Small Tech

The Culture of Digital Tools

2007

Byron Hawk, David M. Rieder, and Ollie Oviedo, editors

Experts examine the ways digital tools affect social and cultural experience

Experts examine the ways digital tools affect social and cultural experience.

Contributors: Wendy Warren Austin, Jim Bizzocchi, Collin Gifford Brooke, Paul Cesarini, Veronique Chance, Johanna Drucker, Jenny Edbauer, Robert A. Emmons Jr., Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Richard Kahn, Douglas Kellner, Karla Saari Kitalong, Steve Mann, Lev Manovich, Adrian Miles, Jason Nolan, Julian Oliver, Mark Paterson, Isabel Pedersen, Michael Pennell, Joanna Castner Post, Teri Rueb, James J. Sosnoski, Lance Strate, Jason Swarts, Barry Wellman, Sean D. Williams, Jeremy Yuille.

Small Tech is a wide-ranging collection of essays on new media culture and aesthetics by some of today’s best theorists. What ties these essays together is the conviction that digital technology cannot and should not be used to thrust our culture into a disembodied and deracinated ‘cyberspace.’ The new hardware of smart phones and wearable computers and new uses of familiar software are evidence of a changed relationship between the physical and the virtual in our technoculture. It is this new relationship that the authors of Small Tech describe for us with clarity and insight.

Jay Bolter, Georgia Institute of Technology

The essays in Small Tech investigate the cultural impact of digital tools and provide fresh perspectives on mobile technologies such as iPods, digital cameras, and PDAs and software functions like cut, copy, and paste and WYSIWYG. Together they advance new thinking about digital environments.

Contributors: Wendy Warren Austin, Edinboro U; Jim Bizzocchi, Simon Fraser U; Collin Gifford Brooke, Syracuse U; Paul Cesarini, Bowling Green State U; Veronique Chance, U of London; Johanna Drucker, U of Virginia; Jenny Edbauer, Penn State U; Robert A. Emmons Jr., Rutgers U; Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Clarkson U; Richard Kahn, UCLA; Douglas Kellner, UCLA; Karla Saari Kitalong, U of Central Florida; Steve Mann, U of Toronto; Lev Manovich, U of California, San Diego; Adrian Miles, RMIT U; Jason Nolan, Ryerson U; Julian Oliver; Mark Paterson, U of the West of England, Bristol; Isabel Pedersen, Ryerson U; Michael Pennell, U of Rhode Island; Joanna Castner Post, U of Central Arkansas; Teri Rueb, Rhode Island School of Design; James J. Sosnoski; Lance Strate, Fordham U; Jason Swarts, North Carolina State U; Barry Wellman, U of Toronto; Sean D. Williams, Clemson U; Jeremy Yuille, RMIT U.

Byron Hawk is assistant professor of English at George Mason University. David M. Rieder is assistant professor of English at North Carolina State University. Ollie Oviedo is associate professor of English at Eastern New Mexico University.

Small Tech is a wide-ranging collection of essays on new media culture and aesthetics by some of today’s best theorists. What ties these essays together is the conviction that digital technology cannot and should not be used to thrust our culture into a disembodied and deracinated ‘cyberspace.’ The new hardware of smart phones and wearable computers and new uses of familiar software are evidence of a changed relationship between the physical and the virtual in our technoculture. It is this new relationship that the authors of Small Tech describe for us with clarity and insight.

Jay Bolter, Georgia Institute of Technology

Small Tech is. . . a way to enrich one’s social life and sense of connectedness to a diverse range of individuals. It has been argued that the Internet increases people’s social capital, but this book suggests that the possibilities are even more promising.

Surveillance & Society

The book delivers on the promise of exploring the human ecology of small tech, that is, how we use the new wave of personal digital devices, interacting with the tools and with each other.

Technical Communication

With strength in the diversity of tools, issues and projects addressed, the book provides interesting descriptions of art as it speaks to the everyday.

International Journal of Communication