From Marilyn Monroe to the Spice Girls, from Grover Cleveland to President Clinton, to one's naked form reflected in the mirror each morning, Americans are taught to read bodies as symbols displaying and revealing hidden truths about the individual and his or her behaviours. Any discussion of the body becomes complex and muddled as one tries to analyze how and why certain body types are attributed certain meanings.

In "Technological Turf Wars", Jessica Johnston analyzes the tensions and political dilemmas that coexist in the interrelationship among science, technology and society. Illustrating how computer security is as concerned with social relationships as it is with technology, Johnston provides an illuminating ethnography that considers corporate culture and the workplace environment of the antivirus industry.Using a qualitative, interdisciplinary approach, which combines organizational and security studies with critical and social analysis of science and technology, Johnston questions the...

Johnston questions the motivations, contradictions and negotiations of antivirus professionals. She examines the tensions between the service ethics and profit motives and considers the dynamics within companies by looking at facets such as gender bias and power politics.