Author: Alessandra Lemma
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351815938
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
The Digital Age is on the couch. Working today, it is essential that clinicians understand the world we live in. The transition from an industrial economy to an information economy impacts not just the external structure of society and commerce, but also the internal psychic economies of our brains and, inevitably, how clinicians conceptualise the analytic setting in which they practice as therapists and analysts. The Digital Age on the Couch seeks to understand more about how new technologies interact with the prerogatives of an individual’s internal world, how they may alter psychic structure itself in fundamental ways and the implications this may have for the individual’s functioning and for the operation of society. This book attempts, from the perspective of a working clinician, to make some sense of this. The impact of mediation via technology and the consequent disintermediation of the body represent central themes throughout, as they impact on the experience of embodiment, on the ‘work of desire’ and on the way new media influences psychoanalytic practice. New media offer opportunities for increasing accessibility to mental health care, including psychoanalytic interventions. However, this requires a sophisticated understanding of how to best create and safeguard the analytic setting. Alessandra Lemma here guides the clinician through an exploration of the limitations and risks of mediated psychotherapy, illustrated with clinical examples throughout. The Digital Age on the Couch offers an accessibly written guide to combining existing psychoanalytic theory and practice with the challenges presented by digital media. It will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and counsellors.
The Digital Age on the Couch
Author: Alessandra Lemma
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351815938
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
The Digital Age is on the couch. Working today, it is essential that clinicians understand the world we live in. The transition from an industrial economy to an information economy impacts not just the external structure of society and commerce, but also the internal psychic economies of our brains and, inevitably, how clinicians conceptualise the analytic setting in which they practice as therapists and analysts. The Digital Age on the Couch seeks to understand more about how new technologies interact with the prerogatives of an individual’s internal world, how they may alter psychic structure itself in fundamental ways and the implications this may have for the individual’s functioning and for the operation of society. This book attempts, from the perspective of a working clinician, to make some sense of this. The impact of mediation via technology and the consequent disintermediation of the body represent central themes throughout, as they impact on the experience of embodiment, on the ‘work of desire’ and on the way new media influences psychoanalytic practice. New media offer opportunities for increasing accessibility to mental health care, including psychoanalytic interventions. However, this requires a sophisticated understanding of how to best create and safeguard the analytic setting. Alessandra Lemma here guides the clinician through an exploration of the limitations and risks of mediated psychotherapy, illustrated with clinical examples throughout. The Digital Age on the Couch offers an accessibly written guide to combining existing psychoanalytic theory and practice with the challenges presented by digital media. It will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and counsellors.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351815938
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
The Digital Age is on the couch. Working today, it is essential that clinicians understand the world we live in. The transition from an industrial economy to an information economy impacts not just the external structure of society and commerce, but also the internal psychic economies of our brains and, inevitably, how clinicians conceptualise the analytic setting in which they practice as therapists and analysts. The Digital Age on the Couch seeks to understand more about how new technologies interact with the prerogatives of an individual’s internal world, how they may alter psychic structure itself in fundamental ways and the implications this may have for the individual’s functioning and for the operation of society. This book attempts, from the perspective of a working clinician, to make some sense of this. The impact of mediation via technology and the consequent disintermediation of the body represent central themes throughout, as they impact on the experience of embodiment, on the ‘work of desire’ and on the way new media influences psychoanalytic practice. New media offer opportunities for increasing accessibility to mental health care, including psychoanalytic interventions. However, this requires a sophisticated understanding of how to best create and safeguard the analytic setting. Alessandra Lemma here guides the clinician through an exploration of the limitations and risks of mediated psychotherapy, illustrated with clinical examples throughout. The Digital Age on the Couch offers an accessibly written guide to combining existing psychoanalytic theory and practice with the challenges presented by digital media. It will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and counsellors.
Literature in the Digital Age
Author: Adam Hammond
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107041902
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
This book guides readers through the most salient theoretical and creative possibilities opened up by the shift to digital literary forms.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107041902
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
This book guides readers through the most salient theoretical and creative possibilities opened up by the shift to digital literary forms.
