Sociology in the Age of the Internet

Dedication
Acknowledgements

Introduction

Section 1 The rise of the network metaphor
Approaches to networks
Network methodologies
The network society
The internet as a network

Section 2: The internet as a media
Elements of a public sphere
Interactivity : It’s got to be jelly ‘cos jam don’t
The global public sphere and forms of power

Section 3: The internet as a social space
Community
Online identity

Section 4: The internet as a technology
Sociologies of technology
The sociology of technology and the internet: Emergent perspectives

Bibliography

In recent years there has been a large and diverse body of writing from scholars in the social sciences who have been studying changes brought about by new communication technologies in general and the Internet in particular. The question of how people behave, interact and organize themselves in relation to this form of communication has been given added prominence by developments within new social theory, especially in relation to the novelty of contemporary social formations and the importance of mass communications to this changed order.

For the student new to the study of technology and society, there are a bewildering array of claims and counter claims, representing a spectrum of theoretical, methodological and critical sensibilities in relation to the Internet. In this new book Allison Cavanagh evaluates the work in this area by:

• Investigating the novelty of the Internet and setting the Internet in the context of communication histories
• Evaluating the extent and rate of change through a synthesis of the available empirical literature
• Providing a key to understanding the changes identified through an evaluation of the utility of new social theory

Sociology in the Age of the Internet is essential reading for academics and students with an interest in the relationship between the internet and society.