• Selected Key Texts
• Other Books
  
• Finding Articles
• Journals
• Online Resources

New media and digital culture are constantly evolving areas of inquiry that do not really lend themselves to traditional reference resources. This subject research guide is intended only to orient the novice. If you require in-depth reference assistance in these areas, please contact a reference librarian.

Note: New media is defined here as the production and distribution of digital content and includes the topics of the World Wide Web, multimedia, videogames, DVD, digital video and audio (including podcasting and webcasting), and virtual reality.

Digital culture is defined here as the results of the social networking fostered by new media and includes the topics of the social web (or Web 2.0), blogs, wikis, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, instant messaging, viral videos, massively multi-player online gaming, Internet memes, and so forth.

Selected Key Texts

Below is a partial list of general works on new media and digital culture. Our collection contains many more books in specific fields to help you in your research.

New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader
P90 .N52 2006
New York: Routledge, 2006

This reader is a comprehensive anthology of original and classic essays that explore the tensions of old and new in digital culture. It features writing by international media scholars and cultural theorists who examine new media like the Internet, digital video, and MP3s against the backdrop of earlier media such as television, film, photography, and print while keeping in mind the political, social, and ethical questions raised by such technologies. Topics explored in depth include websites, webcams, the rise and fall of dotcom mania, Internet journalism, the open source movement, and computer viruses.

The New Media Reader
TK5102.5 .N48 2003
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003

This reader collects the texts, videos, and computer programs that chronicle the history and form the foundation of the still-emerging field of new media. General introductions by Janet Murray and Lev Manovich, along with short introductions to each of the texts, place the works in their historical context and explain their significance. The texts were originally published between World War II and the emergence of the World Wide Web.

Encyclopedia of New Media
Ref QA76.575 .E5368 2003
Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications, c2003

This encyclopedia describes concepts, contexts, and trends in new media at the start of the 21st century and includes more than 250 entries covering terms, technologies, businesses, organizations, individuals, laws, and social issues important in the development of new media.

The Video Game Theory Reader
GV1469.3 .V57 2003
New York ; London : Routledge, 2003

This reader collects essays on the ways in which video games have reshaped the face of entertainment and society's relationship with technology. The essays discuss the relationship between video games and other media; the shift from third- to first-person games; gamers and the gaming community; and the important sociological, cultural, industrial, and economic issues that surround gaming.

The New Media Book
P90 .N49 2002
London: BFI Pub., 2002

This book provides an accessible, critical intervention into the field of new media. It is divided into five thematic sections: Technologies, Production, Texts, Consumption, and Contexts and addresses how new media is both embracing and altering the existing media landscape. Topics discussed include the ways in which people interact with digital television, the changing methods of production, distribution and exhibition within the media industry, and how the histories of traditional media have influenced the development of new media.

The Language of New Media
P96.T42 M35 2002
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002

In this book Lev Manovich (Associate Professor of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego) offers a systematic and rigorous theory of new media. He places new media within the histories of visual and media cultures of the last few centuries. He discusses new media's reliance on conventions of old media and shows how new media works create the illusion of reality, address the viewer, and represent space. He also analyzes categories and forms unique to new media, such as interface and database.

Visual Digital Culture : Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres
GV1469.17.S63 D27 2000
London; New York: Routledge, 2000

This book by Andrew Darley considers the effect of new image technologies on the forms and experience of mass visual culture and argues that contemporary visual culture is radically different from traditional visual culture--marking a break with the emphasis on story, representation, meaning and reading, favoring instead a focus on style, image performance and sensation.

The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media
QA76.9.C66 D54 1999
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999

This collection of mostly academic essays aims to identify a dialectic at the heart of the digital technologies currently reshaping the way we see and know the world. The eleven contributors draw inspiration from the 1995 Conference on the Convergence of Technology, Media, and Theory.

Remediation: Understanding New Media
P96.T42 B59 1999
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999

Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin offer a theory of mediation for our digital age that challenges the assumption that digital technologies such as the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and computer graphics must divorce themselves from earlier media for a new set of aesthetic and cultural principles.

