Digital Difference

<p><i>The Digital Difference</i> examines how the transition from the industrial-era media of one-way publishing and broadcasting to the two-way digital era of online search and social media has affected the dynamics of public life. <p/> In the digital age fundamental beliefs about privacy and identity are subject to change as is the formal legal basis of freedom of expression. Will it be possible to maintain a vibrant and open marketplace of ideas? In W. Russell Neuman's analysis the marketplace metaphor does not signal that money buys influence but rather just the opposite--that the digital commons must be open to all ideas so that the most powerful ideas win public attention on their merits rather than on the taken-for-granted authority of their authorship. <p/> Well-documented methodical provocative and clear <i>The Digital Difference</i> deserves a prominent place in communication proseminars and graduate courses in research methods because of its reorientation of media effects research and its application to media policy making.<br>--John P. Ferré <i>Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly</i></p>