Mappings the Digital: Cultures and Territories of Play is an interdisciplinary discussion about the state of play and the state of games in contemporary culture. This volume takes a critical look and how our cultures and territories are being renegotiated through our engagement with digital media, games, and tools. This volume argues broadly that our tangible world, and our understanding of it, are being renegotiated and remapped by the digital worlds with which we engaged. Specifically, the chapters in this volume analyse linguistic changes; unique in-game cultures and behaviours; and new methods for communicating across real and perceived boundaries, for understanding cultural experiences, and for learning through play. Drawing from the global expertise of scholars within the fields of Cultural Studies, Game Studies, Foreign Language, Science and more, this volume bridges academic boarders to assemble a cohesive and authoritative resource on digital culture and play.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Digital Subjects: Videogames, Technology and Identity -- 2 Datafied Subjects: Profiling and Personal Data -- 3 Private Subjects: Secrecy, Scandal and Surveillance -- 4 Beastly Subjects: Bodies and Interfaces -- 5 Synthetic Subjects: Horror and Artificial Intelligence -- 6 Mobile Subjects: Framing Selves and Spaces -- 7 Productive Subjects: Time, Value and Gendered Feelings -- Index

Tourism is one of the most rapidly evolving industries of the 21st century. The integration of technological advancements plays a crucial role in the ability for many countries, all over the world, to attract visitors and maintain a distinct edge in a highly competitive market. The Handbook of Research on Technological Developments for Cultural Heritage and eTourism Applications is a pivotal reference source for the latest research findings on the utilization of information and communication technologies in tourism. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant areas such as smart tourism, user interfaces, and social media, this publication is an ideal resource for policy makers, academicians, researchers, advanced-level students, and technology developers seeking current research on new trends in ICT systems and application and tourism.

Interrogating the Use of LGBTQ Slurs: Still Smearing the Queer? provides a critical exploration of LGBTQ slurs through its innovative focus on hetero-cis-normativity and Norm-Centered Stigma Theory (NCST), the first-ever testable theory about stigma. Based on research with more than 3,000 respondents, the ways gender/sexuality norm-violators are stigmatized and disciplined as “others” through asserting and affirming one’s own social power are highlighted alongside other unique elements of slur use (joking and bonding). Through its fresh and in-depth approach, this book is the ideal resource for those who want to learn about LGBTQ slurs more generally and for those who seek a nuanced, theory-driven, and intersectional examination of how these LGBTQ prejudices function. In doing so, it is the most comprehensive scholarly resource to date that critically examines the use of LGBTQ slurs and thus, has the potential to have broad impacts on society at large by helping to improve the LGBTQ cultural climate. Interrogating the use of LGBTQ Slurs: Still Smearing the Queer? is important reading for scholars and students in the fields of LGBTQ studies, Gender Studies, Criminology, and Sociology.

Spooky Technology explores our understanding of the invisible technologies in our everyday lives, from objects with ‘intelligence’ to systems in our homes that talk to us (and each other). The book is an inventory of spooky technologies, compiled by Carnegie Mellon students reviewing work across art, design, HCI, psychology, human factors research, and other fields, that has been done in this field, or adjacent to it, both historically and more recently, with commentary, essays, and interviews with creators and artists. We often hear that the technologies in our everyday lives would appear to be ‘magic’ and potentially terrifying to people in the past—instantaneous communication with people all over the world, access to a vast, ever-growing resource of human knowledge right there in the palm of our hand, objects with ‘intelligence’ that can sense and talk to us (and each other). But rarely are these ‘otherworldly’ dimensions of technologies explored in more detail. There is an often unspoken presumption that the march of progress will inevitably mean we all adopt new practices, and incorporate new products and new ways of doing things into our lives—all cities will become smart cities; all homes will become smart homes. But these systems have become omnipresent without our necessarily understanding them. They are not just black boxes, but invisible: entities in our homes and everyday lives which work through hidden flows of data, unknown agendas, imaginary clouds, mysterious sets of rules which we perhaps dismiss as ‘algorithms’ or even ‘AI’ without really understanding what that means. On some level, the superstitions and sense of wonder, and ways of relating to the unknown and the supernatural (deities, spirits, ghosts) which humanity has felt in every culture throughout history have not gone away, but started to become transferred and transmuted into new forms.

A fascinating, eclectic analysis of the changing geographies of play in contemporary society.