Danielle Sarver Coombs

Simon Collister

By evaluating the Internet's impact on key cultural issues of the day, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the seismic technological and cultural shifts the Internet has created in contemporary society. Books about Internet culture usually focus on the people, places, sites, and memes that constitute the "cutting-edge" at the time the book is written. That approach, alas, renders such volumes quickly obsolete. This provocative work, on the other hand, focuses on overarching themes that will remain relevant for the long term. The insights it shares will highlight the tremendous impact of the Internet on modern civilization—and individual lives—well after specific players and sites have fallen out of favor. Content is presented in two volumes. The first emphasizes the positive impact of Internet culture—for example, 24-hour access to information, music, books, merchandise, employment opportunities, and even romance. The second discusses the Internet's darker consequences, such as a demand for instant news that often pushes journalists to prioritize being first over being right, online scams, and invasions of privacy that can affect anyone who banks, shops, pays bills, or posts online. Readers of the set will clearly understand how the Internet has revolutionized communications and redefined human interaction, coming away with a unique appreciation of the realities of today's digital world—for better and for worse.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Our Online World [2 volumes]

Debates for the Digital Age

Sarah Roberts-Bowman

This book brings together a broad and diverse range of new and radical approaches to public relations focussing on the increasingly vital role that visual, sensory and physical elements factors play in shaping communication. Engaging with recent developments in critical and cultural theories, it outlines how non-textual and non-representational forces play a central role in the efficacy and reception of public relations. Challenging the dominant accounts of public relations which center on the purely representational uses of text and imagery, the book critiques the suitability of accepted definitions of the field and highlights future directions for conceptualizing strategic communication within a multi-sensory environment. Drawing on the work of global researchers in public relations, visual culture and communication, design and cultural theory, it brings a welcome inter-disciplinary approach which pushes the boundaries of public relations scholarship in a global cultural context. This exciting analysis will be of great interest to public relations scholars, advanced students of strategic communication, as well as communication researchers from cultural, media and critical studies exploring PR as a socio-cultural phenomenon.

Strategic Communication Beyond Text

Visual Public Relations

By evaluating the Internet's impact on key cultural issues of the day, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the seismic technological and cultural shifts the Internet has created in contemporary society. • Includes essays on overarching themes and issues that are essential to understanding Internet culture, including privacy, celebrity, superficiality, and the personal toll online living can have on users • Addresses current Internet material as well as classic memes, sites, and products • Engages readers through a deliberately provocative point of view • Provides a comprehensive examination of the realities surrounding Internet culture, which can be extremely positive or very ugly • Differentiates itself from other examinations of Internet culture through emphasis on continuing themes rather than time-specific content • Takes a distinctly international approach to the topic of today's digital, interconnected world

Simon Collister

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