America's current transformation from an industrial to a new information-based culture presents new challenges as well as new perspectives on old debates. This book offers a comprehensive survey of America's changing values. It examines notions of American exceptionalism and how the 'melting pot' is coping with race relations and changing demographics; it assesses the agenda of government, the domestic and global constraints, and how social exclusion can be tackled. Current changes in the US are likely to be a harbinger for other societies, and the authors examine new models of civic society, of learning and of reconfiguring social values for a fast-changing world.
A sociologist explores the many ways that digital natives' interaction with technology has changed their relationship with people, places, jobs, and other stabilizing structures and created a new way of life that is at odds with the American Dream of past generations. Digital natives are hacking the American Dream. Young people brought up with the Internet, smartphones, and social media are quickly rendering old habits, values, behaviors, and norms a distant memory--creating the greatest generation gap in history. In this eye-opening book, digital sociologist Julie M. Albright looks at the many ways in which younger people, facilitated by technology, are coming "untethered" from traditional aspirations and ideals, and asks: What are the effects of being disconnected from traditional, stabilizing social structures like churches, marriage, political parties, and long-term employment? What does it mean to be human when one's ties to people, places, jobs, and societal institutions are weakened or broken, displaced by digital hyper-connectivity? Albright sees both positives and negatives. On the one hand, mobile connectivity has given digital nomads the unprecedented opportunity to work or live anywhere. But, new threats to well-being are emerging, including increased isolation, anxiety, and loneliness, decreased physical exercise, ephemeral relationships, fragmented attention spans, and detachment from the calm of nature. In this time of rapid, global, technologically driven change, this book offers fresh insights into the unintended societal and psychological implications of lives exclusively lived in a digital world.
Global politics in the information age, available in paperback for the first time, presents a provocative and wide-ranging introduction to the notion that information technologies are creating new formations of power, control and resistance across the planet. The essays - ranging from the language used by the Bush administration to shape the war on terror, the attempts to control the circulation of informational products, the strategies of media management deployed to shape how the war in Iraq during 2003 was presented in the public sphere, through to the attempts to ‘brand’ economic globalisation and strategies of resistance developed by the anti-globalisation movement - unearth the new transformations that are unfolding in the twenty first century. This collection of essays brings together academics working across the social sciences - from International Relations, Political Economy, Sociology and Media Studies - to provide the reader with a number of different perspectives on the way that flows of images, capital, ideologies and informational goods are creating global spaces of control and resistance. The book seeks to rethink approaches to global politics that see information society as closing down spaces of resistance, while at the same time exploring the new formations of power that informational society is making possible. The book offers clearly explained theoretical insight into the debates that are shaping discussion on global politics and information society, with case studies that will be of interest to the student seeking to make sense of the changes that are unfolding.
"Digital natives" are hacking the American Dream. Young people brought up with the Internet, smartphones, and social media are quickly rendering old habits and norms a distant memory, creating the greatest generation gap in history. In this eye-opening book, digital sociologist Julie M. Albright looks at our device-obsessed society, and the many ways in which the post World War II American Dream is waning for the Millennial generation. Albright notes that in the former age of traditional media (dominated by three major TV networks and the national print media), values were more harmonized and time, synchronized. Today, with a deluge of information available 24/7, we are experiencing a sort of digital tribalism, with people coalescing inside of increasingly fragmented informational echo chambers. Digital media allows bad actors to enlarge the rifts between these siloed tribes in divide-and-conquer fashion, frothing up fears by propagating fake news and fake people online. What are other effects of hyper-connectivity coupled with disconnection from stabilizing social structures? Albright sees both positives and negatives. On the one hand, mobile connectivity has given "digital nomads" the unprecedented opportunity to work or live anywhere. On the other hand, new threats are emerging, including cyberbullying and the ability to radicalize marginalized youth, decreased physical exercise, increased isolation, anxiety and loneliness, ephemeral relationships, fragmented attention spans, lack of participation in community activities and the political process, and detachment from the calm of nature or the refuge of religion. In this time of rapid, global, technologically driven change, this book offers fresh insights into the effects of always-on devices on the family, community, business, and society at large.
As a child growing up in Malaysia, Shing Yin Khor had two very different ideas of what “America” meant. The first looked a lot like Hollywood, full of beautiful people and sunlight and freeways. The second looked more like The Grapes of Wrath - a nightmare landscape filled with impoverished people, broken-down cars, barren landscapes, and broken dreams. Those contrasting ideas have stuck with Shing ever since, even now that she lives and works in LA. The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 is Shing’s attempt to find what she can of both of these Americas on a solo journey (small adventure-dog included) across the entire expanse of that iconic road, beginning in Santa Monica and ending up Chicago. And what begins as a road trip ends up as something more like a pilgrimage in search of an American landscape that seems forever shifting, forever out of place.