Gen Z, Explained
Author: Roberta Katz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226823962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
An optimistic and nuanced portrait of a generation that has much to teach us about how to live and collaborate in our digital world. Born since the mid-1990s, members of Generation Z comprise the first generation never to know the world without the internet, and the most diverse generation yet. As Gen Z starts to emerge into adulthood and enter the workforce, what do we really know about them? And what can we learn from them? Gen Z, Explained is the authoritative portrait of this significant generation. It draws on extensive interviews that display this generation’s candor, surveys that explore their views and attitudes, and a vast database of their astonishingly inventive lexicon to build a comprehensive picture of their values, daily lives, and outlook. Gen Z emerges here as an extraordinarily thoughtful, promising, and perceptive generation that is sounding a warning to their elders about the world around them—a warning of a complexity and depth the “OK Boomer” phenomenon can only suggest. Much of the existing literature about Gen Z has been highly judgmental. In contrast, this book provides a deep and nuanced understanding of a generation facing a future of enormous challenges, from climate change to civil unrest. What’s more, they are facing this future head-on, relying on themselves and their peers to work collaboratively to solve these problems. As Gen Z, Explained shows, this group of young people is as compassionate and imaginative as any that has come before, and understanding the way they tackle problems may enable us to envision new kinds of solutions. This portrait of Gen Z is ultimately an optimistic one, suggesting they have something to teach all of us about how to live and thrive in this digital world.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226823962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
An optimistic and nuanced portrait of a generation that has much to teach us about how to live and collaborate in our digital world. Born since the mid-1990s, members of Generation Z comprise the first generation never to know the world without the internet, and the most diverse generation yet. As Gen Z starts to emerge into adulthood and enter the workforce, what do we really know about them? And what can we learn from them? Gen Z, Explained is the authoritative portrait of this significant generation. It draws on extensive interviews that display this generation’s candor, surveys that explore their views and attitudes, and a vast database of their astonishingly inventive lexicon to build a comprehensive picture of their values, daily lives, and outlook. Gen Z emerges here as an extraordinarily thoughtful, promising, and perceptive generation that is sounding a warning to their elders about the world around them—a warning of a complexity and depth the “OK Boomer” phenomenon can only suggest. Much of the existing literature about Gen Z has been highly judgmental. In contrast, this book provides a deep and nuanced understanding of a generation facing a future of enormous challenges, from climate change to civil unrest. What’s more, they are facing this future head-on, relying on themselves and their peers to work collaboratively to solve these problems. As Gen Z, Explained shows, this group of young people is as compassionate and imaginative as any that has come before, and understanding the way they tackle problems may enable us to envision new kinds of solutions. This portrait of Gen Z is ultimately an optimistic one, suggesting they have something to teach all of us about how to live and thrive in this digital world.
The Digital Age
Author: Rob Imperato
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1493177966
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 114
Book Description
I wrote this book not to give a negative or bleak outlook on how our culture has evolved with the digital age but to show that the vast and rapid expansion of technology can be and is a double-edged sword. This is to share my perception as to what many are experiencing and what my experiences not only as an adult but as a parent with small glimpses looking back at my own childhood! Most importantly, I share the experiences of the many wonderful parents that have shared with me their concerns and challenges in this highly and ever-evolving technological age, which I feel has become much more of a challenge than when my children were growing up. When it comes to parenting, there is no right or wrong about how we feel. These are our feelings, emotions, and values. No one has the right to tell us how or what we should or should not feel. And I am surely not positioning myself to tell anyone how to raise their children or what they are doing is right or wrong, but possibly to offer insight, to see things from another perspective. Included are some thought-provoking, self-empowering questions. Many parents take it so to heart that they define themselves through their children, above being a parent but as a person. Parenting is tough, but it should not be thought of as job but as a gift that we were given! It is, however, a mission of vision, passion, and purpose. It is an opportunity of a lifetime, with an enormous responsibility attached to it, for the parents but even more so for the children. As will be repeated, knowing what we truly want for our children is the key. Teaching them the life skills and giving them the tools needed to not only navigate but also overcome the obstacles in life offer them the foundation for success. Sharing our wisdom and our own life experiences with them is a customized education that cannot be bought. Many of us have watched the nature documentaries showing the Animal Kingdom, specifically wildlife Parenting 101. How the mother regardless of specie will protect her babies with her life. Just like human mothers, they are absolutely willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. How that mother teaches her babies the life skills needed to survive and beyond that thrive. And the best chance for them to survive ultimately will be to self-protect! In this case how to hunt, to sense danger, create living quarters be it a nest, den, cave, burrow, etc., in a time frame that she deems necessary for them. She is preparing them for adulthood. Once she deems that the time frame has