"The brilliant heir to McLuhan." New Perspectives Quarterly Bold, daring, and provocative, Douglas Rushkoff examines the intricate ways in which popular media both manipulates and is manipulated by those who tap into its power. If the medium is the message, then what sort of messages are infecting our culture through the ever-expanding media viruses of the "datasphere"?

The most virulent viruses today are composed of information. In this information-driven age, the easiest way to manipulate the culture is through the media. A hip and caustically humorous McLuhan for the '90s, culture watcher Douglas Rushkoff now offers a fascinating expose of media manipulation in today's age of instant information.

A searing account of how vaccine opponents have used the media to spread their message of panic, despite no scientific evidence to support them.

With the growing global fear of a major pandemic, avian influenza (AI) virus research has greatly increased in importance. In Avian Influenza Virus, an expert team of researchers and diagnosticians examine the fundamental, yet essential, virological methods for AI virus research and diagnostics as well as some of the newest molecular procedures currently used for basic and applied research. They present exciting, cutting-edge new methods that focus both on studying the virus itself and on work with avian hosts, an area greatly lacking in research.

Health is a contested concept that has been defined in numerous ways. The media is extremely powerful in promoting health beliefs and in creating role models for contemporary people. The ways in which health is defined or understood can have wide-ranging implications and can have an impact on issues such as health promotion or health literacy. Health presentation in the media has a significant social impact because this type of message is important in changing people's beliefs, attitudes and behaviours relating to health and in promoting health-related knowledge among the target audience. The present volume provides an interdisciplinary and multicultural contemporary approach to the controversial link between medicine and media. The authors that have contributed to this volume analyse the media and medicine from different perspectives and different countries (USA, UK, Portugal, Turkey, Taiwan, Mexico, Estonia, Romania), thus offering a re-positioning of the study of media and medicine. The new perspectives offered by this volume will be of interest to any health communication or media studies student or academic since they bring to light new ideas, new methodologies and new results.

Advances in Virus Research