Introduction: 20th-21st century imaginings and realities Section 1: Time/Space Frameworks 1. States and Markets: understanding geospatial time 2. Virtual Realities: exploring sociospatiality 3. The Political Economy of Time: historical time, speed and mobility Section 2: Borders and Inequality 4. Transcendence and Communication 5. Inequality as Driver 6. Embedding Patriarchy: feminism and inequality in the Internet era Section 3: Technofutures and Power 7. Complex Hegemony in the 21st Century: power and inequality Conclusion
Renowned Marxist scholar and critical media theorist Christian Fuchs provides a thorough, chapter-by-chapter introduction to Capital Volume 1 that assists readers in making sense of Karl Marx’s most important and groundbreaking work in the information age, exploring Marx’s key concepts through the lens of media and communication studies via contemporary phenomena like the Internet, digital labour, social media, the media industries, and digital class struggles. Through a range of international, current-day examples, Fuchs emphasises the continued importance of Marx and his work in a time when transnational media companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook play an increasingly important role in global capitalism. Discussion questions and exercises at the end of each chapter help readers to further apply Marx’s work to a modern-day context.
The United States has been epitomized as a land of opportunity, where hard work and skill can bring personal success and economic well-being. The American Dream has captured the imagination of people from all walks of life, and to many, it represents the heart and soul of the country. But there is another, darker side to the bargain that America strikes with its people -- it is the price we pay for our individual pursuit of the American Dream. That price can be found in the economic hardship present in the lives of millions of Americans. In Chasing the American Dream, leading social scientists Mark Robert Rank, Thomas A. Hirschl, and Kirk A. Foster provide a new and innovative look into a curious dynamic -- the tension between the promise of economic opportunities and rewards and the amount of turmoil that Americans encounter in their quest for those rewards. The authors explore questions such as: -What percentage of Americans achieve affluence, and how much income mobility do we actually have? -Are most Americans able to own a home, and at what age? -How is it that nearly 80 percent of us will experience significant economic insecurity at some point between ages 25 and 60? -How can access to the American Dream be increased? Combining personal interviews with dozens of Americans and a longitudinal study covering 40 years of income data, the authors tell the story of the American Dream and reveal a number of surprises. The risk of economic vulnerability has increased substantially over the past four decades, and the American Dream is becoming harder to reach and harder to keep. Yet for most Americans, the Dream lies not in wealth, but in economic security, pursuing one's passions, and looking toward the future. Chasing the American Dream provides us with a new understanding into the dynamics that shape our fortunes and a deeper insight into the importance of the American Dream for the future of the country.
There has yet to be a strong consensus regarding when and if postmodernism ended. As such, there is no agreement about the new age’s name, origins, or tenets. Nealson’s 'Post-Postmodernism: or The Cultural Logic of Just-in-Time Capitalism' leaves out the impact of the internet and social media. Other books fail to explore post-postmodernism within a larger social-political framework and do not examine the cultural trends that have responded to such forces. This book undertakes these complexities by examining the interplay between the sociohistorical events and visual culture of the last two decades and posits that postmodernism ended with the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. Few events have such a tremendous impact on the collective consciousness that they cause immense social, political, and cultural changes, but the terror attacks marked the beginning of a new era filled with greater anxiety and uncertainty. The Bush Administration used news outlets to promote a false narrative and mislead the public, manipulating information to further its agenda and altering the nature and efficacy of mass media and ultimately launching society into an age of disinformation. 'The (Dis)Information Age' is comprised of two main phenomena: post-truth and post-postmodernism. Truth and reality have become increasingly difficult to ascertain in this post-truth world and created increased skepticism towards those in the government and media. The rise of the internet and social media has exacerbated this trend by individualizing facts and data, further fragmenting society along ideological lines. The result is people share fewer common ideas than in previous eras and are no longer living in a shared reality. Post-postmodernism, on the other hand, is a cultural movement that has responded to post-truth’s weaponization, misuse, and individualization of information. Artists of post-postmodernism seek greater connectivity and common ground to combat individualized information and ideological warfare. To them, truth resides in the collective. This study examines the intricate relationship between recent socio-historic events and cultural manifestations that respond to them to better understand the world in which we live.
