Books in the Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture series

As an example of convergence, the mobile phone-especially in the form of smartphone-is now ushering in new promises of seamlessness between engagement with technology and everyday common experiences. This seamlessness is not only about how one transitions between the worlds of the device and the physical environment but it also captures the transition and convergences between devices as well (i.e. laptop to smartphone, smartphone to tablet). This volume argues, however, that these transitions are far from seamless. We see divisions between online and offline, virtual and actual, here and there, taking on different cartographies, emergent forms of seams. It is these seams that this volume acknowledges, challenges and explores-socially, culturally, technologically and historically-as we move to a deeper understanding of the role and impact of mobile communication''s saturation throughout the world.

This volume presents a wide range of qualitative methodological strategies which are designed to tackle and take into account the complex, emergent, and continually shifting character of Virtual Worlds. The book concentrates on the theme of emergence and phenomena in flux ¿ on how objects are brought into being, and transformed in, co-construction processes in social interaction. In addition, these methodological strategies also provide a foundation for the study of other complex, emergent phenomena.

With digital media becoming ever more prevalent, it is essential to study policy and marketing strategies tailored to this new development. In this volume, contributors examine government policy for a range of media, including digital television, IPTV, mobile TV, and OTT TV. They also address marketing strategies that can harness the unique nature of digital mediaΓÇÖs innovation, production design, and accessibility. They draw on case studies in Asia, North America, and Europe to offer best practices for both policy and marketing strategies.

Social media have dramatically popularized practices of evaluation, especially of cultural products and artistic expressions. The practices of "liking" and rating any shared contents such as music to blogs, film, videos, photographs to artwork and performances are ubiquitous in todayΓÇÖs digital environments. As a result, creative producers are increasingly developing reputations and careers through a complex blend of online social reputation management and distribution platforms, and more longstanding forms of marketing channels and professional evaluation. In this context, Online Evaluation of Creativity and the Arts seeks to examine the newly emerging forms of evaluation, such as contests, competitions, ranking, commenting, liking, and rating, which are taking place in digital environments. In doing so, this book investigates the criteria and assessment practices tied to the evaluation of creativity and artistic works and further questions what is at stake when digital environments heighten the role of amateur and peer criticism to the level of expert critiques. While exploring potential informal learning opportunities and offering incisive critiques on the emerging norms and standards of evaluation, the essays in this book cover a wide range of artistic and creative practices.

Exploring media art that challenges the 'race-blind' myth of cyberspace, this book looks at how works by several artists bring forward questions of racial and cultural identity as they intersect with information technology.

Examines English language communication on the World Wide Web, focusing on Internet practices crafted by underserved communities in the US and overlooked participants in several Asian Diaspora communities. This book includes subjects that challenge prevailing deployments and conceptions of emerging technologies.

Examines the cultural and political ramifications of the Internet for Chinese society. This book asks not whether the Internet will democratize China, but rather in what ways the Internet is democratizing communication in China. How is the Internet empowering individuals by fostering new types of social spaces and redefining social relations?

This collection explores the politics of game play and its cultural context by focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. Drawing from micro ethnographic studies to macro political economy analysis of techno-nationalisms and transcultural flows of cultural capital, it provides an interdisciplinary model for thinking through the politics of gaming.

Video and animation plays a prominent role in the World Wide Web and various types of protocols have been developed to accommodate this increasing complexity. This title examines how digital design is triggering disability when it could be a solution.

This book presents state of the art theoretical and empirical research on the ubiquitous internet: its everyday users and its economic stakeholders. The book offers a 360-degree media analysis of the contemporary terrain of the internet by examining both user and industry perspectives and their relation to one another.

This book aims to provide insights into how `second lives¿ in the sense of virtual identities and communities are constructed textually, semiotically and discursively, specifically in the online environment Second Life and Massively Multiplayer Online Games such as World of Warcraft. The book¿s philosophy is multi-disciplinary and its goal is to explore the question of how we as gamers and residents of virtual worlds construct alternative online realities in a variety of ways. Of particular significance to this endeavour are conceptions of the body in cyberspace and of spatiality, which manifests itself in `natural¿ and built environments as well as the triad of space, place and landscape. The contributors¿ disciplinary backgrounds include media, communication, cultural and literary studies, and they examine issues of reception and production, identity, community, gender, spatiality, natural and built environments using a plethora of methodological approaches ranging from theoretical and philosophical contemplation through social semiotics to corpus-based discourse analysis.

An international roster of contributors come together in this comprehensive volume to examine the complex interactions between mobile media technologies and issues of place. Balancing philosophical reflection with empirical analysis, this book examines the specific contexts in which place and mobile technologies come into focus, intersect, and interact. Given the far-reaching impact of contemporary mobile technology use, and given the lasting importance of the concept and experiences of place, this book will appeal to a wide range of scholars in media and cultural studies, sociology, and philosophy of technology.

Explores the relationship between the free software movement and freedom. This title focuses on five main themes - the emancipatory potential of technology, social liberties, the facilitation of creativity, the objectivity of computing as a scientific practice, and the role of software in a cyborg world.

The volume examines the impact of gaming on the study of the Middle Ages and the influence of medieval tropes, stories, and characteristics on contemporary gaming, all of which enriches our understanding of digital culture, social complexity, and historical reality and problematizes traditional understandings of subjectivity, temporality, and textuality.

This volume examines the impact new digital technologies have on political organizing and protest across the political spectrum, from the Arab Spring to artists to far-right groups.

This volume is a comprehensive account of the various location-based technologies, services, applications, and cultures, as media, with an aim to identify, inventory, explore, and critique their cultural, economic, political, social, and policy dimensions internationally.

This volume proposes the mobile Internet is best understood as a socio-technical "assemblage" of objects, practices, symbolic representations, experiences and affects. Authors from a variety of disciplines discuss practices mediated through mobile communication, including current phone and tablet devices.

Locating Emerging Media focuses on the tensions between the local and global in the design, distribution, and use of emerging media forms, building on scholarship on the cultural geography of new media networks and products and the relationships between the "global" and the "local."

This book explores the practices of teenage girls who actively maintain feminist blogs and participate in the feminist blogosphere as readers, writers, and commenters on a variety of platforms including Blogspot, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.