This is the first textbook on the central ethical issues of digital media, ranging from computers and the Internet to mobile phones. It is also the first book of its kind to consider these issues from a global perspective, introducing ethical theories from multiple cultures. It further utilizes examples from around the world, such as the publication of "the Mohammed Cartoons"; diverse understandings of what "privacy" means in Facebook or MySpace; why pirating CDs and DVDs may be justified in developing countries; and culturally-variable perspectives on sexuality and what counts as "pornography." Readers and students thus acquire a global perspective on the central ethical issues of digital media, including privacy, copyright, pornography and violence, and the ethics of cross-cultural communication online. The book is designed for use across disciplines - media and communication studies, computer science and informatics, as well as philosophy. It is up-to-date, accessible and student- and classroom-friendly: each topic and theory is interwoven throughout the volume with detailed sets of questions that foster careful reflection, writing, and discussion into these issues and their possible resolutions. Each chapter further includes additional resources and suggestions for further research and writing.

Product Description: The Handbook of Internet Studies brings together scholars from a variety of fields to explore the profound shift that has occurred in how we communicate and experience our world as we have moved from the industrial era into the age of digital media...read more

Trust is essential to human society and the good life. At the same time, citizens of developed countries spend more and more time in virtual environments. This collection asks how far virtual environments, especially those affiliated with «Web 2.0», challenge and foster trust? The book’s early chapters establish historical, linguistic, and philosophical foundations for key concepts of trust, embodiment, virtuality, and virtual worlds. Four philosophers then analyze how trust – historically interwoven with embodied co-presence – may be enhanced through online environments. Final contributions tackle the specific challenges of virtual child pornography and democratic deliberation online. This is the first collection devoted exclusively to the philosophical dimensions of trust and virtual worlds. It helps bring the reader up to date on the relevant concepts and issues, and on ways in which widely ranging insights and approaches may nonetheless cohere into a reasonably comprehensive account of trust.

'This book is the first publication that takes a genuinely global approach to the diverse ethical issues evoked by Information and Communication Technologies and their possible resolutions. Readers will gain a greater appreciation for the problems and possibilities of genuinely global information ethics, which are urgently needed as information and communication technologies continue their exponential growth'--Provided by publisher.

Provides cross-cultural perspectives on computer-mediated communication. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The rush to the Information Superhighway and the transition to an Information Age have enormous political, ethical, and religious consequences. The essays collected here develop both interdisciplinary and international perspectives on privacy, critical thinking and literacy, democratization, gender, religion, and the very nature of the revolution promised in cyberspace...read more