The Virtual

Rob Shields

$357

Hardback

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English

Routledge
28 November 2002

History of ideas; Media studies; Social theory; Ethical & social aspects of computing; Virtual reality

Series: Key Ideas

Showing how the construction of virtual worlds has a long history, Rob Shields looks at the origins and the many contemporary meanings of the virtual. He examines the many forms of faith and hysteria that have surrounded computer technologies and, moving beyond the technologies themselves, he shows how the virtual plays a role in our daily lives at every level. The virtual is also an essential concept needed to manage innovation and risk. It is real but not actual, ideal but not abstract. The virtual, he argues has become one of the key organizing principles of contemporary society in the public realms of politics, business and consumption as well as in our private lives.

By: Rob Shields
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 362g
ISBN: 9780415281805
ISBN 10: 0415281806
Series: Key Ideas
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 28 November 2002
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , Primary , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1. The Return of the Virtual 2. The Virtual and the Real 3. Digital Virtualities 4. Virtual Africa 5. Joystick Generation 6. Work: Virtual working 7. Business Sense for a Virtual World 8. Risk, Trust and the Virtual Conclusion: The future and the virtual

Rob Shields

Reviews for The Virtual

Rob Shields has written an encyclopedia of the virtual that will prove to be as indispensable to the layman as to the researcher. -Pierre Levy, Canada Research Chair on Collective Intelligence, University of Ottawa Shields succeeds in removing the mask of The Virtual, revealing its productivity, ubiquity, and logic. The resulting text offers a compelling social critique of abstraction-on our screens, in the workplace, and within the very forces of globalization. -Greg Elmer, Boston College