Authors: Patricia L. Bella; Paul Schiff Berman; David G. Post.
Hardcover, 836 pages
Publisher: West Group
Publication Date: 2006-11-29
Edition: 3

Reviews :

    This innovative casebookwhich has proved extremely popular with students and professors alikestarts from the premise that cyberlaw is not simply a set of legal rules governing online interaction, but a lens through which broader jurisprudential issues can be re-examined. Accordingly, this book goes beyond plugging Internet-related cases into a series of pre-existing doctrinal categoriesFirst Amendment, copyright, trademark, etc.and instead emphasizes the conceptual debates that cut across the areas of doctrine touched by cyberspace. Moreover, the casebook uses the rise of the Internet to encourage readers to reconsider various assumptions in traditional legal doctrine. This dual focus provides readers with broad-based and sophisticated training in Internet-related legal issues while also making the argument that cyberlaw is a coherent and useful field of study. Thus, instead of compiling a list of topic areas, the book seeks to define a set of conceptual issues that extend across the spectrum of Internet legal dilemmas. While all of the traditional subject matter areas of cyberlaw are addressed, they are placed in a new framework one that asks both students and professors to consider what it is that cyberlaw has to teach us about law more generally. The new edition retains the qualities that have made the book so successful in law schools across the country. It is compact, serves a variety of course formats, builds new cases on top of a foundation of non internet legal doctrine, and fosters lively and provocative class discussions. The third edition will, of course, provide updated case and statutory coverage, but in addition, the casebook has undergone a major revision to provide even greater conceptual clarity and respond to user feedback Treatment of subjects has been adjusted throughout to reflect new thinking in the field, each chapter now includes greater framing to highlight the issues to be explored, materials have been reordered to make more intuitive conne...

Authors: Lawrence Lessig.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: 2000-07-13


Reviews :

    ...

    "We, the Net People, in order to form a more perfect Transfer Protocol..." might be recited in future fifth-grade history classes, says attorney Lawrence Lessig. He turns the now-traditional view of the Internet as an uncontrollable, organic entity on its head, and explores the architecture and social systems that are changing every day and taming the frontier. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace is his well-reasoned, undeniably cogent series of arguments for guiding the still-evolving regulatory processes, to ensure that we don't find ourselves stuck with a system that we find objectionable. As the former Communist-bloc countries found, a constitution is still one of our best guarantees against the dark side of chaos; and Lessig promotes a kind of document that accepts the inevitable regulatory authority of both government and commerce, while constraining them within values that we hold by consensus.

Lessig holds that those who shriek the loudest at the thought of interference in cyberdoings, especially at the hands of the government, are blind to the ever-increasing regulation of the Net (admittedly, without badges or guns) by businesses that find little opposition to their schemes from consumers, competitors, or cops. The Internet will be regulated, he says, and our window of opportunity to influence the design of those regulations narrows each day. How will we make the decisions that the Framers of our paper-and-ink Constitution couldn't foresee, much less resolve? Lessig proclaims that many of us will have to wake up fast and get to work before we lose the chance to draft a networked Bill of Rights. --Rob Lightner...

Authors: Chris Habl Gray.
Paperback, 264 pages
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 2002-02-08
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Examining health care, social interactions, and politics, Gray's focus is largely on particular modifications and enhancements such as prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, performance-enhancing drugs, and their descendants. He also explores how to forge a society that protects the rights of human and cyborg alike. Softcover. ...

    Some great science fiction has asked about robots and the right to vote--but what happens when we're 51 percent artificial ourselves? Cyberculture scholar Chris Hables Gray looks at the ever-changing human body in Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age and makes some well-educated guesses on the makeup of the future cybernetic body politic. Though he does go out of his way to remind the reader that nearly all of us are bioenhanced (that is a vaccination scar, isn't it?), he's neither a chrome-eyed Extropian nor a Rifkinesque fear-mongerer. His thesis is refreshingly simple in a world overfilled with postmodern complexity: we're changing our bodies more and more radically, and we ought to think about how this will change our way of life.

Examining health care, social interactions, and politics, Gray's focus is largely on particular modifications and enhancements such as prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, performance-enhancing drugs, and their descendants. The book never dips into freak show territory, though; even if Gray uses colorful examples to illustrate his points, he still maintains a humanistic attitude throughout. His simple thesis, coupled with this attitude, create a web of thought that is simultaneously entertaining and enlightening. Though our track record on preemptively dealing with change is spotty at best, reading Cyborg Citizen is still a good prescription for keeping the posthuman jitters at bay. --Rob Lightner ...

Authors: Richard Heeks.
Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
Publication Date: 2005-11-23


Reviews :

    Check out the companion website at www.sagepub.co.uk/heeks

 

Implementing and Managing eGovernment fills an important gap. It provides comprehensive coverage of the e-government issues faced by managers, consultants and other practitioners.

Richard Heeks draws on international examples to guide readers through crucial e-government management issues such as the management of strategy and projects; data security; quality; people, money and policies, and dealing with political and ethical challenges. The second part of the book focuses on the implementation of e-government systems. It explores activities such as: feasibility studies, system analysis, system design, construction and marketing.

