Living in the digital age: self-presentation, networking, playing and participating in politics

This book “Living in the Digital Age: Self-presentation, Networking, Playing, and Participating in Politics” seeks to contribute to some of the most up-to-date, complex explorations of what living with new media technologies entails. It brings together contributions of an international group of scholars, most of whom are part of the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Internet and Society (IRTIS – see http://irtis.fss.muni.cz ) within the Institute for Research on Children, Youth and Family at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. This interdisciplinary group of researchers presents their original research in four inter-related areas: self-presentation and impression management in the digital age; online networking among youth; digital gaming and playing; and political participation in the digital era. The book combines approaches from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, media studies, and political science. Most chapters are based on new empirical data; some chapters include theoretical reflections on current topics. The authors mostly used data from European countries, including data from the Europe-wide project EU Kids Online (see www.eukidsonline.net) and, in one case, the respondents were American. The chapters are also methodologically diverse, using both qualitative and quantitative methods: surveys, focus groups, interviews, and content analyses