About the Book

The study of new media opens up some of the most fascinating issues in contemporary culture: questions of ownership and control over information and cultural goods; the changing experience of space and time; the political consequences of new communication technologies; and the power of users and consumers to disrupt established economic and business models. The New Media Theory Reader brings together key readings on new media – what it is, where it came from, how it affects our lives, and how it is managed. Using work from media studies, cultural history and cultural studies, economics, law, and politics, the essays encourage readers to pay close attention to the ‘new’ in new media, as well as considering it as a historical phenomenon. The Reader features a general introduction as well as an editors’ introduction to each thematic section, and a useful summary of each reading. The New Media Theory Reader is an indispensable text for students on new media, technology, sociology and media studies courses. CONTRIBUTORS Andrew Barry Benjamin R. Barber James Boyle James Carey Benjamin Compaine Noam Cook Andrew Graham Nicola Green Thomas Hylland Eriksen Ian Hunter Kevin Kelly Heejin Lee Lawrence Lessig Jonathan Liebenau Jessica Litman Lev Manovich Michael Marien Robert W. McChesney David E. Nye Bruce M. Owen Lyman Ray Patterson Kevin Robins Ithiel de Sola Pool David Saunders Richard Stallman Jeremy Stein Cass R. Sunstein McKenzie Wark Frank Webster Dugald Williamson

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Contents

PART 1: Media Transitions

Introduction

1.1 ‘What is new media?’ in The Language of New Media.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002 / Lev Manovich

1.2 ‘Technological revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth’ in Internet Dreams. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997 / S.D. Noam Cook

1.3 ‘A shadow darkens’ in Technologies of Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003 Ithiel de Sola Pool

1.4 ‘The consumer’s sublime’ in American Technological Sublime. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996 / David E. Nye

1.5 ‘The computational metaphor’, Whole Earth, Winter 1998 / Kevin Kelly

1.6 ‘New communications technology: a survey of impacts and issues’, Telecommunications Policy, 20(5), pp. 375–387, 1996 / Michael Marien

PART 2: Governing new media

Introduction

2.1 ‘Historicising obscenity law’ in On Pornography: Literature, Sexuality and Obscenity Law. London: Macmillan, 1992 / David Saunders, Ian M. Hunter and Dugald Williamson

2.2 ‘The tragedy of broadcast regulation’ in The Internet Challenge to Television. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999 / Bruce M. Owen

2.3  ‘Broadcasting policy in the digital age’ in Charles M. Firestone and Amy Korzick Garmer (eds) Digital Broadcasting and the Public Interest. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 1998 / Andrew Graham

2.4  ‘From public sphere to cybernetic state’ in Times of the Technoculture. New York: Routledge, 1999 / Kevin Robins and Frank Webster

2.5  ‘Policing the thinkable’, Opendemocracy.net, 2001 / Robert W. McChesney

2.6  ‘The myths of encroaching global media ownership’, Opendemocracy.net, 2001 / Benjamin Compaine

PART 3: Properties and commons

Introduction

3.1  ‘Copyright in historical perspective’ in Copyright in Historical Perspective. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968 / Lyman Ray Patterson

3.2  ‘Intellectual property and the liberal state’ in Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996 / James Boyle

3.3 ‘Choosing metaphors’ in Digital Copyright: Protecting Intellectual Property on the Internet. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2001 / Jessica Litman

3.4  ‘The promise for intellectual property in cyberspace’ in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 2000 / Lawrence Lessig

3.5  ‘Why software should not have owners’ in Free Software: Free Society. Boston, MA: Free Software Foundation, 2002 / Richard Stallman

PART 4: Politics of new media technologies

Introduction

4.1 ‘On interactivity’ in Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society. London: Athlone Press, 2001 / Andrew Barry

4.2  ‘Pangloss, Pandora or Jefferson? Three scenarios for the future of technology and strong democracy’, in A Passion for Democracy: American Essays, Princeton University Press, pp. 245–257,

2000 / Benjamin R. Barber

4.3 ‘Citizens’ in Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001 / Cass Sunstein

4.4  ‘Abstraction/class’ in A Hacker Manifesto. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004 / McKenzie Wark

PART 5: Time and space in the age of information

Introduction

5.1 ‘Technology and ideology: the case of the telegraph’ in Communication as Culture. London: Routledge, 1989 / James Carey

5.2 ‘Reflections on time, time–space compression and technology in the nineteenth century’ in M. Crang, P. Crang and J. May (eds), Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations. New York: Routledge, 1999 / Jeremy Stein

5.3  ‘On the move: technology, mobility, and the mediation of social time and space’, The Information Society, 18(4), pp. 281–292, 2002 / Nicola Green

5.4  ‘Time and the internet’, Time and Society, 9(1), pp. 48–55, 2001 / Heejin Lee and Jonathan Liebenau

5.5  ‘Speed is contagious’ in Tyranny of the Moment: Fast and Slow Time in the Age of Information. London: Pluto Press, 2001 / Thomas Hylland Eriksen

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About the Author / Editor

Robert Hassan is Senior Research Fellow in Media and Communications at the Media and Communications Program, The University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Chronoscopic Society (2003) and Media, Politics and the Network Society (Open University Press, 2004). He is the editor of the journal Time & Society. Julian Thomas is Director of the institute for Social Research at Swinburne University, Australia and a Professorial Fellow in Media and Communications. He has written widely on the social and policy dimensions of new media.

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