New Media: A Critical Introduction, 2nd ed. (2003/2008)

“New Media: A Critical Introduction is a comprehensive introduction to the culture, history, technologies and theories of new media. Written especially for students, the book considers the ways in which ‘new media’ really are new, assesses the claims that a media and technological revolution has taken place and formulates new ways for media studies to respond to new technologies.

The authors introduce a wide variety of topics including: how to define the characteristics of new media; social and political uses of new media and new communications; new media technologies, politics and globalization; everyday life and new media; theories of interactivity, simulation, the new media economy; cybernetics, cyberculture, the history of automata and artificial life.

Substantially updated from the first edition to cover recent theoretical developments, approaches and significant technological developments, this is the best and by far the most comprehensive textbook available on this exciting and expanding subject.

At www.newmediaintro.com you will find:
* additional international case studies with online references
* specially created You Tube videos on machines and digital photography
* a new ‘Virtual Camera’ case study, with links to short film examples
* useful links to related websites, resources and research sites
* further online reading links to specific arguments or discussion topics in the book
* links to key scholars in the field of new media”

By Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, Kieran Kelly
Publisher Routledge
ISBN 0415431611, 9780415431613
464 pages

Authors
Publisher

PDF (updated on 2012-12-14)

Mark B. N. Hansen: Bodies in Code: Interfaces with Digital Media (2006)

Bodies in Code explores how our bodies experience and adapt to digital environments. Cyberculture theorists have tended to overlook biological reality when talking about virtual reality, and Mark B. N. Hansen’s book shows what they’ve been missing. Cyberspace is anchored in the body, he argues, and it’s the body–not high-tech computer graphics–that allows a person to feel like they are really “moving” through virtual reality. Of course these virtual experiences are also profoundly affecting our very understanding of what it means to live as embodied beings.

Hansen draws upon recent work in visual culture, cognitive science, and new media studies, as well as examples of computer graphics, websites, and new media art, to show how our bodies are in some ways already becoming virtual.

Published by CRC Press, 2006
ISBN 0415970164, 9780415970167
336 pages

google books

PDF (updated on 2013-12-10)