This book deals with a topical issue relating to the use of script in Japan, one which has the potential to reshape future script policy through the mediation of both orthographic practices and social relations. It tells the story of the impact of one of the most significant technological breakthroughs in Japan in the latter part of this century: the invention and rapid adoption of word-processing technology capable of handling Japanese script in a society where the nature of that script had previously mandated handwriting as the norm. The ramifications of this technology in both the business and personal spheres have been wide-ranging, extending from changes to business practices, work profiles, orthography and social attitudes to writing through to Japan's ability to construct a substantial presence on the Internet in recent years.

The exponential growth of the Internet in recent years has given individuals immediate and virtually anonymous access to all types of information, including explicit sexual content. While many celebrate the personal freedoms made possible by the Internet, others consider unfettered access to online sexual material to be an unhealthy, if not dangerous phenomenon. Expanding this debate, Cybersex: The Dark Side of the Force presents for the first time an empirical foundation for the discussion of cybersex compulsivity and its effect on the mental health of individuals, couples, teens, and young children.
While pornographic material has long been available to the consumer in print and video form, these purchases are inherently limited by the individual's degree of comfort with the public exposure (however minimal) that they they require. In contrast, the Internet provides a forum where children can access unsuitable material without parental supervision, and where individuals with existing sexual compulsions can acces material that can exacerbate their struggle to maintain control over their desire. Even among individuals who are not as susceptible to such material, cybersex can create distorted associations or compound negative or unrealistic expectations about sexuality.
This groundbreaking examination of cybersex was originally published as a special issue of the journal Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity. It is a crucial resource for sex therapists, who until now had no rigorous study of the effect of online pornography on the patients they treat. It will also be of great interest to general marriage and family therapists who find themselves dealing with this issue with their clients, as well as others who are interested in the Internet as a social phenomenon.

Related link: Free Email Alerting

It is apparent that file sharing on the Internet has become an emerging norm of media consumption-especially among young people. This book provides a critical perspective on this phenomenon, exploring issues related to file sharing, downloading, peer-to-peer networks, "piracy," and (not least) policy issues regarding these practices. Andersson Schwartz critically engages with the justificatory discourses of the actual file-sharers, taking Sweden as a geographic focus. By focusing on the example of Sweden-home to both The Pirate Bay and Spotify-he provides a unique insight into a mentality that drives both innovation and deviance and accommodates sharing in both its unadulterated and its compliant, business-friendly forms.

The World Wide Web is the most well-known, celebrated, and promoted contemporary manifestation of 'cyberspace'. To date, however, most of the public discourse on the Web falls into the category of explanatory journalism - the Web has remained largely unmapped in terms of contemporary cultural research. This book, however, begins that mapping by bringing together more than a dozen well-known scholars across the humanities and social sciences to explore the Web as a cultural technology characterized by a nexus of economic, political, social, and aesthetic forces. Engaging the thematic issues of the Web as a space where magic, metaphor, and power converge, the chapters cover such subjects as The Web and Corporate Media Systems, Conspiracy Theories and the Web, The Economy of Cyberpromotion, The Bias of the Web and The Web and Issues of Gender.

This special issue calls for a greater awareness of computing as a critical area of study for those interested in educational studies. Its purpose is to open up a wider dialogue about computing and education than has previously existed in the field. The questions raised provide the basis for a lively discussion and analysis of the role of educational studies in interpreting the role of computing in our culture and educational system. This issue also provides a model for exploring other topics of similar significance and importance to the field in future issues of the journal.

The Internet is transforming political institutions and modes of political communication. It is also transforming relaitons between states and between citizens. Above all it provides opportunities to create new political communities. This book provides examples of how it is beginning to do so at the sub-state, state and international levels. Both established democracies, such as the US, the UK and Germany, as well as authoritarian regimes in Asia and Africa, are having to come to terms with it. But although it can be a force for increased democracy and for the spread of human rights worldwide, it may also be used by anti-democratic groups who have previously been marginalised. Both ethnic minorities and neo-Nazi groups are already trying to make the most of the Internet. Strong democracy or a 1984-type state: both are possibilities, both present enormous challenges.

