Overview

Electronic communication now keeps us connected, wired, and cabled to the entire world. Why, then, do we often feel displaced and increasingly isolated in the global village? Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age seeks to answer the question: have media and technology created a social gap, eroding our sense of community? Author Michael Bugeja tackles this question by taking a broad and interdisciplinary approach, incorporating a number of different viewpoints, including global, ethical, philosophical, corporate, pop cultural, and sociological perspectives. Bugeja analyses the `interpersonal divide', the void that develops between people when we spend too much time in virtual rather than in real communities, and makes a case for face-to-face communication in a technological world. He traces media history to show how other generations have coped with similar problems during periods of great technological change, recommending ways to `repatriate to the village.' * Focuses on a pertinent issue-the erosion of community in the face of media and technology-that connects to a variety of topics, yet that many college texts cannot thoroughly explore. * Journal exercises, discussion and paper ideas, and suggested readings at the end of each chapter help students develop awareness about the impact of media and technology on their own lives, as well as the society around them. * Bugeja draws on information from a spectrum of viewpoints, including ethical, pop cultural, historical, corporate, familial, and communal perspectives. * While using contemporary examples to validate arguments, Bugeja primarily focuses on the philosophical motivations and history behind the issues raised, rather than going into heavy detail of specific events. * Can be used in a number of different media/communications courses, including Media and Society, Media Ethics, History of Media, and New Communications Technology. Supplements and Resources: Companion Web Site: www.interpersonal-divide.org * Features information about the book * New material for lecture or discussion * 100 page Instructor's Manual Contents: Introduction: The Need to Belong Chapter One: Displacement in the Global Village 1. High-Tech and Original Habitats 2. The Interpersonal Divide 3. Big Box Displacement 4. Loss of Perspective 5. A Lifelong Quest Chapter Two: The Human Condition 1. Peace and Empowerment 2. Survival in Virtual Environments 3. The Marketing of Self-Help 4. The Ethics of Our Condition 5. Convenience Over Conscience Chapter Three: Habits of a High-Tech Age 1. The Hype of Self-Help 2. Seven Habits of Highly Mediated People 3. The Accelerated Biological Clock 4. Wondering What Is Real Chapter Four: Impact of Media and Technology 1. The Real and Virtual Real 2. The Dawning of Mass Media 3. The Advent of Marketing 4. Vision and Values Chapter Five: Blurring of Identity and Place 1. The Disembodied Self 2. Mapping the Consumer Genome 3. Moral and Social Upheaval 4. Endangered Habitats Chapter Six: The Medium is the Moral 1. McLuhan, Revisited 2. The New Generation Gap 3. The Unnatural Order of Things Chapter Seven: Icons and Caricatures 1. Icons and Idols 2. Icons and Advertising 3. Mentors and Caricatures Chapter Eight: Living Three Dimensionally 1. Virtues and Environments 2. The Moral Importance of Place 3. Dimensions of Community Chapter Nine: Repatriation to the Village 1. Ethical Inventories 2. Foci of Our Discontent 3. Mis-Mediated Messages 4. A Place in the Village Notes Index

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Perhaps no previous scholar has synthesized the ways media technologies are harming a sense of community, especially in such a compact book. ... Perhaps [Bugeja] ought to give himself credit for implanting optimism in at least some of his readers, because his book, if read carefully, is empowering. -- The Des Moines Register Wise, troubling, tough-minded and profoundly on target, Interpersonal Divide is a thoughtfully human response to the burgeoning challenge to our sense and practice of community posed by the new communications technologies, their use as well as misuse. -- Hodding Carter III, President and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Michael Bugeja has delivered a creative, new approach to media and technology in this thoughtful and humanistic treatment. The emphasis here is on meaning and human communication, not a tired polemic on the inevitability of technological change. . . . Refreshing! -- Everette Dennis, Distinguished Felix E. Larkin Professor, Fordham University Michael Bugeja's Interpersonal Divide is a book of concerned prescription. An accomplished poet, an ethicist and a journalism professor, Bugeja aims to assess changes resulting from the Technology Revolution of the 1990s. He's careful to note at the start of this admirably clear volume that he has not written a book of social panic. But he has written one of social high anxiety. ... At the end of each chapter, he lists journal exercises and discussion ideas for those who feel inspired to examine their media habits. You could do a lot worse with your spare time (and probably will). Bugeja largely lives up to the second goal he set for himself -- to produce a multidisciplinary work to explain complex truths in plain language rather than to validate those truths via complex language --The Washington Post

<br> Perhaps no previous scholar has synthesized the ways media technologies are harming a sense of community, especially in such a compact book. ... Perhaps [Bugeja] ought to give himself credit for implanting optimism in at least some of his readers, because his book, if read carefully, is empowering. -- The Des Moines Register<p><br> Wise, troubling, tough-minded and profoundly on target, Interpersonal Divide is a thoughtfully human response to the burgeoning challenge to our sense and practice of community posed by the new communications technologies, their use as well as misuse. -- Hodding Carter III, President and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation<p><br> Michael Bugeja has delivered a creative, new approach to media and technology in this thoughtful and humanistic treatment. The emphasis here is on meaning and human communication, not a tired polemic on the inevitability of technological change. . . . Refreshing! -- Everette Dennis, Distinguished Felix E. Larkin Prof

Perhaps no previous scholar has synthesized the ways media technologies are harming a sense of community, especially in such a compact book. ... Perhaps [Bugeja] ought to give himself credit for implanting optimism in at least some of his readers, because his book, if read carefully, is empowering. -- The Des Moines Register<br> Wise, troubling, tough-minded and profoundly on target, Interpersonal Divide is a thoughtfully human response to the burgeoning challenge to our sense and practice of community posed by the new communications technologies, their use as well as misuse. -- Hodding Carter III, President and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation<br> Michael Bugeja has delivered a creative, new approach to media and technology in this thoughtful and humanistic treatment. The emphasis here is on meaning and human communication, not a tired polemic on the inevitability of technological change. . . . Refreshing! -- Everette Dennis, Distinguished Felix E. Larkin Professor, Fordham University<br> Michael Bugeja's Interpersonal Divide is a book of concerned prescription. An accomplished poet, an ethicist and a journalism professor, Bugeja aims to assess changes resulting from the Technology Revolution of the 1990s. He's careful to note at the start of this admirably clear volume that he has not written a book of social panic. But he has written one of social high anxiety. ... At the end of each chapter, he lists journal exercises and discussion ideas for those who feel inspired to examine their media habits. You could do a lot worse with your spare time (and probably will). Bugeja largely lives up to the second goal he set for himself -- to produce a multidisciplinarywork to explain complex truths in plain language rather than to validate those truths via complex language --The Washington Post<br>

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