mediated consumer society, then Second Life Buddhism consists of authentic spiritual practices. Cyber Zen explores how Second Life Buddhist enthusiasts form communities, identities, locations, and practices that are both products of and authentic responses to contemporary Network Consumer Society. Gregory Price Grieve illustrates that to some extent all religion has always been virtual and gives a glimpse of possible future alternative forms of religion.

The book presents a comprehensive study of various cognitive and affective aspects of web searching for translation problem solving. Research into the use of the web as an external aid of consultation has frequently occupied a secondary position in the investigation of translation processes. The book aims to bridge this gap in the literature. Beginning with a detailed survey of previous studies of these processes, it then focuses on web search behaviors using qualitative and quantitative analysis that presents a multifaceted overview of translation-oriented web searching. The book concludes by addressing the implications for the teaching of and research into translators' web searching skills. With regard to teaching, the book's didactic discussions will make it a valuable tool for both translator trainers and translation students wanting to familiarize themselves with the intricacies of Web searching and to reflect upon the pedagogical implications of the study for acquiring online information literacy in translator training.

Deviance is both socially defined and influenced. While it is widely accepted that deviance is a social construction, this research revisits the conceptualization of deviance and advances the methods used to study deviance and social construction. This book presents and compares three methods for conceptualizing deviance within and across cultures. Comparing the United States to South Korea, perceptions of deviance are presented as how individuals define deviance and what acts are cited as deviant. Next, attribute data are used to assess differences in of conceptualizations of deviance by demographic factors. Finally, social network analysis is used to understand the social influences at work in how one perceives deviance. This book is unique in its reconceptualization of deviance and the application of social network analysis as a new tool for studying social influence and perceptions.