The Internet is transforming political institutions and modes of political communication. It is also transforming relaitons between states and between citizens. Above all it provides opportunities to create new political communities. This book provides examples of how it is beginning to do so at the sub-state, state and international levels. Both established democracies, such as the US, the UK and Germany, as well as authoritarian regimes in Asia and Africa, are having to come to terms with it. But although it can be a force for increased democracy and for the spread of human rights worldwide, it may also be used by anti-democratic groups who have previously been marginalised. Both ethnic minorities and neo-Nazi groups are already trying to make the most of the Internet. Strong democracy or a 1984-type state: both are possibilities, both present enormous challenges.

Although it is hardly publicized, something remarkable is happening to Organized Labor. Key players in the United States and abroad are busy modernizing their communications, and making creative and effective use of computers and other technology. Drawing on "infotech" devices (computer networks, the Internet, video conferencing, fax machines, wireless communication, and multi-media), Labor struggles to renew its "voice" and "ears", and, in the process, new hope has been stirred that this just might help it transform its organizational culture, refine its mission, and reinvent itself.

The road to creating a CyberUnion (the combination of four strategic reform aids -- futuristics, innovations, services, and traditions -- knitted together with infotech resources into a comprehensive industrial relations model) has already begun and unions already embracing this model are ensuring a position of strength in the 21st century. CyberUnion is a bold plan for Organized Labor to remain strong for many decades to come, and this work examines the components of the model, progress already made, and plans to ensure continued success.

The Gendered Cyborg explores the relationship between representation, technoscience and gender, through the metaphor of the cyborg. The contributors argue that the figure of the cyborg offers new ways of thinking about the relationship between culture and technology, people and machines, which disrupt the power of science to enforce the categories through which we think about being human: male and female. Taking inspiration from Donna Haraway's groundbreaking Manifesto for Cyborgs, the articles consider how the cyborg has been used in cultural representation from reproductive technology to sci-fi, and question whether the cyborg is as powerful a symbol as is often claimed. The different sections of the reader explore:

* the construction of gender categories through science

* the interraction of technoscience and gender in contemporary science fiction films such as Blade Runner and the Alien series

* debates around modern reproductive technology such as ultrasound scans and IVF, assessing their benefits and constraints for women

* issues relating to artificial intelligence and the internet


eBook available with sample pages: PB:0415220912

Virtual States analyses the role of the state in a globalising, wired society. Everard argues that while information technology poses fundamental challenges to the inclusionary/exclusionary processes of state-making, this will not mean the decline but rather the mutation of the state. Everard goes on to look at the different ways in which states react to the wired society in the developing and developed worlds and the impact of these reactions on those excluded from this society.

Imagining, forecasting and predicting the future is an inextricable and increasingly important part of the present. States, organizations and individuals almost continuously have to make decisions about future actions, financial investments or technological innovation, without much knowledge of what will exactly happen in the future. Science and technology play a crucial role in this collective attempt to make sense of the future. Technological developments such as nanotechnology, robotics or solar energy largely shape how we dream and think about the future, while economic forecasts, gene tests or climate change projections help us to make images of what may possibly occur in the future. This book provides one of the first interdisciplinary assessments of how scientific and technological imaginations matter in the formation of human, ecological and societal futures. Rooted in different disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, and science and technology studies, it explores how various actors such as scientists, companies or states imagine the future to be and act upon that imagination. Bringing together case studies from different regions around the globe, including the electrification of German car infrastructure, or genetically modified crops in India, Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society shows how science and technology create novel forms of imagination, thereby opening horizons toward alternative futures. By developing central aspects of the current debate on how scientific imagination and future-making interact, this timely volume provides a fresh look at the complex interrelationships between science, technology and society. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students interested in Science and Technology Studies, History and Philosophy of Science, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Political Sciences, Future Studies and Literary Sciences.

