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Description

Is the Internet the key to a reinvigorated public life? Or will it fragment society by enabling citizens to associate only with like-minded others? Online community has provided social researchers with insights into our evolving social life. As suburbanization and the breakdown of the extended family and neighborhood isolate individuals more and more, the Internet appears as a possible source for reconnection. Are virtual communities 'real' enough to support the kind of personal commitment and growth we associate with community life, or are they fragile and ultimately unsatisfying substitutes for human interaction? Community in the Digital Age features the latest, most challenging work in an important and fast-changing field, providing a forum for some of the leading North American social scientists and philosophers concerned with the social and political implications of this new technology. Their provocative arguments touch on all sides of the debate surrounding the Internet, community, and democracy.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Preface
Chapter 3 1 Consumers or Citizens? The Online Community Debate
Part 4 Part I: The Question of Community and Digital Technology
Chapter 5 2 The Vanishing Table, or Community in a World That is No World
Chapter 6 3 Is the Internet the Solution to the Problem of Community?
Chapter 7 4 Nihilism on the Information Highway: Anonymity versus commitment in the Present Age
Chapter 8 5 Workers as Cyborgs: Labor and Networked Computers
Chapter 9 6 Our Split Screens
Part 10 Part II Observing Online Communities
Chapter 11 7 Virtual Togetherness: An Everyday Life Perspective
Chapter 12 8 Gender and the Commodification of Community: Women.com and gURL.com
Chapter 13 9 Ethics on the Internet: A Comparative Study of Japan, the United States, and Singapore
Part 14 Part III The Democratic Potential of the Internet
Chapter 15 10 Virtually Democratic: Online Communities and Internet Activism
Chapter 16 11 The Practical Republic: Social Skills and the Progress of Citizenship
Chapter 17 12 On Virtual, Democratic Communities
Chapter 18 13 The Internet and Political Transformation Revisited
Chapter 19 14 Towards Civic Intelligence: Building a New Sociotechnological Infrastructure

Product details

Published Jul 26 2004
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 336
ISBN 9780742574434
Imprint Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Andrew Feenberg

Anthology Editor

Darin Barney

Contributor

Phillip E. Agre

Contributor

Bruce Bimber

Contributor

Albert Borgmann

Contributor

Hubert Dreyfus

Contributor

Amitai Etzioni

Contributor

Andrew Feenberg

Contributor

Tetsuji Iseda

Contributor

Richard Kahn

Contributor

Douglas Kellner

Contributor

Yumiko Nara

Contributor

Mark Poster

Contributor

Douglas Schuler

Contributor

Sherry Turkle

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