It is almost impossible to keep up with the pace and direction in which business and technology are moving today.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. AUTOMATION. BLOCKCHAIN. BIG DATA. INTERNET OF THINGS. THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Who actually knows what any of these concepts mean for their business, much less how to integrate them? Things are moving at a faster pace than ever before and trying to keep up has become intimidating and overwhelming. It’s tempting to bury your head in the sand than try to make head or tail of it all. But none of the buzzwords actually matter! You don’t have to jump aboard every single change and adjustment in the market, or trade in your suit for a T-shirt, jeans and sneaker combo. If you have the right context, it’s a lot simpler to understand and use technological shifts as an opportunity to transform your business.

Tech Adjacent is about understanding the principles of tech and its pace, hearing the footsteps of where it might be going, knowing how disruption and innovation work tangibly and, most importantly, leveraging it for your individual exponential success. Innovation is contextual, so while Uber, Airbnb and Facebook are grandiose Silicon Valley success stories, they have little relevance in our own market. This book shares stories and case studies of African businesses, exposing who is getting disrupted as we speak and why, as well as how new companies are leading the next wave of growth. Mushambi Mutuma’s experience and expertise in both business and as a tech entrepreneur give real-life context to rapid change, unlocking future opportunities and offering tools to predict where your audience and industry are heading. He sells no big ideas, but genuinely shares his unique perspectives and know-how to help whoever he can in the process.

Tech Adjacent isn’t just another book on growing your business in 100 days, nor is it dry academic theory. It is the guidebook for not only surviving but excelling in a world of exponential growth. Whether you are a start-up entrepreneur or a corporate executive, this guide is a must for both present and future leaders.

The Internet stock bubble wasn't just about goggle-eyed day traderstrying to get rich on the Nasdaq and goateed twenty-five-year-olds playing wannabe Bill Gates. It was also about an America that believed it had discovered the secret of eternal prosperity: it said something about all of us, and what we thought about ourselves, as the twenty-first century dawned. John Cassidy's Dot.con brings this tumultuous episode to life. Moving from the Cold War Pentagon to Silicon Valley to Wall Street and into the homes of millions of Americans, Cassidy tells the story of the great boom and bust in an authoritative and entertaining narrative. Featuring all the iconic figures of the Internet era -- Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos, Steve Case, Alan Greenspan, and many others -- and with a new Afterword on the aftermath of the bust, Dot.con is a panoramic and stirring account of human greed and gullibility.

PASA’s Guide to Publishing 2025 provides an overview of the latest developments and challenges in the South African publishing industry, including updates on the Copyright Amendment Bill, the Competition Commission investigation and the work of the PASA Legal Affairs Committee the Cultural, as well as the Creative Industries Masterplan and the NSFAS.

It also gives an overview of digital publishing and sales patterns in the various publishing sectors. This, together with a comprehensive list of training providers and industry-related bodies, including government department contacts, and a list of international, African and local book fairs and festivals, will enable publishing staff to make informed decisions about publishing trends and issues, marketing opportunities and training providers in the industry.

Publishers, marketing staff and authors should also engage with the section on selling international rights, written by an international expert in the field, to maximise the potential of their publications. Academics and (potential) authors should find the sections on intellectual property and copyright, and ‘how to get published’, as well as key publishing and design terms, particularly useful. The comprehensive PASA membership directory and index of publishers, their imprints and agencies, and their areas of speciality, will be invaluable to booksellers, librarians and academics alike.

From smartphones to social media, from streaming videos to fitness bands, our devices bring us information and entertainment all day long, forming an intimate part of our lives. Their ubiquity represents a major shift in human experience, and although we often hold our devices dear, we do not always fully appreciate how their nearly constant presence can influence our lives for better and for worse. In this second edition of How Fantasy Becomes Reality, social psychologist Karen E. Dill-Shackleford explains what the latest science tells us about how our devices influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In engaging, conversational prose, she discusses both the benefits and the risks that come with our current level of media saturation. The wide-ranging conversation explores Avatar, Mad Men, Grand Theft Auto, and Comic Con to address critical issues such as media violence, portrayals of social groups, political coverage, and fandom. Her conclusions will empower readers to make our favorite sources of entertainment and information work for us and not against us.

