Authenticity and How We Fake It by
Consumers today are invested in reality-based media, such as reality television and social media, which in theory draw content from somewhere off-screen in our lived experience. This is seen as more "authentic" than the predominantly fictional media of the latter half of the 20th century.
Yet much of reality TV and social media is known by both consumers and creators of content to be scripted or contrived.
Addressing this problem deepens consumer engagement, as authenticity becomes a preoccupation driving the extension of a new media ethic of truth and savvy. This dynamic is key to understanding consumers' changing attitudes about the media they value.
Reality TV, Facebook and YouTube have created a paradigm shift in the media landscape. Analyzing these three established platforms--all of which have a stake in the conversation about authenticity--this book sheds light on the complicated behaviors and choices of media consumers.
Girl Wide Web: Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity by
Given the rapidly growing presence of girls online, serious academic inquiry into the relationship between girls and the Internet is imperative. Girl Wide Web is an innovative collection of cutting-edge research exploring a wide sweep of issues related to the ways adolescent girls interact with the Internet. Employing a range of methodologies and theoretical perspectives primarily within cultural studies, the authors examine a variety of topics – from instant messaging and web-diaries to online fan communities and Internet advertising that targets young girls. Taken together, these essays provide a rich portrait of the complex relationship among girls, the Internet, and the negotiation of identity.
Mind Change by
We live in a world unimaginable only decades ago: a domain of backlit screens, instant information, and vibrant experiences that can outcompete dreary reality. Our brave new technologies offer incredible opportunities for work and play. But at what price?
Now renowned neuroscientist Susan Greenfield--known in the United Kingdom for challenging entrenched conventional views--brings together a range of scientific studies, news events, and cultural criticism to create an incisive snapshot of "the global now." Disputing the assumption that our technologies are harmless tools, Greenfield explores whether incessant exposure to social media sites, search engines, and videogames is capable of rewiring our brains, and whether the minds of people born before and after the advent of the Internet differ.
Stressing the impact on Digital Natives--those who've never known a world without the Internet--Greenfield exposes how neuronal networking may be affected by unprecedented bombardments of audiovisual stimuli, how gaming can shape a chemical landscape in the brain similar to that in gambling addicts, how surfing the Net risks placing a premium on information rather than on deep knowledge and understanding, and how excessive use of social networking sites limits the maturation of empathy and identity.
But Mind Change also delves into the potential benefits of our digital lifestyle. Sifting through the cocktail of not only threat but opportunity these technologies afford, Greenfield explores how gaming enhances vision and motor control, how touch tablets aid students with developmental disabilities, and how political "clicktivism" foments positive change.
In a world where adults spend ten hours a day online, and where tablets are the common means by which children learn and play, Mind Change reveals as never before the complex physiological, social, and cultural ramifications of living in the digital age. A book that will be to the Internet what An Inconvenient Truth was to global warming, Mind Change is provocative, alarming, and a call to action to ensure a future in which technology fosters--not frustrates--deep thinking, creativity, and true fulfillment.
Alone Together by
Consider Facebook—it’s human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delivers, but much of our modern life leaves us less connected with people and more connected to simulations of them. In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It’s a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for—and sacrificing—in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today’s self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.
Are Social Networking Sites Harmful? by
A compendium of opinion on the effects of social networking, including privacy issues, political aspects, and educational perspectives.
The Culture of the Internet and the Internet as Cult: Social Fears and Religious Fantasies by
In this book, French author Philippe Breton looks at the Internet and the culture surrounding it through the lens of its cultural background. Central in his insightful analysis of "the Internet as cult" are Teilhard de Chardin and the New Age, but he looks also at the fears, passions and pathologies of Alan Turing and Norbert Wiener, the imagined worlds of Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, J.G. Ballard and Timothy Leary, the prognostications and confessions of Bill Gates, Nicolas Negroponte and Bill Joy, and the philosophies of Saint-Simon, McLuhan and Pierre Lévy. Dreams of a transparent and unmediated world, a world in which neither time nor space are relevant, a world without violence, without law, without a distinction between the public and the private, Breton contrasts with the reality of propaganda, computer viruses and surveillance, the world in which "sociality in the sense of mutuality disappears in favor of interactivity," where "experience with another and with the world in general is replaced by brief reactionary relations that hardly engage us at all." This English language translation is by David Bade.