Instructive diagrams, synoptic models and case studies underpin the book's content while class and practitioner assessments will help readers monitor their understanding. Additional material is also available on a companion Website.

This book will be welcomed by students pursuing an MPA, undergraduates studying public policy and administration, and practitioners on government in-service training.

...

Authors: Philip H., III Pollock.
Paperback, 217 pages
Publisher: CQ Press
Publication Date: 2006-05-30


Reviews :

    With a robust statistical package and eye-catching graphics Stata is fast becoming the statistical program of choice for political scientists. For speed, versatility, comprehensiveness, and ease-of-use, Stata is hard to beat. It can be a little daunting for beginning students, but no longer. Philip Pollock's accessible introduction to the program offers students a step-by-step tutorial, leading them through descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation analysis, mean comparisons, linear correlation and regression (including dummy variables and interaction effects), and logistic regression--all tailored to political science material. With over 40 carefully crafted exercises and generous use of annotated screenshots, students will be navigating Stata's graphics routines in no time. Ten feature boxes highlight some of Stata's special capabilities while a concluding chapter provides guidance on how to set up a research project, as well as how to use Stata to read raw data.

Students will be amazed at what they can do as they work through chapters. Graphics capabilities that allow a user to create effective visual displays ranging from elementary but elegant histograms to sophisticated comparisons of logistic regression curves are a major attraction of Stata and are put to effective use in this one-of-a-kind workbook.

Paired with a traditional methods text, this companion volume equips students to analyze real political science research and comes complete with a CD-ROM that includes four customized datasets: two individual-level survey datasets (200 variables from the 2004 National Election Study and 150 variables from the 2002 General Social Survey), and two datasets containing aggregate-level variables on the fifty states and on 114 nations of the world....

Authors: David Weinberger.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: 2003-05


Reviews :

    ...

    David Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined does not merely celebrate the World Wide Web; it attempts to make a case that the institution has completely remodeled many of the world's self-perceptions. The book does so entertainingly, if not convincingly, and is a lively collection of epigrammatic phrases (the Web is "'place-ial' but not spatial"; "on the Web everyone will be famous to 15 people"), as well as illustrations of these changes. There are intriguing assertions: that the Web is "broken on purpose" and that its many pockets of erroneous information and its available forums for disputing, say, manufacturers' hyperbole, let people feel more comfortable with their own inherent imperfections. At other times the book seems stale: it declares that the Web has disrupted long-held axioms about time, space, and knowledge retrieval and that it has dramatically rearranged notions of community and individuality. Weinberger's analysis, though occasionally facile and too relentlessly optimistic and overstated, is surely destined to be the subject of furious debate in chat rooms the cyber-world over. --H. O'Billovich ...

Authors: Andrew Chadwick.
Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 2006-02-23


Reviews :

    In the developed world, there is no longer an issue of whether the Internet affects politics--but how, why and with what consequences. With the Internet now spreading at a breathtaking rate in the developing world, the new medium is fraught with tensions, paradoxes, and contradictions. How do we make sense of these? In this major new work, Andrew Chadwick addresses such concerns, providing the first comprehensive overview of Internet politics. Internet Politics examines the impact of new communication technologies on political parties and elections, pressure groups, social movements, local democracy, public bureaucracies, and global governance. It also analyzes persistent and controversial policy problems, including the digital divide; the governance of the Internet itself; the tensions between surveillance, privacy and security; and the political economy of the Internet media sector. The approach is explicitly comparative, providing numerous examples from the U.S., Britain, and many other countries. Written in a clear and accessible style, this theoretically sophisticated and up-to-date text reveals the key difference the Internet makes in how we "do" politics and how we "think about" political life. Featuring numerous figures, tables, and text boxes, Internet Politics is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in political science, international relations, and communication studies....

Authors: Barbara Norrander. Michael Corbett.
Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
Publication Date: 2005-08-15
Edition: 9

Reviews :

    This Windows-compatible package includes access to MicroCase® datasets and workbook. You make your own decisions about the issues as you analyze and interpret current NES and GSS data....

Authors: George Gilder.
Paperback, 220 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: 1985-09-01
Edition: Revised

Reviews :

    Television has long been identified as a dead hand on culture; but George Gilder suggests here that this centralized, authoritarian institution is also a dying technology and that the telecomputer - a powerful interactive system that will affect all aspects of life, from education to business to leisure time - will replace it. America is presently at the forefront of telecomputer development, but government restrictions - such as those that limit the wide use of fibre-optic technology - may hinder the American companies in the vanguard. Gilder's optimistic message is that the United States has only to unleash its industrial resources to command the "telefuture", in which new technology will overthrow the stultifying influence of mass media and renew the power of individuals....

Authors: Sara Miles.
Paperback, 262 pages
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication Date: 2002-04-08
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    A look at the political awakening that occurred in America's Silicon Valley in the late 1990s, this text offers analyses of, among other things, the "digital divide" and the nuances of party subdivisions....