Loading...

Interactivity

New media, politics and society

by Alec Charles (Author)
©2013 Monographs VII, 232 Pages
Series: Peter Lang Ltd., Volume 6

Summary

From the Arab Spring to British summer riots, from the War on Terror to The X Factor, from social networking sites to online electioneering, the influence of new media technologies is clear. This book analyses the impact of such interactive media on contemporary politics and society. It explores how new media technologies give their users a sense of empowerment, and questions whether these technologies really directly empower their users at all.
When viewers cast their votes in reality television shows, is that really a form of democratic participation?
Does Facebook actually enhance the quality of its users’ friendships and increase their social capital?
Does the video game player develop the liberating agency the game appears to promise?
Do online forms of politics essentially increase levels of democratic involvement?
Will Wikipedia truly teach us anything?
Can Web 2.0 ever set us free?
Drawing upon interviews with figures from politics and the media, this book examines the possibilities which underlie these technologies and questions some of the key assumptions which we make about them.

Details

Pages
VII, 232
Publication Year
2013
ISBN (PDF)
9783035303957
DOI
10.3726/978-3-0353-0395-7
Language
English
Publication date
2012 (October)
Keywords
social networking crowdsourcing reality TV political participation democratic participation social capital empowerment clicktivism
Published
Oxford, 2012. VIII, 240 pp., 2 charts

Biographical notes

Alec Charles (Author)

Alec Charles is Principal Lecturer in Media at the University of Bedfordshire and has previously taught at universities in Estonia, Japan and Cornwall, UK. He has made documentaries for BBC Radio, has worked as a print journalist in eastern Europe and has written for British Journalism Review, Journalism Education and Tribune. He is the editor of Media in the Enlarged Europe (2009) and co-editor of The End of Journalism (2011). His recent publications include papers in Science Fiction Studies and Science Fiction Film & Television, as well as chapters in various books on film, television, literature and new media.

Previous

Title: Interactivity