elapsed, it is time to for them to move out, go out on the own, and create their life. The mothering part of parenting is complete, the nurturing is done. From birth, she instinctively knew what she wanted for them and what they critically needed from her. Remember, if it is really tough to be a parent in today's culture, how tough is it to be a child today? I am sure many, many people say it has become so much easier, that kids do have it easier--absolutely, on a physical level, but what about on the emotional level? Stress and the accompanying emotions they are not yet equipped to handle. I will share with you the effects and concerns that were shared to me by both the parents and the wonderful children that I have met and spoken to, remembering that each individual's perception is their reality, one different from the other but to all a concern. This is not about all the children and all the parents. This is about the ones that have expressed their challenges and concerns as well as those who are challenged and concerned that I have yet to meet. Take a moment now--right now--to reflect on the incredible moment of childbirth--the giving of life! What a wonderful gift for both parent and child, something that only you could have created--your child. Think about how you felt in that moment, the overwhelming awe, pride, love, and accomplishment. Think about your visions at that point of the future, how hopeful and full of great intention of becoming the best parent your child could want or need. Now at this moment, give yourself credit and acknowledge all you have done, all the effort, all the love, letting go of the ever-repeating self-thought of what you have not done, but for all you have accomplished through thick and thin for your child. And if you have lost sight of that vision, go find it, dust it off, embrace it and continue forward to accomplish what you want most.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1493177966
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 114
Book Description
I wrote this book not to give a negative or bleak outlook on how our culture has evolved with the digital age but to show that the vast and rapid expansion of technology can be and is a double-edged sword. This is to share my perception as to what many are experiencing and what my experiences not only as an adult but as a parent with small glimpses looking back at my own childhood! Most importantly, I share the experiences of the many wonderful parents that have shared with me their concerns and challenges in this highly and ever-evolving technological age, which I feel has become much more of a challenge than when my children were growing up. When it comes to parenting, there is no right or wrong about how we feel. These are our feelings, emotions, and values. No one has the right to tell us how or what we should or should not feel. And I am surely not positioning myself to tell anyone how to raise their children or what they are doing is right or wrong, but possibly to offer insight, to see things from another perspective. Included are some thought-provoking, self-empowering questions. Many parents take it so to heart that they define themselves through their children, above being a parent but as a person. Parenting is tough, but it should not be thought of as job but as a gift that we were given! It is, however, a mission of vision, passion, and purpose. It is an opportunity of a lifetime, with an enormous responsibility attached to it, for the parents but even more so for the children. As will be repeated, knowing what we truly want for our children is the key. Teaching them the life skills and giving them the tools needed to not only navigate but also overcome the obstacles in life offer them the foundation for success. Sharing our wisdom and our own life experiences with them is a customized education that cannot be bought. Many of us have watched the nature documentaries showing the Animal Kingdom, specifically wildlife Parenting 101. How the mother regardless of specie will protect her babies with her life. Just like human mothers, they are absolutely willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. How that mother teaches her babies the life skills needed to survive and beyond that thrive. And the best chance for them to survive ultimately will be to self-protect! In this case how to hunt, to sense danger, create living quarters be it a nest, den, cave, burrow, etc., in a time frame that she deems necessary for them. She is preparing them for adulthood. Once she deems that the time frame has elapsed, it is time to for them to move out, go out on the own, and create their life. The mothering part of parenting is complete, the nurturing is done. From birth, she instinctively knew what she wanted for them and what they critically needed from her. Remember, if it is really tough to be a parent in today's culture, how tough is it to be a child today? I am sure many, many people say it has become so much easier, that kids do have it easier--absolutely, on a physical level, but what about on the emotional level? Stress and the accompanying emotions they are not yet equipped to handle. I will share with you the effects and concerns that were shared to me by both the parents and the wonderful children that I have met and spoken to, remembering that each individual's perception is their reality, one different from the other but to all a concern. This is not about all the children and all the parents. This is about the ones that have expressed their challenges and concerns as well as those who are challenged and concerned that I have yet to meet. Take a moment now--right now--to reflect on the incredible moment of childbirth--the giving of life! What a wonderful gift for both parent and child, something that only you could have created--your child. Think about how you felt in that moment, the overwhelming awe, pride, love, and accomplishment. Think about your visions at that point of the future, how hopeful and full of great intention of becoming the best parent your child could want or need. Now at this moment, give yourself credit and acknowledge all you have done, all the effort, all the love, letting go of the ever-repeating self-thought of what you have not done, but for all you have accomplished through thick and thin for your child. And if you have lost sight of that vision, go find it, dust it off, embrace it and continue forward to accomplish what you want most.
