1st Edition
Making Digital Cultures Access, Interactivity, and Authenticity
Many people in the West or global North now live in a culture of 24/7 instant messaging, iPods and MP3s, streamed content, blogs, ubiquitous digital images and Facebook. But they are also surrounded by even more paper, books, telephone calls and material objects of one kind or another. The juxtaposition and proliferation of older and newer technologies is striking. Making Digital Cultures brings together recent theorizing of the 'digital age' with empirical studies of how institutions embrace these technologies in relation to older established technological objects, processes and practices. It asks how relations between 'analogue' and 'digital' are conceptualized and configured both in theory and inside the public library, the business organization and the archive. With its direct engagement with new media theory, science and technology studies, and cultural sociology, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students in the areas of media and communication and science and technology studies.
Making Digital Cultures
Biography
Martin Hand is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Queen's University, Canada. He is the co-author of The Design of Everyday Life (2007; Oxford: Berg). He is currently writing about photography and memory practices in everyday life.
'Making Digital Cultures addresses subtle interconnections between analogue and digital technologies that shape everyday life and culture today. It is essential reading for those interested in what culture is and might yet become in an age of high technology.' Nicholas Gane, University of York, UK 'This fascinating study of the work involved in making digital cultures provides a much needed corrective to popular and academic hype. In lacing theories of media, culture and technology together with detailed and original empirical research, Martin Hand develops a powerful analysis of continuity and change in contemporary society.' Elizabeth Shove, Lancaster University, England 'Hand's work essentially looks at academic questions about the very basis of culture...This book will be of particular interest to those engaged with new media theory, science and technology studies.' M/C Reviews 'I found Making Digital Cultures to be an excellent read, and would recommend it to others looking for nuanced ways of thinking about the organisational and cultural changes wrought by the digital.' Jen Ross, University of Edinburgh, UK 'Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity is a thoroughly researched and well-argued contribution to the subject literature of the digital environment. Martin Hand notices subtle interconnections between analogue and digital worlds and does not hesitate to address issues of concern. The lines of argument follow clearly and are well substantiated from the substantial subject literature.' Emerald Journal