Digital Revolutions by
From Occupy to Uncut, from the Arab Spring to the Slutwalk movement, few questions about recent activism raise as much controversy as the role of the internet. This book suggests that the internet is a tool, not a cause, of social change. It has profoundly affected the way people communicate, making it easier to find the truth, to learn from activists on the other side of the world, to co-ordinate campaigns without hierarchy and to expose governments and corporations to public ridicule. But it has also helped those same governments and corporations to spy on activists, to disrupt campaigns and to create illusions of popular support.
A History of Communications by
A History of Communications advances a theory of media that explains the origins and impact of different forms of communication - speech, writing, print, electronic devices and the Internet - on human history in the long term. New media are'pulled'into widespread use by broad historical trends and these media, once in widespread use,'push'social institutions and beliefs in predictable directions. This view allows us to see for the first time what is truly new about the Internet, what is not, and where it is taking us.
The Internet by
Give your readers a truly global perspective about the Internet. Essays from international sources offer a panoramic view. Readers will take a look at the Internet in China, Bangladesh, Africa, Canada, Iran, England, Japan, Cuba, Europe, Australia, and Russia. They will evaluate the kind of tool it is, what it can be used for, and what it shouldn't. They will also learn about cyberwar.
Internet Activism by
Internet activism can spread information and messages about citizen movements and protests to a much larger audience than more traditional forms of activism. The primary source writings in this anthology have been selected to provide your readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints on topics related to internet activism. Students are encouraged to see the validity of divergent opinions, so that they may understand topics inclusively. An important question about internet activism is presented in each chapter, and the viewpoints that follow are organized based on their response to the question.
Internet Studies : Past, Present and Future Directions by
This book considers the lessons learnt so far from the emergence of the Internet and the development of the field of Internet studies, whilst also considering possible directions for the future. Examining broad media theories and emerging theorisations around the Internet specifically, it explores the possibility of the development of an Internet theory in the future. A comprehensive overview of the field, Internet Studies considers key issues of social importance that the study of the Internet draws upon, such as the role of the Internet in civic participation and democratisation, the development of virtual communities, digital divides and social inequality, as well as Internet governance and policy control. At the same time, it examines the role of the Internet in social research and the development of highly interdisciplinary and rapidly developing Internet research. Hence, this volume maps key areas of certainty and uncertainty in the field of Internet studies and, as such, it will be of interest to scholars and students of media and communication, sociology and social research methods.
Irresistible by
"One of the most mesmerizing and important books I've read in quite some time. Alter brilliantly illuminates the new obsessions that are controlling our lives and offers the tools we need to rescue our businesses, our families, and our sanity." -- Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction--an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans. In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today's products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist. By reverse engineering behavioral addiction, Alter explains how we can harness addictive products for the good--to improve how we communicate with each other, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play--and how we can mitigate their most damaging effects on our well-being, and the health and happiness of our children. Adam Alter's previous book, Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave is available in paperback from Penguin.
The Net Delusion by
Updated with a new Afterword "The revolution will be Twittered!&rdquo declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran. But as journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov argues in The Net Delusion , the Internet is a tool that both revolutionaries and authoritarian governments can use. For all of the talk in the West about the power of the Internet to democratize societies, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. Social media sites have been used there to entrench dictators and threaten dissidents, making it harder- not easier- to promote democracy. Marshalling a compelling set of case studies, The Net Delusion shows why the cyber-utopian stance that the Internet is inherently liberating is wrong, and how ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of"Internet freedom&rdquo are misguided and, on occasion, harmful.