Media in the Digital Age
Author: John Vernon Pavlik
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231142099
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 362
Book Description
Digital technologies have fundamentally altered the nature and function of media in our society. This book critically examines digital innovations and their positive and negative implications.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231142099
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 362
Book Description
Digital technologies have fundamentally altered the nature and function of media in our society. This book critically examines digital innovations and their positive and negative implications.
Winning In The Digital Age
Author: Nitin Seth
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 9353057981
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
The practical handbook for understanding and winning in the post-COVID digital age and becoming a 21st century leader. For every enterprise and its leaders, the digital age is a roller-coaster ride with more than its fair share of thrills and spills. It presents them with great opportunities to leapfrog and grow. However, success is not easy in the Digital Age. It requires a complete overhaul of the business model and organizational design, and the mind-sets of professionals. Such a large and complex change is not easy to manage, and enterprises often lose their way in their digital transformation attempts. Nitin brings in this book his 25+ years of experience in leadership roles in world-class firms like Mckinsey and Fidelity and Digital natives like Flipkart and Incedo. He presents compelling insights and practical examples and answers key questions on how enterprises can win in the Digital Age: • Why do firms fail at digital transformation? • How are the rules of business changing in the digital age? What disruptive opportunities does digital present in various industries? • How to best leverage the potential of digital technologies like AI and the Cloud? • How do organizational capabilities and culture need to change? • What new skills do leaders and young professionals need to build? Nitin brings clarity to the transformation process, breaking it down into seven building blocks and presenting how best to master them. The book is a practitioner’s guide for people across all age groups - students, young professionals, experienced professionals, senior executives on how they can realize the amazing opportunities the digital age offers them and achieve their true potential at work and in personal life.
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 9353057981
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
The practical handbook for understanding and winning in the post-COVID digital age and becoming a 21st century leader. For every enterprise and its leaders, the digital age is a roller-coaster ride with more than its fair share of thrills and spills. It presents them with great opportunities to leapfrog and grow. However, success is not easy in the Digital Age. It requires a complete overhaul of the business model and organizational design, and the mind-sets of professionals. Such a large and complex change is not easy to manage, and enterprises often lose their way in their digital transformation attempts. Nitin brings in this book his 25+ years of experience in leadership roles in world-class firms like Mckinsey and Fidelity and Digital natives like Flipkart and Incedo. He presents compelling insights and practical examples and answers key questions on how enterprises can win in the Digital Age: • Why do firms fail at digital transformation? • How are the rules of business changing in the digital age? What disruptive opportunities does digital present in various industries? • How to best leverage the potential of digital technologies like AI and the Cloud? • How do organizational capabilities and culture need to change? • What new skills do leaders and young professionals need to build? Nitin brings clarity to the transformation process, breaking it down into seven building blocks and presenting how best to master them. The book is a practitioner’s guide for people across all age groups - students, young professionals, experienced professionals, senior executives on how they can realize the amazing opportunities the digital age offers them and achieve their true potential at work and in personal life.
