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From: Julia Monk [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 06 January 2006 14:28 To: [log in to unmask] Cc: Annemarie Cuddon Subject: Interactive Realism: The Poetics of Cyberspace by Daniel Downes Dear Cyber-Society-Live Subscribers, I hope the following will be of interest to you: Interactive Realism The Poetics of Cyberspace Daniel Downes, University of New Brunswick "This thoughtful and ambitious book offers an interpretive framework for cyberspace that steps outside the simplistic utopian and dystopian camps."-Sheryl N. Hamilton, School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University "This is an important book that may well initiate the next phase of growth in media ecology extending and refining Innis and McLuhan." Stuart Moulthrop, Information Arts and Technologies, University of Baltimore It is commonplace in our digitized world to think that technology is the primary agent of psychological and social change. In Interactive Realism Daniel Downes argues that it continues to be people who construct social reality through their interactions, critiquing the "tranformative turn" in media studies. Distinguishing between the Internet, a communication system, and cyberspace, an environment for human exchange, the author provides a framework for exploring the metaphors and images used in cyberspace to represent and model social reality. He clarifies how these symbolic interactions are linked to the technologies used to create, store, and transmit them and to their social context. Drawing on examples from digital games, web design, film, and photography, the author shows how individual experiences are calibrated by technology and how digital communication contributes to broader processes such as community building and public memory. Downes articulates a nuanced form of media ecology that does not focus on a single cause of change but rather on the relationships between embodied experience, communication systems, and representations. Interactive Realism establishes a new method for understanding the importance of digital media to the construction of social reality. McGill-Queen's University Press June 2005 208 pages ISBN 0-7735-2920-9 £16.95 paperback SPECIAL DISCOUNTED PRICE OF £11.95 to CYBER-SOCIETY Subscribers Postage and Packing £2.75 To order a copy please contact Marston on 44(0)1235 465500 or email <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] or visit our website www.combinedacademic.demon.co.uk <http://www.combinedacademic.demon.co.uk> (Please quote reference CSL16IR). Julia Monk Marketing Manager Combined Academic Publishers 48 Baldslow Road Hastings East Sussex TN34 2EY Tel/Fax: 44 (0)1424 436533 Email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> **************************************************************************** ******** Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html **************************************************************************** ********* ==== This e-mail is intended solely for the addressee. It may contain private and confidential information. If you are not the intended addressee, please take no action based on it nor show a copy to anyone. Please reply to this e-mail to highlight the error. You should also be aware that all electronic mail from, to, or within Northumbria University may be the subject of a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and related legislation, and therefore may be required to be disclosed to third parties. This e-mail and attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Northumbria University. Northumbria University will not be liable for any losses as a result of any viruses being passed on. ************************************************************************************ Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html *************************************************************************************