The Bias of Communication

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind--a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.

• Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame
• Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft
• Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues
• Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results
• Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography

A new novel from the most outspoken African-American writer of our time.

George Grants Lament for a Nation led some to call him a Red Tory and the dominant force behind the Canadian nationalist movement of the 1970s. Today, reading George Grants books helps us to understand the full implications of American-led, technology-driven globalization on everyday life.

The definitive story of the international modeling business-and its evil twin, legalized flesh peddling-Model is a tale of beautiful women empowered and subjugated; of vast sums of money; of sex and drugs, obsession and tragic death; and of the most unholy combination in commerce: stunning young women and rich, lascivious men.

Investigative journalist Michael Gross takes us into the private studios and hidden villas where models play and are preyed upon, and tears down modelings carefully constructed faÇade of glamour to reveal the untold truths of an ugly trade.

In a series of fascinating essays that explore topics in American politics from the nation's founding to the present day , The Democratic Experiment opens up exciting new avenues for historical research while offering bold claims about the tensions that have animated American public life. Revealing the fierce struggles that have taken place over the role of the federal government and the character of representative democracy, the authors trace the contested and dynamic evolution of the national polity.

The contributors, who represent the leading new voices in the revitalized field of American political history, offer original interpretations of the nation's political past by blending methodological insights from the new institutionalism in the social sciences and studies of political culture. They tackle topics as wide-ranging as the role of personal character of political elites in the Early Republic, to the importance of courts in building a modern regulatory state, to the centrality of local political institutions in the late twentieth century. Placing these essays side by side encourages the asking of new questions about the forces that have shaped American politics over time. An unparalleled example of the new political history in action, this book will be vastly influential in the field.

In addition to the editors, the contributors are Brian Balogh, Sven Beckert, Rebecca Edwards, Joanne B. Freeman, Richard R. John, Ira Katznelson, James T. Kloppenberg, Matthew D. