Description

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From the 15th century until the mid-1990s, media based on the printed word--books, magazines, handbills, newspapers, and journals--dominated society. Today, an onslaught of digital media centered on the Internet is developing at a breathtaking pace, destabilizing the very idea of printed media and fundamentally reshaping our world in the process.

This study explores how Internet entities like Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google, and gadgets such as digital cameras, cell phones, video games, robots, drones, and all things MacIntosh have affected everything from the book industry and copyright law to how we conduct social relationships and consider knowledge. Including a chronology of significant events in the history of the digital explosion, this investigation of the often overlooked "shadow" side of new technology chronicles life during a radical societal shift and follows the process whereby one world disintegrates while another takes its place.

Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

About the Author

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John David Ebert is the author of four previous books and has published essays in such periodicals as the Antioch Review, Utne Reader, Parabola, and Whole Earth. He has also been a featured scholar on A&E's Ancient Mysteries.