Oversharing: Presentations of Self in the Internet Age by
People overshare when they interact with others through the screens of computers and smartphones. Oversharing means to divulge more of their inner feelings, opinions and sexuality than they would in person, or even over the phone. Text messaging, Facebooking, tweeting, camming, blogging, online dating, and internet porn are vehicles of this oversharing, which blurs the boundary between public and private life. This book examines these presentations of self, acknowledging that we are now much more public about what used to be private. With this second edition, Agger adds a new chapter on whether privacy is possible that addresses selfies, job loss due to oversharing, the surveillance state, and examples of when the private should go public.
Policing the Internet by
This book examines the topic of policing of the Internet by presenting readers with two sides to each point under debate. Are teens in need of policing or are the dangers they face greatly exaggerated? Readers will explore whether or not the Internet requires special policing and/or regulation, the threats posed by cyberterrorism and identity theft, and the role, both positive and negative, of social networks. Two essays on cyberbullying are also included. Perspectives are presented from eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others.
Social Exclusion, Power, and Video Game Play by
While many books and articles are emerging on the new area of game studies and the application of computer games to learning, therapeutic, military and entertainment environments, few have attempted to contextualize the importance of virtual play within a broader social, cultural and political environment that raises the question of the significance of work, play, power and inequalities in the modern world. Many studies tend to concentrate on the content of virtual games, but few have questioned how power is produced or reproduced by publishers, gamers or even social media; how social exclusion (e.g., race, class, gender, etc.) in the virtual environments are reproduced from the real world; and how actors are able to use new media to transcend their fears, anxieties, prejudices and assumptions. The articles presented by the contributors in this volume represent cutting-edge research in the area of critical game play with the hope to draw attention to the need for more studies that are both sociological and critical.
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: mapping the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture by
Why the troll problem is actually a culture problem: how online trolling fits comfortably within today's media landscape.
Internet trolls live to upset as many people as possible, using all the technical and psychological tools at their disposal. They gleefully whip the media into a frenzy over a fake teen drug crisis; they post offensive messages on Facebook memorial pages, traumatizing grief-stricken friends and family; they use unabashedly racist language and images. They take pleasure in ruining a complete stranger's day and find amusement in their victim's anguish. In short, trolling is the obstacle to a kinder, gentler Internet. To quote a famous Internet meme, trolling is why we can't have nice things online. Or at least that's what we have been led to believe. In this provocative book, Whitney Phillips argues that trolling, widely condemned as obscene and deviant, actually fits comfortably within the contemporary media landscape. Trolling may be obscene, but, Phillips argues, it isn't all that deviant. Trolls' actions are born of and fueled by culturally sanctioned impulses -- which are just as damaging as the trolls' most disruptive behaviors.
Phillips describes, for example, the relationship between trolling and sensationalist corporate media -- pointing out that for trolls, exploitation is a leisure activity; for media, it's a business strategy. She shows how trolls, "the grimacing poster children for a socially networked world," align with social media. And she documents how trolls, in addition to parroting media tropes, also offer a grotesque pantomime of dominant cultural tropes, including gendered notions of dominance and success and an ideology of entitlement. We don't just have a trolling problem, Phillips argues; we have a culture problem. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things isn't only about trolls; it's about a culture in which trolls thrive.
We Are Data by
What identity means in an algorithmic age: how it works, how our lives are controlled by it, and how we can resist it Algorithms are everywhere, organizing the near limitless data that exists in our world. Derived from our every search, like, click, and purchase, algorithms determine the news we get, the ads we see, the information accessible to us and even who our friends are. These complex configurations not only form knowledge and social relationships in the digital and physical world, but also determine who we are and who we can be, both on and offline. Algorithms create and recreate us, using our data to assign and reassign our gender, race, sexuality, and citizenship status. They can recognize us as celebrities or mark us as terrorists. In this era of ubiquitous surveillance, contemporary data collection entails more than gathering information about us. Entities like Google, Facebook, and the NSA also decide what that information means, constructing our worlds and the identities we inhabit in the process. We have little control over who we algorithmically are. Our identities are made useful not for us--but for someone else. Through a series of entertaining and engaging examples, John Cheney-Lippold draws on the social constructions of identity to advance a new understanding of our algorithmic identities. We Are Data will educate and inspire readers who want to wrest back some freedom in our increasingly surveilled and algorithmically-constructed world.