Being Digital
TK5103.7 .N43 1995
New York: Knopf, 1995

This text by Nicholas Negroponte (founder of MIT's Media Lab) is mostly a history of media technology describing the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV, and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality, holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.

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Other Books

The Gould Library has a rich collection of books and other printed resources. You may access them via The Bridge, the online catalog. You may search Bridge by title, author, subject heading, or keyword. Due to the highly interdisciplinary nature of new media and digital culture, there is no single area or range of call numbers in which to find books on the topics. If you require assistance in searching for or locating an item, please contact a reference librarian.

Using the following keywords can be helpful in searching for relevant materials:

Computer-mediated communication
Computers and Civilization
Cyberspace
Cyberspace and Social aspects
Digital media
Digital media and Social aspects
Human-computer interaction
Hypertext systems
Information technology and Social aspects
Internet
Internet and Social aspects
Mass media and Social aspects
Mass media and Technological innovations
Mass media and Culture
Multimedia systems
Online interaction
Technology and Civilization
Telecommunications
Telematics
Telematics and Social aspects
Virtual reality
Virtual reality and Social aspects
World Wide Web
World Wide Web and Social aspects

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Finding Articles

Use indexes and databases to locate periodical articles on your topic. If you need periodical literature not covered in the time frame of the database, there are also print indexes in the Reference Collection. Carleton does not own every title indexed in the databases. Search the Journals List or The Bridge (the library's catalog) by the journal title, not journal article, you are looking for. If we don't own the journal, take advantage of our Interlibrary Loan Services.

Academic Search Premier (full-text articles, citations; varying dates)
Scholarly, multi-disciplinary journals.

Computer and Information Systems Abstracts (abstracts, 1981 - current)
Theoretical research and practical applications in computing and information systems.

INSPEC (abstracts, 1969 - current)
Available through Web of Knowledge. International scientific and technical literature including the topics of electronics, communications, computers and computing, and information technology.

Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts (abstracts,1989 - current)
Information on the latest personal computing products and developments in business, industry, education, libraries, and the home.

ProQuest Research Library (full-text articles, citations, abstracts; varying dates)
General database with full-text available for many of its offerings. Good for locating articles geared toward a general audience.

Sociological Abstracts (abstracts, 1963 - current)
International literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.

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New Media and Digital Culture Journals

This is a partial listing of scholarly and trade journals in the areas of new media and digital culture accessible through Gould Library. Use the Journal List find available electronic and print versions of the journal.

CyberPsychology & Behavior (2000-current)

Information Management Journal (1988-current)

Information Society (1997-current)

Journal of Communication (1951-current)

Wired (1998-current)

There are also several free, online journals of note.

CTheory (1993-current)
An online academic journal of theory, technology, and culture.

First Monday (1996-current)
An online peer-reviewed journal that focuses on discussions of the social impacts of the Internet and telecommunications.

Game Studies (2001-current)
A cross-disciplinary journal dedicated to games research and the aesthetic, cultural, and communicative aspects of computer games.

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (1995-current)
An academic journal on the social impacts of telecommunications and, as the title suggests, computer-mediated communications.

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Online Resources

ClickZ
http://www.clickz.com/
Statistics, demographics, trends, news, and other resources concerning the Internet and technology.

NetLingo
http://www.netlingo.com/
Online dictionary of Internet and technology terms and acronyms.

Pew Internet & American Life Project
http://www.pewinternet.org/
A continuing series of reports on the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life.

WebMonkey: The Web Developer's Resource
http://www.webmonkey.com/
How-to information, news, and resources for Web design, authoring, programming, and multimedia creation.

What is Web 2.0?
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., explains the concept of Web 2.0.

Those interested in further exploring the realms of new media and digital culture on the web are encouraged to visit the extensive lists of Web sites and of associations, organizations, and government agencies maintained by the Education and Behavioral Sciences Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries as well as Carleton's own Professor John Schott's massive collection of "we media" links.

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