Don Slater - Böcker

For courses in Introductory Programming for Java and Alice

Learn programming basics in a creative context that’s more engaging and less complicated

Taking a computer programming course can be challenging, time-consuming, and downright frustrating–but there’s a better way. Alice 3 to Java: Learning Creative Programming through Storytelling and Gaming, First Edition introduces readers to programming in a creative context that’s more engaging and less complicated, while still covering all the essential concepts you’d expect to see in an introductory programming course. Readers are invited to step into the world of creating 3D animations through chapters that present programming concepts with hands-on examples. Throughout the text, readers create a short story or game centered on Lawrence Prenderghast’s Haunted Circus, a story by Laura Paoletti. Students bring the story to life through projects and exercises using Alice, an animation tool similar to professional software used by studios like Pixar and DreamWorks. Later in the book, students may apply what they’ve learned in Alice to using Java, a professional, production-level programming course.

In this major new collection, leading experts explore the multidisciplinary connections between technology and economy, drawing on new convergences between economic sociology and science and technology studies. Through theoretical and empirical studies, the authors investigate:* economics and economic knowledges as technologies* the economies as socio-technical arrangements* the nature of innovation* the role of technological mediations in representing and performing economies. This revealing book, ideal for those with an interest in contemporary social theory, interrogates the evidence for the contemporary claims about the emergence of the ‘new economy’ and ‘knowledge-based economies’ and sheds new light on the relationship between economy and culture.

In this major new collection, leading experts explore the multidisciplinary connections between technology and economy, drawing on new convergences between economic sociology and science and technology studies. Through theoretical and empirical studies, the authors investigate:* economics and economic knowledges as technologies* the economies as socio-technical arrangements* the nature of innovation* the role of technological mediations in representing and performing economies. This revealing book, ideal for those with an interest in contemporary social theory, interrogates the evidence for the contemporary claims about the emergence of the ‘new economy’ and ‘knowledge-based economies’ and sheds new light on the relationship between economy and culture.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the issues, concepts and theories through which people have tried to understand consumer culture throughout the modern period, and puts the current state of thinking into a broader context. Thematically organized, the book shows how the central aspects of consumer culture - such as needs, choice, identity, status, alienation, objects, culture - have been debated within modern theories, from those of earlier thinkers such as Marx and Simmel to contemporary forms of post-structuralism and postmodernism. This approach introduces consumer culture as a subject which - far from being of narrow or recent interest - is intimately tied to the central issues of modern times and modern social thought. With its reviews of major theorists set within a full account of the development of the subject, this book should be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the many disciplines which now study consumer culture, including communications and cultural studies, anthropology and history.

Market Society provides an original and accessible review of changing conceptions of the market in modern social thought. The book considers markets as social institutions rather than simply formal models, arguing that modern ideas of the market are based on critical notions of social order, social action and social relations. Examining a range of perspectives on the market from across different social science disciplines, Market Society surveys a complex field of ideas in a clear and comprehensive manner. In this way it seeks to extend economic sociology beyond a critique of mainstream economics, and to engage more broadly with social, political and cultural theory. The book explores historical approaches to the emergence of a modern market society, as well as major approaches to the market within modern economic theory and sociology. It addresses key arguments in economic sociology and anthropology, the relation between markets and states, and critical and cultural theories of market rationality. It concludes with a discussion of markets and culture in a late modern context. This wide-ranging text will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology, economic theory and history, politics, social and political theory, anthropology and cultural studies.

New media, development and globalization are the key terms through which the future is being imagined and performed in governance, development initiatives and public and political discourse. Yet these authoritative terms have arisen within particular cultural and ideological contexts. In using them, we risk promoting over-generalized and seemingly unchallengeable frameworks for action and knowledge production which can blind us to the complex global patterns and promise of social reality.This compelling book forces us to look at these terms afresh. Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in Latin America, West Africa and South Asia, Don Slater seeks to challenge these terms as voicing specific northern narratives rather than universal truths, and to see them from the perspective of southern people and communities who are equally concerned to understand new machines for communication, new models of social change and new maps of social connection. The central question the book poses is: how we can democratize the ways we think and practise new media, development and globalization, opening these terms to dialogue and challenge within North-South relations? Rooted in sociological debates, New Media, Development and Globalization will also be a provocative contribution to media and cultural studies, studies of digital culture, development studies, geography and anthropology.

New media, development and globalization are the key terms through which the future is being imagined and performed in governance, development initiatives and public and political discourse. Yet these authoritative terms have arisen within particular cultural and ideological contexts. In using them, we risk promoting over-generalized and seemingly unchallengeable frameworks for action and knowledge production which can blind us to the complex global patterns and promise of social reality.This compelling book forces us to look at these terms afresh. Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in Latin America, West Africa and South Asia, Don Slater seeks to challenge these terms as voicing specific northern narratives rather than universal truths, and to see them from the perspective of southern people and communities who are equally concerned to understand new machines for communication, new models of social change and new maps of social connection. The central question the book poses is: how we can democratize the ways we think and practise new media, development and globalization, opening these terms to dialogue and challenge within North-South relations? Rooted in sociological debates, New Media, Development and Globalization will also be a provocative contribution to media and cultural studies, studies of digital culture, development studies, geography and anthropology.

This pathbreaking book is the first to provide a rigorous and comprehensive examination of Internet culture and consumption. A rich ethnography of Internet use, the book offers a sustained account not just of being online, but of the social, political and cultural contexts which account for the contemporary Internet experience. From cybercafes to businesses, from middle class houses to squatters settlements, from the political economy of Internet provision to the development of ecommerce, the authors have gathered a wealth of material based on fieldwork in Trinidad. Looking at the full range of Internet media -- including websites, email and chat -- the book brings out unforeseen consequences and contradictions in areas as varied as personal relations, commerce, nationalism, sex and religion. This is the first book-length treatment of the impact of the Internet on a particular region. By focusing on one place, it demonstrates the potential for a comprehensive approach to new media. It points to the future direction of Internet research, proposing a detailed agenda for comparative ethnographic study of the cultural significance and effects of the Internet in modern society. Clearly written for the non-specialist reader, it offers a detailed account of the complex integration between on-line and off-line worlds. An innovative tie-in with the book's own website provides copious illustrations amounting to over 2,000 web-pages that bring the material right to your computer.