Generation Digital : Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet by
Children and teens today have integrated digital culture seamlessly into their lives. For most, using the Internet, playing videogames, downloading music onto an iPod, or multitasking with a cell phone is no more complicated than setting the toaster oven to "bake" or turning on the TV. In Generation Digital, media expert and activist Kathryn C. Montgomery examines the ways in which the new media landscape is changing the nature of childhood and adolescence and analyzes recent political debates that have shaped both policy and practice in digital culture. The media has pictured the so-called "digital generation" in contradictory ways: as bold trailblazers and innocent victims, as active creators of digital culture and passive targets of digital marketing. This, says Montgomery, reflects our ambivalent attitude toward both youth and technology. She charts a confluence of historical trends that made children and teens a particularly valuable target market during the early commercialization of the Internet and describes the consumer-group advocacy campaign that led to a law to protect children's privacy on the Internet. Montgomery recounts -- as a participant and as a media scholar -- the highly publicized battles over indecency and pornography on the Internet. She shows how digital marketing taps into teenagers' developmental needs and how three public service campaigns -- about sexuality, smoking, and political involvement -- borrowed their techniques from commercial digital marketers. Not all of today's techno-savvy youth are politically disaffected; Generation Digital chronicles the ways that many have used the Internet as a political tool, mobilizing young voters in 2004 and waging battles with the music and media industries over control of cultural expression online. Montgomery's unique perspective as both advocate and analyst will help parents, politicians, and corporations take the necessary steps to create an open, diverse, equitable, and safe digital media culture for young people.
It's Complicated: the social lives of networked teens by
An essential read, written by a leading expert, for anyone who wants to understand young people's use of social media
What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens' lives? In this eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert danah boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers' ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions. Yet despite an environment of rampant fear-mongering, boyd finds that teens often find ways to engage and to develop a sense of identity.
Boyd's conclusions are essential reading not only for parents, teachers, and others who work with teens but also for anyone interested in the impact of emerging technologies on society, culture, and commerce in years to come. Offering insights gleaned from more than a decade of original fieldwork interviewing teenagers across the United States, boyd concludes reassuringly that the kids are all right. At the same time, she acknowledges that coming to terms with life in a networked era is not easy or obvious. In a technologically mediated world, life is bound to be complicated.
The Parent App: understanding families in the digital age by
Ninety-five percent of American kids have Internet access by age 11; the average number of texts a teenager sends each month is well over 3,000. More families report that technology makes life with children more challenging, not less, as parents today struggle with questions previousgenerations never faced: Is my thirteen-year-old responsible enough for a Facebook page? What will happen if I give my nine year-old a cell phone? In The Parent App, Lynn Schofield Clark provides what families have been sorely lacking: smart, sensitive, and effective strategies for coping with the dilemmas of digital and mobile media in modern life. Clark set about interviewing scores of mothers and fathers, identifying not only their variousapproaches, but how they differ according to family income. Parents in upper-income families encourage their children to use media to enhance their education and self-development and to avoid use that might distract them from goals of high achievement. Lower income families, in contrast, encouragethe use of digital and mobile media in ways that are respectful, compliant toward parents, and family-focused. Each approach has its own benefits and drawbacks, and whatever the parenting style or economic bracket, parents experience anxiety about how to manage new technology. With the understandingof a parent of teens and the rigor of a social scientist, Clark tackles a host of issues, such as family communication, online predators, cyber bullying, sexting, gamer drop-outs, helicopter parenting, technological monitoring, the effectiveness of strict controls, and much more.The Parent App is more than an advice manual. As Clark admits, technology changes too rapidly for that. Rather, she puts parenting in context, exploring the meaning of media challenges and the consequences of our responses - for our lives as family members and as members of society.
