The beginning of the 21st century is witnessing the emergence of a social, political and technological revolution in networked computing. We now live in a networked society, but it functions and develops at such an accelerating rate that it becomes increasingly difficult to adequately understand the nature of this radical society. Empires of Speed is the first book to analyse the far-reaching transformations of speed-filled everyday life. In a compelling study Hassan shows that we are leaving behind a modern world based upon the time of the clock, and are entering a new and volatile phase where an accelerating 'network time' poses fundamental economic and political challenges in our postmodern world, challenges we barely comprehend and are thus woefully unprepared for.

For better or worse, the information and communication revolution has transformed our economic, cultural, and political world. On an individual scale, many of the traditional social, political, and cultural habits of mind and ways of being that evolved under the regime of the clock are changing rapidly, including the way individuals save, spend, and optimize time. At the organizational level, the pacing of innovation, levels of production, and new product development, are no longer temporally fixed due to the effects of living in a networked society and in the networked economy. 24/7 brings together leading thinkers from a variety of disciplines to analyze the differing relationships to time in an accelerated society. Offering much-needed insight and perspective into new issues and problems, this unique volume is the first to offer a wide range of cutting-edge thought on the new economic, cultural, and political world of the networked society. The book includes contributions from the leading scholars in this area, such as Barbara Adam, Mike Crang, Thomas Hylland Erikson, and Geert Lovink.

Connections between time, technology, and the processes of reading and writing make clear the links between experiences of what appear to be quite different phenomena. Reading and writing have functioned together in a particular way to build the world as we have known it for three thousand years. These interacting processes have now been transformed at their core and are building a different world, one where certainties of the previous era are disappearing and being displaced by what the author sees as a chronic and pervasive mode of cognitive distraction. Robert Hassan offers a perspective permeated by a sense of history, beginning with the invention of writing and the development of the skill of reading. Together with technological developments, these provide a unique view of the trajectory of modernity into late-modernity, and illustrate how the arc of progress has transformed. New modes of time, technology, and reading and writing are helping create a faster world where we know less about more and forget what we know evermore quickly. What is the "time" of a thought? Is it possible to measure thinking? Can we consider knowledge or information, or reading and writing, as having temporal "rhythms"? These are questions Hassan tries to answer. So unfamiliar are we to thinking in such terms that they sound impossible. To a significant degree, time, thinking, and many forms of knowledge are the fruits of subjective experience. We connect experiences at superficial levels, where people have different experiences that may be objectively the same, but our interpretations will always diverge in respect of the "reality" we confront. This intersection of philosophy and communication takes the reader into new realms of analysis.

Since the late-1980s the rise of the Internet and the emergence of the Networked Society have led to a rapid and profound transformation of everyday life. Underpinning this revolution is the computer - a media technology that is capable of not only transforming itself, but almost every other machine and media process that humans have used throughout history. In Philosophy of Media, Hassan and Sutherland explore the philosophical and technological trajectory of media from Classical Greece until today, casting a new and revealing light upon the global media condition. Key topics include: the mediation of politics the question of objectivity automata and the metaphor of the machine analogue and digital technological determinism. Laid out in a clear and engaging format, Philosophy of Media provides an accessible and comprehensive exploration of the origins of the network society. It is essential reading for students of philosophy, media theory, politics, history and communication studies.

Connections between time, technology, and the processes of reading and writing make clear the links between experiences of what appear to be quite different phenomena. Reading and writing have functioned together in a particular way to build the world as we have known it for three thousand years. These interacting processes have now been transformed at their core and are building a different world, one where certainties of the previous era are disappearing and being displaced by what the author sees as a chronic and pervasive mode of cognitive distraction.

Robert Hassan offers a perspective permeated by a sense of history, beginning with the invention of writing and the development of the skill of reading. Together with technological developments, these provide a unique view of the trajectory of modernity into late-modernity, and illustrate how the arc of progress has transformed. New modes of time, technology, and reading and writing are helping create a faster world where we know less about more--and forget what we know evermore quickly.

What is the "time" of a thought? Is it possible to measure thinking? Can we consider knowledge or information, or reading and writing, as having temporal "rhythms"? These are questions Hassan tries to answer. So unfamiliar are we to thinking in such terms that they sound impossible. To a significant degree, time, thinking, and many forms of knowledge are the fruits of subjective experience. We connect experiences at superficial levels, where people have different experiences that may be objectively the same, but our interpretations will always diverge in respect of the "reality" we confront. This intersection of philosophy and communication takes the reader into new realms of analysis.

Since the late-1980s the rise of the Internet and the emergence of the Networked Society have led to a rapid and profound transformation of everyday life. Underpinning this revolution is the computer - a media technology that is capable of not only transforming itself, but almost every other machine and media process that humans have used throughout history. In Philosophy of Media, Hassan and Sutherland explore the philosophical and technological trajectory of media from Classical Greece until today, casting a new and revealing light upon the global media condition. Key topics include: the mediation of politics the question of objectivity automata and the metaphor of the machine analogue and digital technological determinism. Laid out in a clear and engaging format, Philosophy of Media provides an accessible and comprehensive exploration of the origins of the network society. It is essential reading for students of philosophy, media theory, politics, history and communication studies.

For better or worse, the information and communication revolution has transformed our economic, cultural, and political world. On an individual scale, many of the traditional social, political, and cultural habits of mind and ways of being that evolved under the regime of the clock are changing rapidly, including the way individuals save, spend, and optimize time. At the organizational level, the pacing of innovation, levels of production, and new product development, are no longer temporally fixed due to the effects of living in a networked society and in the networked economy. 24/7 brings together leading thinkers from a variety of disciplines to analyze the differing relationships to time in an accelerated society. Offering much-needed insight and perspective into new issues and problems, this unique volume is the first to offer a wide range of cutting-edge thought on the new economic, cultural, and political world of the networked society. The book includes contributions from the leading scholars in this area, such as Barbara Adam, Mike Crang, Thomas Hylland Erikson, and Geert Lovink.