This lively and engaging text introduces students to the major debates and data on the information society, and at the same time teaches them how to research it. It gives an overview of:
* theorists of the information society, particularly Manuel Castells and Daniel Bell
* social research methodologies, including positivist, interpretivist, critical and cultural
* qualitative and quantitative research methods and criteria for social science evaluation.
Drawing on a rich body of empirical work, it explores three core themes of information society debates: the transformation of...

Reviewing key contemporary issues and debates about consumption, this book portrays and assesses the varied and complex intersections of consumption and everyday life. It shows the varying balance between constraint and creativity, links between consumption and production, and the patterns which shape access to symbolic and material resources.

Alertness to the changing terms of debate, familiarity with the latest scholarship and a shrewd, practical sense of what works in teaching make this collection a very worthwhile addition to course reading lists' - "John Corner, University of Liverpool

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The Media Reader is an essential sourcebook of key statements about transformations in media culture. The Reader explores the technological, economic, social and cultural processes implicated in the production, regulation, circulation and consumption of media forms. It applies theoretical approaches, supported by a range of case studies,...

This text is an essential sourcebook of key statements about transformations in media culture. Focusing on questions of democracy, technology and culture, it provides theoretical approaches to past and present media transformations; and case studies of a range of media, both old media in new times and emerging new media.