Young and the Digital : What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future by
In The Young and the Digital, S. Craig Watkins skillfully draws from more than 500 surveys and 350 in-depth interviews with young people, parents, and educators to understand how a digital lifestyle is affecting the ways youth learn, play, bond, and communicate. Timely and deeply relevant, the book covers the influence of MySpace and Facebook, the growing appetite for “anytime, anywhere” media and “fast entertainment,” how online “digital gates” reinforce race and class divisions, and how technology is transforming America’s classrooms. Watkins also debunks popular myths surrounding cyberpredators, Internet addiction, and social isolation. The result is a fascinating portrait, both celebratory and wary, about the coming of age of the first fully wired generation.
Citizenville by
" Citizenville offers both an impassioned plea for more tech-enabled government and a tour d'horizon of the ways some governments have begun using technology to good effect… a fast-paced and engaging read" -- San Francisco Chronicle
A rallying cry for revolutionizing democracy in the digital age, Citizenville reveals how ordinary Americans can reshape their government for the better. Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, argues that today's government is stuck in the last century while--in both the private sector and our personal lives--absolutely everything else has changed. The explosion of social media, the evolution of Internet commerce, the ubiquity of smart phones that can access all the world's information; in the face of these extraordinary advances, our government appears increasingly irrelevant and out of touch.
Drawing on wide-ranging interviews with thinkers and politicians, Newsom's Citizenville shows how Americans can transform their government, taking matters into their own hands to dissolve political gridlock even as they produce tangible changes in the real world. When local Web designers wanted to prevent muggings in Chicago and Oakland, they created innovative crime-mapping tools using public police data. When congressional representatives wanted citizens' input on new legislation, they used interactive blogging tools to invite public comments and changes. When a town in Texas needed to drum up civic engagement, officials invented a local digital "currency" to reward citizens for participating in government--making small-town politics suddenly as fun and addictive as online games such as Farmville. Surveying the countless small advances made by ordinary Americans in reinventing government for the twenty-first century, Newsom unveils a path for American prosperity and democratic vitality.
Newsom explains how twenty-first-century problems are too big and too expensive for the government simply to buy solutions; instead, Americans must innovate their way out. Just as the post office and the highway system provide public infrastructure to channel both personal and private enterprise--a platform upon which citizens can grow--so too could a modern digital government house the needs, concerns, information, and collaboration of an enlightened digital citizenry.
A vision for better government that truly achieves the ancient goal of commonwealth and a triumphant call for individuals to reinvigorate the country with their own two hands, Citizenville is a timely road map for restoring American prosperity and for reinventing citizenship in today's networked age.
The Offensive Internet by
The Internet has been romanticized as a zone of freedom. The alluring combination of sophisticated technology with low barriers to entry and instantaneous outreach to millions of users has mesmerized libertarians and communitarians alike. Lawmakers have joined the celebration, passing the Communications Decency Act, which enables Internet Service Providers to allow unregulated discourse without danger of liability, all in the name of enhancing freedom of speech. But an unregulated Internet is a breeding ground for offensive conduct.
At last we have a book that begins to focus on abuses made possible by anonymity, freedom from liability, and lack of oversight. The distinguished scholars assembled in this volume, drawn from law and philosophy, connect the absence of legal oversight with harassment and discrimination. Questioning the simplistic notion that abusive speech and mobocracy are the inevitable outcomes of new technology, they argue that current misuse is the outgrowth of social, technological, and legal choices. Seeing this clearly will help us to be better informed about our options.
In a field still dominated by a frontier perspective, this book has the potential to be a real game changer. Armed with example after example of harassment in Internet chat rooms and forums, the authors detail some of the vile and hateful speech that the current combination of law and technology has bred. The facts are then treated to analysis and policy prescriptions. Read this book and you will never again see the Internet through rose-colored glasses.
Everybody Lies: big data, new data, and what the Internet can tell us about who we really are by
A former Google data scientist presents an insider's look at what the vast, instantly available amounts of information from the Internet can reveal about human civilization and society.