Has the virtual invaded the realm of the real, or has the real expanded its definition to include what once was characterized as virtual? With the continual evolution of digital technology, this distinction grows increasingly hazy. But perhaps the distinction has become obsolete; perhaps it is time to pay attention to the intersections, mutations, and transmigrations of the virtual and the real. Certain it is time to reinterpret the practice and study of music. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality, edited by Shelia Whiteley and Shara Rambarran, is the first book to offer a kaleidoscope of interdisciplinary perspectives from scholars around the globe on the way in which virtuality mediates the dissemination, acquisition, performance, creation, and reimagining of music. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality addresses eight themes that often overlap and interact with one another. Questions of the role of the audience, artistic agency, individual and communal identity, subjectivity, and spatiality repeatedly arise. Authors specifically explore phenomena including holographic musicians and virtual bands, and the benefits and detriments surrounding the free circulation of music on the internet. In addition, the book investigates the way in which fans and musicians negotiate gender identities as well as the dynamics of audience participation and community building in a virtual environment. The handbook rehistoricizes the virtual by tracing its progression from cartoons in the 1950s to current industry innovations and changes in practice. Well-grounded and wide-reaching, this is a book that students of any number of disciplines, from Music to Cultural Studies, have awaited.

The emergence of the book was not merely an event of world historical importance, but the dawn of modernity. In this much praised work, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, with the study of consciousness itself to root the development of printing in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe. Now that the printed page may become a thing of the past, "The Coming of the Book" is more pertinent than ever.
The Verso World History Series This series provides attractive new editions of classic works of history, making landmark texts available to a new generation of readers. Covering a time-span stretching from Ancient Greece and Rome to the twentieth century, and with a global geographical range, the series will also include thematic volumes providing insights into such topics as the spread of print cultures and the history of money.

What is wrong with the news? To answer this dismaying question, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex S. Jones has written Losing the News, a probing look at the epochal changes sweeping the media which are eroding the core news that has been the essential food supply of our democracy. At a time of dazzling technological innovation, Jones says that what stands to be lost is the fact-based reporting that serves as a watchdog over government, holds the powerful accountable, and gives citizens what they need. In a tumultuous new media era, with cutthroat competition and panic over profits, the commitment of the traditional news media to serious news is fading. Should we lose a critical mass of this news, our democracy will weaken or even fail. As the old economic model for news is being shattered by digital technology, the news media are making a painful passage that is taking a toll on journalistic values and standards. Journalistic objectivity and ethics are under assault, as is the bastion of the First Amendment. Jones characterizes himself not as a pessimist about news, but a realist. The breathtaking possibilities that the web offers are undeniable, but at what cost? Pundits and talk show hosts have persuaded Americans that the crisis in news is bias and partisanship. Not so, says Jones. The real crisis is the erosion of the iron core of news, something that hurts Republicans and Democrats alike. In its concluding chapters, Losing the News looks over the horizon, exploring ways the core can be preserved. Losing the News, the penultimate title in Oxford's highly successful Annenberg Institutions of Democracy series, depicts an unsettling situation in which theAmerican birthright of fact-based, reported news is in danger. But it is also a call to arms to fight to keep the core of news intact.

A Century of Transformation: Studies in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Eastern Communication Association celebrates the anniversary of communication as a formally organized professional academic discipline. To mark this occasion, the Eastern Communication Association has compiled a volume of essays examining the many different aspects of the discipline, its history, and its future.
The only book of its kind, this landmark anthology covers a multitude of topics, including approaches to studying communication, reviews of the current status of the discipline's major branches, and transformations that the field has experienced throughout its 100-year history.
Edited by James W. Chesebro, this volume contains essays written by venerable researchers and professors, alongside selections from some of the field's upcoming leaders. Intended to serve as an analysis of both the past and future of the communication discipline, A Century of Transformation is a valuable resource for capstone courses in communication. It is also captivating reading for anyone interested in the history, growth, and development of the discipline.

Where is the place of the voice in film? Where others have focused on Hollywood film, this volume aims to extend the field to other cinemas from around the world, encompassing Latin America, Asia and Africa amongst others. Traditional theoretical accounts, based on classical narrative cinema, examine the importance of the voice in terms of a desired perfect match between visuals and sonic effects. But, as the chapters of this volume illustrate, what is normative in one film industry may not apply in another. The widespread practices of dubbing, postsynch sound and "playback singing" in some countries, for instance, provide an alternative means of understanding the location of the voice in the soundtrack. Through seventeen original chapters, this volume situates the voice in film across a range of diverse national, transnational and cultural contexts, presenting readings which challenge traditional readings of the voice in film in exciting new ways. By taking a comparative view, this volume posits that the voice may be best understood as a mobile object, one whose trajectory follows a broader network of global flows. The various chapters explore the cultural transformations the voice undergoes as it moves from one industry to another. In doing so, the volume addresses sound practices which have been long been neglected, such as dubbing and non-synch sound, as well the ways in which sound technologies have shaped nationally specific styles of vocal performance. In addressing the place of the voice in film, the book intends to nuance existing theoretical writing on the voice while applying these critical insights in a global context.

