Frontiers in New Media Research [Hardcover]

This volume puts together the works of a group of distinguished scholars and active researchers in the field of media and communication studies to reflect upon the past, present, and future of new media research. The chapters examine the implications of new media technologies on everyday life, existing social institutions, and the society at large at various levels of analysis. Macro-level analyses of changing techno-social formation  such as discussions of the rise of surveillance society and the fifth estate  are combined with studies on concrete and specific new media phenomena, such as the rise of Pro-Am collaboration and fan labor online. In the process, prominent concepts in the field of new media studies, such as social capital, displacement, and convergence, are critically examined, while new theoretical perspectives are proposed and explicated. Reflecting the inter-disciplinary nature of the field of new media studies and communication research in general, the chapters interrogate into the problematic through a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The book should offer students and researchers who are interested in the social impact of new media both critical reviews of the existing literature and inspirations for developing new research questions.

Preface  Ronald E. Rice  1. Introduction: Challenges for New Media Research  Francis L. F. Lee, Louis Leung, Jack Linchuan Qiu and Donna S. C. Chu  Part I: Techno-Social Formations  2. Whats the Use of the Public Sphere in the Age of the Internet?  Frank Webster  3. The Internet and Democratic Accountability: The Rise of the Fifth Estate  William H. Dutton  4. Surveillance Technologies and Social Transformation: Emerging Challenges of Socio-Technical Change  David Lyon  5. The Prolãô