but as continuous with already exist-ing social structures and senses of identity.

neophilia

consensual hallucination

that culture, everyday life, individuals and households are materially and conceptually dis-tinct from technologies

we can see not a Narniaor Matrix-like division of virtual and actual worlds, but rather a complicated interweaving ofmediated, lived, time and space.

Thesheer proliferation of television screens, computer networks, theme parks and shopping cen-tres, and the saturation of everyday life by spectacular images so thoroughly mediated andprocessed that any connection with a ‘real world’ seems lost, adds up to a simulated world:a hyperreality where the artificial is experienced as real

Processes of fabrication, synthesis and artifice are realand all produce new real objects. A videogame world does not necessarily imitate an origi-nal space or existing creatures, but it exists.

The morerecent interest in virtual spaces as spaces of identity performance or places where differ-ent roles can be played out appears continuous with older liminal zones

Or, more carefully, as a space which ‘comesinto being when you are on the phone: not exactly where you happen to be sitting, nor wherethe other person is, but somewhere in between’

‘prosumer’ tech-nologies; that is, technologies that are aimed at neither the professional nor the (amateur)consumer market but both – technologies that enable the user to be both consumer and pro-ducer.

‘Old’ media systems ofdistribution are not about to disappear, although they become less visible, because they arethe essential archaeological infrastructure of new media.

A useful way to conceptualise the difference between centralised and dispersed media dis-tribution systems is to think about the differences between radio and television broadcasttransmissionsand computer media networks.

Those  who  left  the  city  often  left  their  profiles  untended  and  they  often  fell  into  disrepair,  covered  in  spam,  a  form  of  digital  graffiti.  This  contributed  to  a  sense  of  eeriness,  but  also  hastened  the  departure  of  their  neighbors.    AsMySpacefailed  to  address  these  issues,  spammers  took  overlike  street  gangs.    What  resulted  can  be  understood  asa  digital  ghe

Youth  listed  their  musical  tastes  on  their  profiles  and  attached  songs  to  their  pag

While  style  preference  is  not  inherently  about  race  and  class,  the  specific  styles  referenced  have  racial  overtones  and  socio-­‐economic  implications.  In  essence,  although  teens  are  talking  about  style,  they  are  functionally  navigating  race  and

.  Race  and  class  shape  practicesand  the  social  agendas  around  race  and  class  also  drive  them

Although wireless connections between computers and servers and to networks arebecoming increasingly common, many connections continue to rely upon cables and tele-phone lines, which have to be physically dug into the earth.

This state of permanent flux is further maintained if thetext in question never has to exist as hard copy, if it is located only in computer memories andaccessible via the Internet or the web.

A chair affords (‘is for’) support,and, therefore, affords sitting. A chair can also be carried. Glass is for seeing through, andfor breaking.

So, while a person using the term ‘new media’ may have one thing in mind (the Internet),others may mean something else (digital TV, new ways of imaging the body, a virtual envi-ronment, a computer game, or a blog)

When we have studied the media weusually, and fairly safely, have had in mind ‘communication media’ and the specialised andseparate institutions and organisations in which people worked

hasbeenreferredto astunnel.....visionInengmeenng.

which neglectsomeofthe specialneedsofEskimos andLapps.

it has not necessarily influenced basicculturalvalues.

ifwe feelthreatenedbynucleardestructionor more insidiously by the effects of chemicalpollution