Computer Media and Communication: A Reader is a collection of key texts selected for their significance to thought about computers as media. The book is divided into two parts. The chapters in the first part offer a chronological overview of how thinking about computers as a means of communication developed, while the second part offers far-reaching analyses of the implications of computer media for culture and society, while highlighting significant directions of current research. The book not only provides an insight into how thinking about computers as media has developed but also is an excellent guide for students and others interested in the field of media and communication studies. (This book is the first in the Oxford Readers in Media and Communication series under the General Editorship of Professors Brian Winston and Everette Dennis which will be an authoritative wide-ranging series of readings for media students. There are more than eighty institutions in the UK offering courses in the field at present and in the USA this number is ten times as great.)

Introduction PART ONE: HISTORY Introduction: From Logic Machines to the Dynabook: An Overview of the Conceptual Development of Computer Media 1. As We May Think, Vannevar Bush 2. Computing Machinery, Alan M. Turing 3. Man-Computer Symbiosis, John C. R. Licklider 4. A Conceptual Framework for the Augmentation of Man's Intellect, Douglas C. Engelbart 5. The Computer as a Communication Device, John C. R. Licklider and Robert R. Taylor 6. Personal Dynamic Media, Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg 7. A New Home for the Mind, Ted Nelson 8. Alan Kay: Computer Software PART TWO: SYSTEMATIC STUDIES 9. Modernity Modernized: The Cultural Impact of Computerization, Niels Ole Finnemann 10. `Interactivity': Tracking a New Concept in Media and Communication Studies, Jens F. Jensen 11. One Person, One Computer: The Social Construction of the Personal Computer, Klaus Bruhn Jensen 12. Who Will We Be in Cyberspace?, Langdon Winner 13. Understanding Community in the Information Age, Steven G. Jones 14. Posting in a Different Voice: Gender and Ethics in Computer-Mediated Communication, Susan C. Herring 15. Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary Stories About Virtual Cultures, Allucquere Rosanne Stone 16. Topographic Writing: Hypertext and the Electronic Writing Space, Jay David Bolter 17. The CD-ROM Novel Myst and McLuhan's Fourth law of Media: Myst and It's `Retrievals', David Miles 18. Computer Mediated Studies: An Emerging Field, Paul A. Mayer Index

`Paul Mayer's interesting collection of papers is a very welcome sign of the growing maturity of computer-based media and communication as an area of academic study.' Peter Dean, Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies Special Issue: The Internet Autumn 2000 Vol 6 No 3