This second edition attempts the seemingly difficult task of assessing and
illustrating a range of debates around ‘new media’ in a very ‘old media’ context
– a textbook. Whilst the book, like many publications in these times, pays lip
service to what it observes through the provision of a ‘companion website’ it is
clear that this is a very scholarly, conventional and authoritative text and
there is no need for it to shy away from that despite the appearance of a
‘disconnect’ on one level.
The content is divided into large sections, each with its own bibliography,
and these are thematic – change and continuity, virtual images / images of the
virtual, new media and identity, theories of cyberculture. Each of these is
broken down into a large range of sub-themes and each of these in turn is
overflowing with references so we really get the sense of a ‘completist’
approach to the subject but at the same time the tone of a thrown together ‘A-Z’
or a cursory ‘key concepts’ is always avoided. The obligatory case studies
(always a hostage to fortune in such a rapidly changing arena) illustrate the
key points and I have used a couple of these with students – Kate
Modern and the Xbox and its ‘social shaping’, but many are from too narrow
a time frame so they are neither contemporary nor sufficiently diverse in
historical contexts.
