Technological advancements in the West since the last millennium have contributed to global modernity. Technologies set conditions for the closeness of the nation-states and for the affinity of the global and the local. They are also penetrating everyday life, and even sometimes the body, producing radical social changes. Yet, arguing that new technologies bring a new life and a promising future to global societies remains a questionable thesis.

This book attempts to explore the relationship between new technologies and global societies, to gain an understanding of how the positive as well as negative influences of technologies bear on global societies, how their practices of use are resisted or re-interpreted by these societies, and how their social meaning is constituted through the process of negotiation with these societies. Part 1 is on science, technology, culture, and the body; Part 2 is on new media and generations, and Part 3 is on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and work.

This book has been selected for coverage in:

• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings� (ISSHP�/ISI Proceedings)
• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (ISSHP CDROM version/ISI Proceedings)

Contents:

• Science, Technology, Culture, and the Body:
• Science and the Culture of Everyday Life in the Philippines (R Pertierra)
• Technology Transfers of Chinese Universities: Is Mode 2 Sufficient for a Developing Country? (W Hong)
• ICTs and the Human Body: A Social Representation Approach (A Contarello & L Fortunati)
• Technological Development and Society: The Discourse on PGD in Germany (K Wüstner)
• New Media and Generations:
• Analysis of the Content of Newsgroup Messages: Methodological and Technical Issues (L Giuliano)
• Practices in the Use of ICTs, Political Attitudes Among Youth, and the Italian Media System (L Fortunati & R Strassoldo)
• Teenagers and Mobile Phones in Malta: A Sociolinguistic Profile (L Sciriha)
• Mobile Phones, Aged Homes, and Family Relations in Hong Kong Preliminary Observations (W W-L Wong)
• ICTs and Work:
• The Impact of Internet Use on Transnational Entrepreneurship: The Case of Chinese Immigrants to Canada (W Chen)
• Mobile Phones and New Migrant Workers in a South China Village: An Initial Analysis of the Interplay Between the �Social� and the �Technological� (W-C Chu & S Yang)
• The Use of Mobile Phones Among Migrant Workers in Southern China (P-L Law & Y Peng)
• Sexuality as Public Spectacle: The Transformation of Sex Information and Service in the Age of the Internet (G Liu & J Lau)

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Readership: Students and scholars with interest in the relationship between society and technology.

"It covers several different forms of mediation and gives the reader insight into a broad range of both policy and pragmatic issues associated with the adoption and use of these technologies. A very strong point is the heavy emphasis on the situation in China ... China is, after all, the largest single mobile telephony market in the world. Thus, this volume does us all a service by providing some insight into the goings-on there. Another positive dimension of this volume is that it does not simply equate technology with the internet. Thus, it can correctly claim, as it does in its title, that it examines new technologies in a global context."