"How much sex are people really having? How many Americans are actually racist? Is America experiencing a hidden back-alley abortion crisis? Can you game the stock market? Does violent entertainment increase the rate of violent crime? Do parents treat sons differently from daughters? How many people actually read the books they buy? In this groundbreaking work, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a Harvard-trained economist, former Google data scientist, and New York Times writer, argues that much of what we thought about people has been dead wrong. The reason? People lie, to friends, lovers, doctors, surveys--and themselves. However, we no longer need to rely on what people tell us. New data from the internet--the traces of information that billions of people leave on Google, social media, dating, and even pornography sites--finally reveals the truth. By analyzing this digital goldmine, we can now learn what people really think, what they really want, and what they really do. Sometimes the new data will make you laugh out loud. Sometimes the new data will shock you. Sometimes the new data will deeply disturb you. But, always, this new data will make you think. [This] book will change the way you view the world. There is almost no limit to what can be learned about human nature from Big Data--provided, that is, you ask the right questions.
Electronic Tribes by
Whether people want to play games and download music, engage in social networking and professional collaboration, or view pornography and incite terror, the Internet provides myriad opportunities for people who share common interests to find each other. The contributors to this book argue that these self-selected online groups are best understood as tribes, with many of the same ramifications, both positive and negative, that tribalism has in the non-cyber world.
In Electronic Tribes, the authors of sixteen competitively selected essays provide an up-to-the-minute look at the social uses and occasional abuses of online communication in the new media era. They explore many current Internet subcultures, including MySpace.com, craftster.org, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, music downloading, white supremacist and other counterculture groups, and Nigerian e-mail scams. Their research raises compelling questions and some remarkable answers about the real-life social consequences of participating in electronic tribes. Collectively, the contributors to this book capture a profound shift in the way people connect, as communities formed by geographical proximity are giving way to communities—both online and offline—formed around ideas.
Overconnected: the promise and threat of the Internet by
In Overconnected, Bill Davidow explains how the almost miraculous success of the Internet in connecting the world through the Worldwide Web has also created a unique set of hazards, in effect overconnecting us, with the direst of consequences. The benefits of our recently arrived-at state of connectivity have been myriad from the ease with which it has been possible to buy a new house to the convenience of borrowing and investing money profitably. But the luxuries of the connected age have taken on a momentum all of their own. By counter-intuitively anatomizing how being overconnected tends to create systems of positive feedback that have largely negative consequences, Davidow explains everything from the recent Subprime mortgage crisis to the meltdown of Iceland, from the loss of people's privacy to the spectacular fall of the stock market. All because we were so miraculously wired together.
Connected by
Have you ever faked a restroom trip to check your email? Slept with your laptop? Or become so overwhelmed that you just unplugged from it all? In this funny, eye-opening, and inspiring film, Director Tiffany Shlain takes audiences on an exhilarating rollercoaster ride to discover what it means to be connected in the 21st century. From founding The Webby Awards to being a passionate advocate for The National Day of Unplugging, Her love/hate relationship with technology serves as the springboard for a thrilling exploration of modern life, and our interconnected future. Equal parts documentary and memoir, the film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Shlain's father, Leonard Shlain, battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a brilliant mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain reveals the surprising ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. A personal film with universal relevance, Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead.
Generation Like: are kids using social media or is social media using kids? by
FRONTLINE correspondent Douglas Rushkoff explores how the perennial teen quest for identity and connection has migrated to social media, and exposes the game of cat-and-mouse that corporations are playing with these young consumers. Here is a powerful examination of the evolving and complicated relationship between teens and the companies that are increasingly working to target them.
Growing Up Online by
Frontline explores the ways in which today's youth use the Internet, from creating profiles on MySpace to uploading videos to YouTube, through the eyes of teenagers and their parents. Included: the digital divide faced by some parents; cyber bullying; "Internet fame"; online sexual predators. ~ Jeff Gemmill, Rovi
Life 2.0 by
Second Life is a virtual online world which is played by hundreds of thousands of users across the world assuming new identities in the form of avatars. This film explores the lure of made up identities and online addiction.
Social Media and You: Communicating in a Digital World by
Social media is much more than being on Facebook or sending a few tweets. It's about understanding all of the available tools, knowing which ones to use, how to use them effectively, and understanding terms like "Link Love", "Google Juice" and "the SEO advantages of blogging". It's about using QR codes, mobile marketing, on-line security, in-game advertising, virtual worlds, and video marketing.