Cybersociety 2.0

Book excerpt: Cybersociety 2.0, the new edition of Steven G. Jones′s Cybersociety, is also rooted in criticism and analysis of computer-mediated technologies to assist readers in becoming critically aware of the hype and hopes pinned on computer-mediated communication and the cultures that are emerging among Internet users. Both books are products of a particular moment in time and serve as snapshots of the concerns and issues that surround the burgeoning new technologies of communication. After a brief introduction to the history of computer-mediated communication, each chapter in this volume specifically highlights specific cyber "societies" and how computer-mediated communication effects the notion of self and its relationship to the community. Contributors probe issues of community, standards of conduct, communication, the means of fixing identity, knowledge, information, and the exercise of power in social relations. They also question how traditional sociological inquiry can adapt itself to most effectively study computer-mediated social formations. Both timely and thought-provoking, Cybersociety 2.0 belongs on the bookshelf of students and scholars in fields of communication, popular culture, American studies, and mass communication.