Digital Media ─ Transformations in Human Communication

The age of digital media has given rise to a new social world. It is a world in which the transmission of information from the few to the many is steadily being supplanted by the multi-directional flow of facts, lies, and ideas. It is a world in which hundreds of millions of people are voluntarily depositing large amounts of personal details in publicly accessible databases. It is a world in which interpersonal relationships are increasingly being conducted in the virtual sphere. Above all, this is a world that seems to be veering off in unpredictable ways from the trends of the immediate past. This book is a probing examination of that world, and of the changes that it has ushered into our lives.

In more than thirty essays by a wide range of scholars, this must-have second edition examines the impact of digital media in six areas—information, persuasion, community, gender and sexuality, surveillance and privacy, and cross-cultural communication—and offers an invaluable guide for students and scholars alike. With one exception, all essays are completely new or revised for this volume.

Paul Messaris (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is the Lev Kuleshov Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. He has directed several films, and is the author of Visual Literacy: Image, Mind, and Reality, winner of the National Communication Association’s Diamond Anniversary Book Award.

Lee Humphreys (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. She is the author of The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life (2018) and the Chair of the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association.