The Network Society is now more than ever the essential guide to the past, consequences and future of digital communication.

Fully revised, this Third Edition covers crucial new issues and updates, including:

• the long history of social media and Web 2.0: why it's not as new as we think

• digital youth culture as a foreshadow of future new media use

• the struggle for control of the internet among Microsoft, Google, Apple and Facebook

• the contribution of media networks to the current financial crisis

• complete update of the literature on the facts, theories, trends and technologies of the internet

• new features for students with boxes of chapter questions, conclusions and boxed explanations of key concepts

This book remains an accessible, comprehensive, must-read introduction to how new media function in contemporary society.