It is commonplace in our digitized world to think that technology is the primary agent of psychological and social change. In "Interactive Realism" Daniel Downes argues that it continues to be people who construct social reality through their interactions, critiquing the "tranformative turn" in media studies. Distinguishing between the Internet, a communication system, and cyberspace, an environment for human exchange, the author provides a framework for exploring the metaphors and images used in cyberspace to represent and model social reality. He clarifies how these symbolic interactions...

It is commonplace in our digitized world to think that technology is the primary agent of psychological and social change. This book argues that it continues to be people who construct social reality through their interactions, critiquing the "tranformative turn" in media studies.