Key players in organized labour in the USA and abroad are busy modernizing their communications and making creative and effective use of computers and other technology. The author of this book argues that the road to CyberUnion has begun and that those unions are ensuring a future strength.

Exploring the debates surrounding technological change, from the politics of education to questions of identity centred around the figure of the cyborg, this text scrutinizes the unfettered optimism of corporate figures such as Bill Gates. Authors Robins and Webster question whether new technologies justify the utopian rhetoric with which they are promoted, and distinguish genuine innovations from technologies which simply reproduce conservative social practices in a new guise. The text explores the social and cultural impact of new technologies, tracing the origins of the information society from the coming of the machine with the industrial revolution to the development of mass production techniques in the early 20th century. The authors look at how the military has controlled the development of the information society, and consider the centrality of education in government attempts to create a knowledge society.;Engaging in contemporary debates surrounding the Internet, Robins and Webster question whether it can really offer us a new world of virtual communities, and suggest more radical alternatives to the corporate agenda of contemporary technologies.

Virtual Geographies explores how new communication technologies are being used to produce new geographies and new types of space. Leading contributors from a wide range of disciplines including geography, sociology, philosophy and literature:
* investigate how visions of cyberspace have been constructed
* offer a critical assessment of the status of virtual environments and geographies
* explore how virtual environments reshape the way we think and write about the world.
This book sets recent technological developments in a historical and geographical perspective to offer a clearer view of the new vistas ahead.

Times of the Technoculture explores the social and cultural impact of new technologies, tracing the origins of the information society from the coming of the machine with the industrial revolution to the development of mass production techniques in the early twentieth century.
The authors look at how the military has controlled the development of the information society, and consider the centrality of education in government attempts to create a knowledge society. Engaging in contemporary debates surrounding the internet, Robins and Webster question whether it can really offer us a new world of virtual communities, and suggest more radical alternatives to the corporate agenda of contemporary technologies.

Virtual Geographies explores how new communication technologies are being used to produce new geographies and new types of space. Leading contributors from a wide range of disciplines including geography, sociology, philosophy and literature:
* investigate how visions of cyberspace have been constructed
* offer a critical assessment of the status of virtual environments and geographies
* explore how virtual environments reshape the way we think and write about the world. This book sets recent technological developments in a historical and geographical perspective to offer a clearer view of the new vistas ahead.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203169425

Marshall McLuhan died on the last day of 1980, on the doorstep of the personal computer revolution. Yet McLuhan's ideas anticipated a world of media in motion, and its impact on our lives on the dawn of the new millennium.
By exploring the technological influence in industries from publishing to politics, entertainment to business, McLuhan opened the doors for understanding the human relationship with technology. Levinson's own exploration of McLuhan's significance in the new electronic generation clarifies the prophetic insights, principles and constructs in McLuhan's work.
Paul Levinson examines why McLuhan's theories about media are more important to us today than when they were first written, and why the Wired generation is now turning to McLuhan's work to understand the global village in the digital age.

Related link: http://www.sfwa.org/members/Levinson

Cyborgs@Cyberspace is a compelling and innovative analysis of technology from a cultural perspective. Arguing that humans have always been technological as well as cultural beings, David Hakken calls for a fundamental rethinking of the traditional separation of anthropology and technical studies.
Drawing on three decades of research on contemporary technological societies, this book outlines a fresh way of thinking about technology and offers an ethical and political response to the challenge of truly living as "cyborgs" in the age of cyberspace.

Media technologies for play have become major industries in Japan and South Korea. Even in North Korea, citizens bypass the state to enjoy popular culture. At the same time, corporations and governments encourage people to produce economic values through play. The first comparative study of media technologies in Japan and the two Koreas, this book illuminates the peculiar geopolitical relations between the three countries through their development and use of digital technologies. Drawing from political economy, cultural studies and technology studies, this book will be essential reading for researchers and students of media technologies and popular culture in Northeast Asia.

