Nicholas Gane: The Future of Social Theory (2004)

“The basic concept of society has come under attack – political acts, critical theory, new media and even history itself have undermined what we think of as the social. The Future of Social Theory brings together new interviews with the world’s leading social theorists on what society means today: Zygmunt Bauman, John Urry, Saska Sassen, Bruno Latour, Scott Lash, Nikolas Rose, Judith Butler and Francoise Verges. The topics covered include: liquid modernization and the individualization of the society; the shift towards global forms of chaos and complexity; the displacement of the social into global city networks; the shift away from a theory of the social to a theory of space; the transformation of society with the rise of new technology; the continuing influence of historical forms of political power; society as a gendered idea; and society as a product of Empire.”

Publisher Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004
ISBN 0826470661, 9780826470669
210 pages

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Nicholas Gane, David Beer: New Media: The Key Concepts (2008)

Digital media are rapidly changing the world in which we live. Global communications, mobile interfaces and Internet cultures are re-configuring our everyday lives and experiences.

To understand these changes, a new theoretical imagination is needed, one that is informed by a conceptual vocabulary that is able to cope with the daunting complexity of the world today. This book draws on writings by leading social and cultural theorists to assemble this vocabulary.

It addresses six key concepts that are pivotal for understanding the impact of new media on contemporary society and culture: information, network, interface, interactivity, archive and simulation. Each concept is considered through a range of concrete examples to illustrate how they might be developed and used as research tools. An inter-disciplinary approach is taken that spans a number of fields, including sociology, cultural studies, media studies and computer science.

Publisher Berg, 2008
ISBN 1845201337, 9781845201333
149 pages

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Geert Lovink: Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture (2002)

“According to media critic Geert Lovink, the Internet is being closed off by corporations and governments intent on creating a business and information environment free of dissent. Calling himself a radical media pragmatist, Lovink envisions an Internet culture that goes beyond the engineering culture that spawned it to bring humanities, user groups, social movements, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), artists, and cultural critics into the core of Internet development.

In Dark Fiber, Lovink combines aesthetic and ethical concerns and issues of navigation and usability without ever losing sight of the cultural and economic agendas of those who control hardware, software, content, design, and delivery. He examines the unwarranted faith of the cyber-libertarians in the ability of market forces to create a decentralized, accessible communication system. He studies the inner dynamics of hackers’ groups, Internet activists, and artists, seeking to understand the social laws of online life. Finally, he calls for the injection of political and economic competence into the community of freedom-loving cyber-citizens, to wrest the Internet from corporate and state control.

The topics include the erosion of email, bandwidth for all, the rise and fall of dot-com mania, techno-mysticism, sustainable social networks, the fight for a public Internet time standard, the strategies of Internet activists, mailing list culture, and collaborative text filtering. Stressing the importance of intercultural collaboration, Lovink includes reports from Albania, where NGOs and artists use new media to combat the country’s poverty and isolation; from Taiwan, where the September 1999 earthquake highlighted the cultural politics of the Internet; and from Delhi, where a new media center explores free software, public access, and Hindi interfaces.”

Publisher    MIT Press, 2002
ISBN    0262621800, 9780262621809
382 pages

Reviews: McKenzie Wark (Rhizome, 2002), Lisa Nakamura (Mute, 2002), Franco Berardi Bifo (Generation Online, n.d.), Catriona Mills (M/C Reviews), Christina Van Houten (Rhizomes, 2009), Kirk McElhearn (Technology & Society, n.d.), Evangelos Milios (Social Science Computer Review, 2003), Arnold Peskin (Journal of Urban Technology, 2003).

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