Seeking to better understand the interaction between users and new media and among individuals within the ambit of new media, this two-volume set systematically investigates the new media user both as an integral individual in networks and as an individual in mediatized time and space.
The first volume revisits the multiple ways in which new media users have mutated from a passive "audience" to basic units within networks, acting as both nodes in communication networks, social networks, and service networks and a link between the three. The author unravels new landscapes of communication in the new media era, profound changes in social relationship, and the productive roles that users play in the network economy. The second volume elucidates the mediatized human lives and self-expressions embodied in key new media phenomena and explicates how reality and virtual life converge and interact. It also touches upon new forms of mediatization in the digital age and the approaching age of artificial intelligence.
This title will be a must-read for scholars, students and media professionals interested in the topics of internet communication, new media usage and media and society as a whole.