Understanding Digital Societies provides a framework for understanding our changing, technologically shaped society and how sociology can help us make sense of it. You will be introduced to core sociological ideas and texts along with exciting global examples that shed light on how we can use sociology to understand the world around us.
This innovative, new textbook:
- Provides unique insights into using theory to help explain the prevalence of digital objects in everyday interactions.
- Explores crucial relationships between humans, machines and emerging AI technologies.
- Discusses thought-provoking contemporary issues such as the uses and abuses of technologies in local and global communities.
Understanding Digital Societies is a must-read for students of digital sociology, sociology of media, digital media and society, and other related fields.
Tabella dei contenuti
Part 1: Everyday Life and The Digital
Chapter 1: The Digital Sociological Imagination – Jessamy Perriam
Chapter 2: The Presentation of Self in Digital Spaces – Jessamy Perriam
Part 2: Society, Technology, Citizens and Cities
Chapter 3: Planning the Cities of the Future – Liz Mc Fall and Darren Umney
Chapter 4: Migration, Diaspora and Transnationalism in the Digital Age – Marie Gillespie and Rhys Crilley
Chapter 5: Transnational Digital Networks: families and religion – Umut Erel and John Maiden
Part 3: Humans and Machines
Chapter 6: Autonomous Digital Objects: between humans and machines – Simon Carter
Chapter 7: Freedom, Fetishes and cyborgs – Paul-Francois Tremlett
Chapter 8: Health and Digital Technologies: the case of walking and cycling – Simon Carter
Part 4: Uses and Abuses of the Digital
Chapter 9: Material Digital Technologies – Jessamy Perriam and Simon Carter
Chapter 10: Disinformation, ‘fake news’ and Conspiracies – David Robertson
Chapter 11: Cybersecurity, Digital Failure and Social Harm – Jessamy Perriam and Simon Carter
Chapter 12: Too Much, Too Young? Social media, moral panics and young people’s mental health – Peter Redman
Chapter 13: Algorithms – Simon Carter and Jessamy Perriam
Circa l’autore
Simon Carter is a sociologist working at The Open University with interests in Science and Technology Studies, health and medicine and science engagement. He originally was a research chemist working in the automotive industry and then in environmental protection. But after studying at The Open University, his career took a different direction when he returned to full time higher education to complete a Ph D at Lancaster University. After this, Simon mainly specialised in the sociology of health and illness, and medical sociology.Simon has conducted research into: the cultural turn towards the sun and sunlight in early twentieth-century Europe; critical approaches to the public understanding of science as applied to health issues; how biosecurity interfaces with other concerns in our globalised world; and, more recently, the impact of wearables and digital technologies on health.