Understanding Digital Culture

Vincent Miller is Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent

Introduction
Revolutionary Technologies?
The Structure of the Book
Chapter 1: Key Elements of Digital Media
Technical Processes
Cultural Forms
Immersive Experiences
Chapter 2: The Economic Foundations of the Information Age
Post-Industrialism
The Information Society
Post-Fordism and Globalisation
Informationalism and the Network Society
Weightless Economies, Intellectual Property and the Commodification of Knowledge
Chapter 3: Convergence and the Contemporary Media Experience
Technological Convergence
Regulatory Convergence
Media Industry Convergence
Convergence Culture ad the Contemporary Media Experience
Producers, Consumers, Prosumers and ′Produsage′
Chapter 4: ′Everyone is Watching′: Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Life
The Changing Cultural Contexts of Privacy
Digital Surveillance: Spaces, Traces and Tools
The Rise Surveillance: Causes and Processes
Commercial Imperatives and the Political Economy of Surveillance
Why Care about a Surveillance Society?
Chapter 5: Information Politics and the Online Public Sphere
The Poltical Context of Information Politics
ICT-Enabled Politics
An Internet Public Sphere?
Chapter 6: Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism and Cyberware
Cybercrime: A Muddy Field
The Tools and Techniques of Cybercrime, Cyberactivism and Cyberwarfare
Cyber Politics by Another Means: Cyber Warfare
Chapter 7: Digital Identity
′Objects to Think with′: Early Internet Studies and Poststructuralism
Personal Homepages and the ′Re-Centring′ of the Individual
Personal Blogging, Individualisation and the Reflexive Project of the Self
Avatar and Identity
Social Networks, Profiles and Networked Identity
Who needs Identity?
Chapter 8: Digital Community? Space, Networks and Relationships
Searching for Lost Community: Urbanisation, Space and Scales of Experience
Globalisation, Technology and the Rise of Individualism
′Virtual′ Communities Over Before they Began?
Network Societies, Network Socialities and Networked Individualism
Being Together Online: Networks, Instrumentalism and Intimacy
Chapter 9: The Body and Information Technology
The Body, Technology and Society
The Posthuman
Technology, Embodiment Relations and ′Homo Faber′
Conclusion: Base, Superstructure, Infrastructure (Revisited)