This cutting-edge book presents a detailed overview of digital marketing strategy, which has evolved following rapid digitalization that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing detailed examinations of different digital marketing techniques, it demonstrates how organizations’ digital marketing strategies can be developed and implemented. Digital Marketing Strategy features a thorough analysis of how digital marketing can be utilized to increase sales through new customer acquisition and through increasing the life cycle value of its existing customers. Chapters explore how buyer personas can be used to frame marketing as an advantageous service. Ultimately, this instructive book highlights that the core of digital marketing is based on market analysis, the value proposition built on it, and observed competitive advantage. With fresh insights into the developing areas of content and influencer marketing, this book will be of immense worth to students and scholars studying digital marketing strategy. It will also be highly applicable to those working in the field of digital marketing who promote products and services that require buyer judgement.

The Business Analysts completely dissolves the perception that the IT industry dictates to businesses what IT systems they will use and dispels the myth that business users and IT technicians are from different planets. It suggests how to create an environment in which everybody works together in an exciting and refreshing way – a paradigm shift in the way business analysis projects are done.

The IT industry has to move to a point where it realises that the users of IT systems and the technical personnel are both equally responsible for getting the system to work. The users of the IT system should be an integral part of the team when the system is being put together. This, unfortunately, is not the norm within the industry. It is the business analyst’s responsibility, among others, to make sure that communication flows freely between all the parties involved.

This book gives the business analyst the tools and techniques to find out what the business users of IT systems really need and to guide the project to meet those needs.

The career of a Fleet Street photographer can be made or stalled in an instant...the millisecond it takes for the camera shutter to capture an iconic image that speaks a thousand words or just yet another frame destined to be discarded on the darkroom floor. Stephen allows the photographs to speak for themselves but brilliantly lets us in on some of the circumstances, opportunities and fortune that framed the story behind the story. Charles Wilson Editor of The Times 1985-1990 Stephen Markeson is, undoubtedly, one of the legendary photojournalists of the golden era of Fleet Street and his lens a witness to the making of history. Ron Morgans Picture editor Daily Express 1967-73, Today 1985-93, Daily Mirror 1993-2000.

Theatre of the Book explores the impact of printing on the European theatre, 1480-1880. Far from being marginal to Renaissance dramatists, the printing press played an essential role in the birth of the modern theatre. Looking at playtexts, engravings, actor portraits, notation systems, and theatrical ephemera as part of the broader history of theatrical ideas, this illustrated book offers both a history of European dramatic publication and an examination of the European theatre's continual refashioning of itself in the world of print.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. As the world faces extreme economic, environmental and political crises, this bold and accessible Advanced Introduction argues for a future-facing approach to the creative economy and creative innovation. The book analyses contemporary and historical arts and culture whilst assessing historical shifts from national to global cultures; analogue to digital technologies; and individualist to systems thinking. Key features include: A new approach to the creative industries based on complex systems and evolutionary dynamics Combining humanities-based analysis with economics of innovation A critique of important theorists and intellectual traditions involved in the study of modern mediated creativity Reconceptualizing arts, copyright, cities, time, global media and social agency A thought-provoking reassessment of modernity to pivot creative enterprise for the challenges of the Anthropocene era. Scholars and students of media and communications studies, political economy and economics will benefit from the new approach to creative media and culture, and its proposals to rethink the economics of creativity and innovation. This book will be a helpful guide for policy-makers, consultants and freelancers who work across the borderlines of art, media, technology, business and regulation.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This cutting edge book introduces the origins and consequences of digital platforms, examining how artificial intelligence-enabled digital platforms collect and process data from and about users by providing social media and e-commerce services. Robin Mansell and W. Edward Steinmueller compare and contrast neoclassical, institutional and critical political economy approaches. They show how uneven power relationships between platform operators and their users are analysed in different economic traditions. Key features include: analysis of economic and public values provides a foundation for platform regulation examines the impacts of platforms on the media industry challenges claims of the inevitability of platform dominance discusses key challenges, including: artificial intelligence, data sharing and competition in the digital economy. This concise book will be indispensable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of media and communication studies, innovation studies and economics, particularly those focusing on platform economics.