Family Business on the Couch
Author: Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470687479
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
The challenge faced by family businesses and their stakeholders, is to recognise the issues that they face, understand how to develop strategies to address them and more importantly, to create narratives, or family stories that explain the emotional dimension of the issues to the family. The most intractable family business issues are not the business problems the organisation faces, but the emotional issues that compound them. Applying psychodynamic concepts will help to explain behaviour and will enable the family to prepare for life cycle transitions and other issues that may arise. Here is a new understanding and a broader perspective on the human dynamics of family firms with two complementary frameworks, psychodynamic and family systematic, to help make sense of family-run organisations. Although this book includes a conceptual section, it is first and foremost a practical book about the real world issues faced by business families. The book begins by demonstrating that many years of achievement through generations can be destroyed by the next, if the family fails to address the psychological issues they face. By exploring cases from famous and less well known family businesses across the world, the authors discuss entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial family and the lifecycles of the individual and the organisation. They go on to show how companies going through change and transition can avoid the pitfalls that endanger both family and company. The authors then apply tools that will help family businesses in transition and offer their analyses and conclusions. Readers should draw their own conclusions from careful examination of the cases, identifying the problems or dilemmas faced and the options for improved business performance and family relationships. They should ask what they might have done in the given situation and what new insight into individual or family behaviour each case offers. The goal is to avoid a bitter ending.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470687479
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
The challenge faced by family businesses and their stakeholders, is to recognise the issues that they face, understand how to develop strategies to address them and more importantly, to create narratives, or family stories that explain the emotional dimension of the issues to the family. The most intractable family business issues are not the business problems the organisation faces, but the emotional issues that compound them. Applying psychodynamic concepts will help to explain behaviour and will enable the family to prepare for life cycle transitions and other issues that may arise. Here is a new understanding and a broader perspective on the human dynamics of family firms with two complementary frameworks, psychodynamic and family systematic, to help make sense of family-run organisations. Although this book includes a conceptual section, it is first and foremost a practical book about the real world issues faced by business families. The book begins by demonstrating that many years of achievement through generations can be destroyed by the next, if the family fails to address the psychological issues they face. By exploring cases from famous and less well known family businesses across the world, the authors discuss entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial family and the lifecycles of the individual and the organisation. They go on to show how companies going through change and transition can avoid the pitfalls that endanger both family and company. The authors then apply tools that will help family businesses in transition and offer their analyses and conclusions. Readers should draw their own conclusions from careful examination of the cases, identifying the problems or dilemmas faced and the options for improved business performance and family relationships. They should ask what they might have done in the given situation and what new insight into individual or family behaviour each case offers. The goal is to avoid a bitter ending.
Children and Families in the Digital Age
Author: Elisabeth Gee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315297159
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
Children and Families in the Digital Age offers a fresh, nuanced, and empirically-based perspective on how families are using digital media to enhance learning, routines, and relationships. This powerful edited collection contributes to a growing body of work suggesting the importance of understanding how the consequences of digital media use are shaped by family culture, values, practices, and the larger social and economic contexts of families’ lives. Chapters offer case studies, real-life examples, and analyses of large-scale national survey data, and provide insights into previously unexplored topics such as the role of siblings in shaping the home media ecology.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315297159
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
Children and Families in the Digital Age offers a fresh, nuanced, and empirically-based perspective on how families are using digital media to enhance learning, routines, and relationships. This powerful edited collection contributes to a growing body of work suggesting the importance of understanding how the consequences of digital media use are shaped by family culture, values, practices, and the larger social and economic contexts of families’ lives. Chapters offer case studies, real-life examples, and analyses of large-scale national survey data, and provide insights into previously unexplored topics such as the role of siblings in shaping the home media ecology.
