SOCI3015: Digital Inequalities

With contributions from thirty-five leading media scholars, this collection provides a comprehensive overview of the main methodologies of critical media studies. Fully revised and updated throughout, the chapters in this second edition address various methods of textual analysis, as well as reception studies, policy studies, production studies, and contextual, multi-method approaches, like intertextuality and cultural geography. Film and television are at the heart of the collection, which also addresses digital technologies and new research tools in such areas as software studies, gaming, and social media. Each chapter includes an intellectual history of a particular method or approach, a discussion of why and how it was used to study a particular medium or media, relevant examples of influential work in the area, and an in-depth review of a case study drawn from the author's own research. Together, the chapters in this collection give media scholars and critics a complete toolbox of essential critical media studies methodologies.

How the digital revolution has shaped our language In the age of search, keywords increasingly organize research, teaching, and even thought itself. Inspired by Raymond Williams's 1976 classic Keywords, the timely collection Digital Keywords gathers pointed, provocative short essays on more than two dozen keywords by leading and rising digital media scholars from the areas of anthropology, digital humanities, history, political science, philosophy, religious studies, rhetoric, science and technology studies, and sociology. Digital Keywords examines and critiques the rich lexicon animating the emerging field of digital studies. This collection broadens our understanding of how we talk about the modern world, particularly of the vocabulary at work in information technologies. Contributors scrutinize each keyword independently: for example, the recent pairing of digital and analog is separated, while classic terms such as community, culture, event, memory, and democracy are treated in light of their historical and intellectual importance. Metaphors of the cloud in cloud computing and the mirror in data mirroring combine with recent and radical uses of terms such as information, sharing, gaming, algorithm, and internet to reveal previously hidden insights into contemporary life. Bookended by a critical introduction and a list of over two hundred other digital keywords, these essays provide concise, compelling arguments about our current mediated condition. Digital Keywords delves into what language does in today's information revolution and why it matters.

Digital media are normal. But this was not always true. For a long time, lay discourse, academic exhortations, pop culture narratives, and advocacy groups constructed new information and communications technologies (ICTs) as exceptional. Whether they were believed to be revolutionary, dangerous, rife with opportunity, or other-worldly, these tools and technologies were framed as extraordinary. But digital media are now mundane, thoroughly embedded - and often unquestioned - in everyday life. Digital media are enmeshed in health and wellness, work and organizations, elections, capital flows, intimate relationships, social movements, and even our own identities. Although the study of these technologies has always been interdisciplinary - at the crossroads of computer science, cultural studies, science and technology studies, and communications - never has a sociological perspective been more valuable. Sociology excels at helping us re-see the normal. The Oxford Handbook of Digital Media Sociology is a perfect point of entry for those curious about the state of sociological research on digital media. Each chapter reviews the sociological research that has been done thus far and points towards unanswered questions. The 34 chapters in the Handbook are arranged in six sections which look at digital media as they relate to: theory, social institutions, everyday life, community and identity, social inequalities, and politics & power. The contributors to this volume provide a distinctly sociological center that will be an indispensable resource for scholars looking to find their way in the subfield, offering an overview of the research on digital media that is sure to illuminate this shifting terrain. Readers will find it accessible enough for use in class, and thorough enough for seasoned professionals interested in a concise update in their areas of interest.

Internet Studies has been one of the most dynamic and rapidly expanding interdisciplinary fields to emerge over the last decade. The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies has been designed to provide a resource in this area, bringing together scholarly perspectives on how the Internet has been studied and how the research agenda should be pursued in the future. The book aims to focus on Internet Studies as an emerging field, each chapter seeking to provide a synthesis and critical assessment of the research in a particular area. Topics covered include social perspectives on the technology of the Internet; the Internet's role in everyday life and work; implications for communication, power, and influence; and the governance and regulation of the Internet. The book aims not only to help to strengthen research on the key questions, but also to shape research, policy, and practice across many disciplines that are finding the Internet and its political, economic, cultural, and other societal implications increasingly central to their own key areas of inquiry.

This comprehensive Handbook explores the multiple ways in which people experience digital life. It maps the transitions in human civilization generated by such digital technologies as the internet, mobile telephony, artificial intelligence, the metaverse, social media platforms and algorithms. It explores how the scarcity or abundance of digital affordances impacts access, governance and livelihoods in various parts of the world. The book’s 27 chapters are organised in five sections: Social Media and Digital Lifeworlds; Digital Affordances and Contestations; Digital Divides and Inclusion Strategies; Work, Culture and Digital Consumption, and New Media and Digital Journalism. The present and future of digital transitions are interrogated in the context of everyday social production and consumption.

The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods spans the entire research process, from data collection to analysis and interpretation. This second edition has been comprehensively updated and expanded, from 39 to 49 chapters. In addition to a new section of chapters focussing on ethics, privacy and the politics of social media data, the new edition provides broader coverage of topics such as: (1) Data sources; (2) Scraping and spidering data; (3) Locative data, video data and linked data; (4) Platform-specific analysis; (5) Analytical tools; and (6) Critical social media analysis. Written by leading scholars from across the globe, the chapters provide a mix of theoretical and applied assessments of topics, and include a range of new case studies and data sets that exemplify the methodological approaches. This Handbook is an essential resource for any researcher or postgraduate student embarking on a social media research project.