Alan Petersen – författare

Digital media have become deeply immersed in our lives, heightening both hopes and fears of their affordances. While the internet, mobile phones, and social media offer their users many options, they also engender concerns about their manipulations and intrusions. Emotions Online explores the visions that shape responses to media and the emotional regimes that govern people’s engagements with them.

This book critically examines evidence on the role of digital media in emotional life. Offering a sociological perspective and using ideas from science and technology studies and media studies, it explores:

• The dimensions and operations of the online emotional economy• Growing concerns about online harms and abuse, especially to children• ‘Deepfakes’ and other forms of image-based abuse• The role of hope in shaping online behaviours• ‘Digital well-being’ and its market• COVID-19’s impacts on perceptions of digital media and Big Tech• Growing challenges to centralised control of the internet, and the implications for future emotional life

The book breaks new ground in the sociological study of digital media and the emotions. It reveals the dynamics of online emotional regimes showing how deceptive designs and algorithm-driven technologies serve to attract and engage users. As it argues, digital media rely on the emotional labours of many people, including social media inf luencers and content moderators who make the internet seem smart. The book provides an invaluable overview of the evidence and debates on the role of digital media in emotional life and guidance for future research, policy, and action.

Digital media have become deeply immersed in our lives, heightening both hopes and fears of their affordances. While the internet, mobile phones, and social media offer their users many options, they also engender concerns about their manipulations and intrusions. Emotions Online explores the visions that shape responses to media and the emotional regimes that govern people’s engagements with them.

This book critically examines evidence on the role of digital media in emotional life. Offering a sociological perspective and using ideas from science and technology studies and media studies, it explores:

• The dimensions and operations of the online emotional economy• Growing concerns about online harms and abuse, especially to children• ‘Deepfakes’ and other forms of image-based abuse• The role of hope in shaping online behaviours• ‘Digital well-being’ and its market• COVID-19’s impacts on perceptions of digital media and Big Tech• Growing challenges to centralised control of the internet, and the implications for future emotional life

The book breaks new ground in the sociological study of digital media and the emotions. It reveals the dynamics of online emotional regimes showing how deceptive designs and algorithm-driven technologies serve to attract and engage users. As it argues, digital media rely on the emotional labours of many people, including social media inf luencers and content moderators who make the internet seem smart. The book provides an invaluable overview of the evidence and debates on the role of digital media in emotional life and guidance for future research, policy, and action.

In recent years, a number of large population-based biobanks – genetic databases that combine genetic information derived from blood samples with personal data about environment, medical history, lifestyle or genealogy – have been set up in order to study the interface between disease, and genetic and environmental factors. Unsurprisingly, these studies have sparked a good deal of controversy and the ethical and social implications have been widely debated.

Biobanks: Governance in Comparative Perspective is the first book to explore the political and governance implications of biobanks in Europe, the United States, Asia, and Australia. This book explores:

This groundbreaking book makes clear that biobanks are a phenomenon that cannot be disconnected from considerations of power, politics, and the reshaping of current practices in governance. It will be a valuable read for scholars and students of genetics, bioethics, risk, public health and the sociology of health and illness.

In recent years, a number of large population-based biobanks – genetic databases that combine genetic information derived from blood samples with personal data about environment, medical history, lifestyle or genealogy – have been set up in order to study the interface between disease, and genetic and environmental factors. Unsurprisingly, these studies have sparked a good deal of controversy and the ethical and social implications have been widely debated.

Biobanks: Governance in Comparative Perspective is the first book to explore the political and governance implications of biobanks in Europe, the United States, Asia, and Australia. This book explores:

This groundbreaking book makes clear that biobanks are a phenomenon that cannot be disconnected from considerations of power, politics, and the reshaping of current practices in governance. It will be a valuable read for scholars and students of genetics, bioethics, risk, public health and the sociology of health and illness.

The concept of risk is one of the most suggestive terms for evoking the cultural character of our times and for defining the purpose of social research. Risk attitudes and behaviours are understood to comprise the dominant experience of culture, politics and society in our times.

Health, Risk and Vulnerability investigates the personal and political dimensions of health risk that structure everyday thought and action. In this innovative book, international contributors reflect upon the meaning and significance of risk across a broad range of social and institutional contexts, exploring current issues such as:

Charting new terrain in the sociology of health and risk, and focusing on the connections between them, Health, Risk and Vulnerability offers new perspectives on an important field of contemporary debate and provides an invaluable resource for students, teachers, researchers, and policy makers.

The concept of risk is one of the most suggestive terms for evoking the cultural character of our times and for defining the purpose of social research. Risk attitudes and behaviours are understood to comprise the dominant experience of culture, politics and society in our times.

Health, Risk and Vulnerability investigates the personal and political dimensions of health risk that structure everyday thought and action. In this innovative book, international contributors reflect upon the meaning and significance of risk across a broad range of social and institutional contexts, exploring current issues such as:

Charting new terrain in the sociology of health and risk, and focusing on the connections between them, Health, Risk and Vulnerability offers new perspectives on an important field of contemporary debate and provides an invaluable resource for students, teachers, researchers, and policy makers.

Ethical and practical issues around genetic research are of major international concern, both in academia and in the public domain. Questions concerning what interventions are possible and appropriate with the increasing amount of genetic information available, challenge our understandings of ourselves, our health and wellbeing, and the role of medical ethics, public health, surveillance and risk. However there has been little reflection on the socio-political effects of this new genetic knowledge and the changes in practice that are currently impacting on our lives.Containing contributions from key international researchers, this book examines the broader issues of genetic debates and looks at how prediction and risk assessment is being changed in the arenas of health, medicine and reproduction, bringing new insight on the dangers of surveillance, regulation and increased inequality. Developed out of the Taylor and Francis journal Critical Public Health, the book considers the implications of developments in genetics for contemporary liberal governance, as well as for the future of healthcare and public health.