The Couch Potato
Author: Jory John
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006302604X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40
Book Description
An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Indie Bestseller * An Indie Next List Selection Feeling fried? Peel yourself on the couch and meet your new pal-tato! The winning fourth picture book from the #1 New York Times bestselling creators of The Bad Seed, The Good Egg, and The Cool Bean, Jory John and Pete Oswald, will get you and your kids moving! The Couch Potato has everything within reach and doesn't have to move from the sunken couch cushion. But when the electricity goes out, Couch Potato is forced to peel away from the comforts of the living room and venture outside. Could fresh air and sunshine possibly be better than the views on screen? Readers of all ages will laugh along as their new best spuddy learns that balancing screen time and playtime is the root to true happiness. Check out Jory John and Pete Oswald’s funny, bestselling books for kids 4-8 and anyone who wants a laugh: The Bad Seed The Good Egg The Cool Bean The Couch Potato The Good Egg Presents: The Great Eggscape! The Bad Seed Presents: The Good, the Bad, the Spooky! The Cool Bean Presents: As Cool as It Gets That’s What Dinosaurs Do
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006302604X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40
Book Description
An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Indie Bestseller * An Indie Next List Selection Feeling fried? Peel yourself on the couch and meet your new pal-tato! The winning fourth picture book from the #1 New York Times bestselling creators of The Bad Seed, The Good Egg, and The Cool Bean, Jory John and Pete Oswald, will get you and your kids moving! The Couch Potato has everything within reach and doesn't have to move from the sunken couch cushion. But when the electricity goes out, Couch Potato is forced to peel away from the comforts of the living room and venture outside. Could fresh air and sunshine possibly be better than the views on screen? Readers of all ages will laugh along as their new best spuddy learns that balancing screen time and playtime is the root to true happiness. Check out Jory John and Pete Oswald’s funny, bestselling books for kids 4-8 and anyone who wants a laugh: The Bad Seed The Good Egg The Cool Bean The Couch Potato The Good Egg Presents: The Great Eggscape! The Bad Seed Presents: The Good, the Bad, the Spooky! The Cool Bean Presents: As Cool as It Gets That’s What Dinosaurs Do
Information Technologies and Social Orders
Author: Carl J. Couch
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780202366845
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
The history of human society, as Carl Couch recounts it in his speculative final book, is a history of successive, sometimes overlapping information technologies used to process the varied symbolic representations that inform particular social contexts. Couch departs from earlier "media" theorists who ignored these contexts in order to concentrate on the technologies themselves. Here, instead, he adopts a consistent theory of interpersonal and intergroup relations to depict the essential interface between the technologies and the social contexts. He emphasizes the dynamic and formative capacities of such technologies, and places them within the major institutional relations of societies of any size. Social orders are viewed in these pages as inherently and reflexively shaped by the information technologies that participants in the institutions use to carry out their work. The manuscript was nearly complete in draft at the time of Couch's death. He has left a bold, synthetic statement, reclaiming the common ground of sociology and communication studies and articulating the indispensability of each for the other. With admirable scope, across historical epochs and cultures, he shows in detail the transformative power of information technologies. While the author hopes that a humane vision comes with each technological advance, he nonetheless describes the numerous instances of mass brutality and oppression that have resulted from the oligarchic control of those technologies. Couch's theory and substantive analysis speak directly to the interests of historians, sociologists, and communication scholars. In its review, Contemporary Sociology said: "The volume is full of smart insights and valuable information, a fitting final effort for a scholar of great distinction." Carl J. Couch was professor of sociology at the University of Iowa and was president of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction which he helped to establish, and is known as the creator of the New Iowa School of Symbolic Interaction. He died in 1994. The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research was established in his memory. David R. Maines is chairperson at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Oakland University, and editor of the Communication and Social Order series. Shing- Ling Chen is assistant professor of mass communication at the University of Northern Iowa.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780202366845
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
The history of human society, as Carl Couch recounts it in his speculative final book, is a history of successive, sometimes overlapping information technologies used to process the varied symbolic representations that inform particular social contexts. Couch departs from earlier "media" theorists who ignored these contexts in order to concentrate on the technologies themselves. Here, instead, he adopts a consistent theory of interpersonal and intergroup relations to depict the essential interface between the technologies and the social contexts. He emphasizes the dynamic and formative capacities of such technologies, and places them within the major institutional relations of societies of any size. Social orders are viewed in these pages as inherently and reflexively shaped by the information technologies that participants in the institutions use to carry out their work. The manuscript was nearly complete in draft at the time of Couch's death. He has left a bold, synthetic statement, reclaiming the common ground of sociology and communication studies and articulating the indispensability of each for the other. With admirable scope, across historical epochs and cultures, he shows in detail the transformative power of information technologies. While the author hopes that a humane vision comes with each technological advance, he nonetheless describes the numerous instances of mass brutality and oppression that have resulted from the oligarchic control of those technologies. Couch's theory and substantive analysis speak directly to the interests of historians, sociologists, and communication scholars. In its review, Contemporary Sociology said: "The volume is full of smart insights and valuable information, a fitting final effort for a scholar of great distinction." Carl J. Couch was professor of sociology at the University of Iowa and was president of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction which he helped to establish, and is known as the creator of the New Iowa School of Symbolic Interaction. He died in 1994. The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research was established in his memory. David R. Maines is chairperson at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Oakland University, and editor of the Communication and Social Order series. Shing- Ling Chen is assistant professor of mass communication at the University of Northern Iowa.