Drawing on the thought of Max Weber, in particular his theory of stratification, this book engages with the question of whether the digital divide simply extends traditional forms of inequality, or whether it also includes new forms of social exclusion, or perhaps manifests counter-trends that alleviate traditional inequalities whilst constituting new modalities of inequality. With attention to the manner in which social stratification in the digital age is reproduced and transformed online, the author develops an account of stratification as it exists in the digital sphere, advancing the position that, just as in the social sphere, inequalities in the online world go beyond the economic elements of inequality. As such, study of the digital divide should focus not simply on class dynamics or economic matters, but cultural aspects - such as status or prestige - and political aspects - such as group affiliations. Demonstrating the enduring relevance of Weber's distinctions with regard to social inequality, The Third Digital Divide: A Weberian approach to rethinking digital inequalities explores the ways in which online activities and digital skills vary according to crucial sociological dimensions, explaining these in concrete terms in relation to the dynamics of social class, social status and power. As such, it will be of interest to social scientists with interests in sociological theory, the sociology of science and technology, and inequality and the digital divide.

A Financial Times 'Best Thing I Read This Year' LONGLISTED FOR THE FT & MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD Google. Amazon. Facebook. The modern world is defined by vast digital monopolies turning ever-larger profits. Those of us who consume the content that feeds them are farmed for the purposes of being sold ever more products and advertising. Those that create the content - the artists, writers and musicians - are finding they can no longer survive in this unforgiving economic landscape. But it didn't have to be this way. In Move Fast and Break Things, Jonathan Taplin offers a succinct and powerful history of how online life began to be shaped around the values of the entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel and Larry Page who founded these all-powerful companies. Their unprecedented growth came at the heavy cost of tolerating piracy of books, music and film, while at the same time promoting opaque business practices and subordinating the privacy of individual users to create the surveillance marketing monoculture in which we now live. It is the story of a massive reallocation of revenue in which $50 billion a year has moved from the creators and owners of content to the monopoly platforms. With this reallocation of money comes a shift in power. Google, Facebook and Amazon now enjoy political power on par with Big Oil and Big Pharma, which in part explains how such a tremendous shift in revenues from creators to platforms could have been achieved and why it has gone unchallenged for so long. And if you think that's got nothing to do with you, their next move is to come after your jobs. Move Fast and Break Things is a call to arms, to say that is enough is enough and to demand that we do everything in our power to create a different future.

This book provides an overview of key issues concerning the impact of the world wide web on the political process.

This wide-ranging volume presents in-depth research into the effect of new information technologies on organizational structure, assesses their progress towards transformation and describes the changes they are making to long-established business process roles, cultures and working practices. The book is based upon a series of rolling surveys carried out between 1989 and the present day, and funded by organizations such as IBM and KPMG. It provides a detailed picture of a sector in transition during a period of anxiety and doubt dominated by restructuring, downsizing and experimentation with re-engineering. As the "lean and mean" emerge, they must now ask themselves if their competencies will enable them to survive into the next decade as competitors, such as Sainsburys, Virgin, Microsoft and Ford position themselves to become major players in the sector. This book is a contribution to the debate on the growth of knowledge work, the need for core organizational competencies in the information age and the need for evolutionary, or radical, change.

Is the emerging digital multimedia culture of today transforming the textbook or forever displacing it? As new media of transmission enter the classroom, the traditional textbook is now caught up in a dialogue reshaping the textual boundaries of the book, and with it the traditional modes of cognition and learning, which are bound more to language than to visual form. Most of the important work in the past two decades in the field of curriculum has focused on the culture of the textbook. A rich literature has evolved around textbooks as the traditional object of instructional activity. This volume is an important contribution to this literature, which focuses on the actual making of a textbook. This design process serves as a metaphor that suggests new paradigms of learning and instruction, in which text content is but one component in a multidimensional information space."The Visual Turn" is an exploration along the border of this new learning space transforming the traditional center of instruction in the classroom.