hi Heidi, I have used a few of those kinds of books before, but the one that I return to is: *** New Media: a Critical Introduction. - 2003 - by Martin Lister, Kieran Kelly, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings and Iain Grant. Routledge. I like this one because it is an introduction, but it is still challenging for students to read and understand. It doesn't assume that you know nothing about media or the internet. I think some "intro to new media" textbooks forget that the students are most likely familiar with the kinds of issues you would want to discuss, they just don't necessarily know how people speak academically about them (key buzzwords, different elements of [insert your own discipline], etc). There are plenty of other texts that are good reads, but I find that the one I mentioned there covers the issues and leaves room for you to add your own ideas to. It's a couple of years old now but anything contemporary that you can think of can probably be slotted into the existing material. I hope that might be of some use. Good luck! :) - adam muir PhD Candidate in Internetwork Ecology School of Arts, Griffith University
from air-l Digest, Vol 22, Issue 22
Message: 1 Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 20:47:26 +0100 (BST) From: Heidi Campbell <hcampbe1@yahoo.co.uk> Subject: [Air-l] Text book recommendations To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Message-ID: <20060523194726.96422.qmail@web25304.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Hi.
I am preparing a grad course in the fall entitled New Media, Culture & Networked Society. It will focus on social & cultural issues > raised by communication and life in an information-based society. The dominant themes to be dealt with include: community, identity, > authority/power relations and religion/ideology. I have been trying to find a core text book for such a course but have been having > difficulty.
I have considered--David Bell (2001) Introduction to Cybercultures, New York: Routledge?as an introductory text but it seems a bit > dated now. I would welcome any recommendations from the list, or ?must-read? journal articles for the topics I have listed above.
Thanks.
Heidi Campbell Dept. of Communication Texas A&M University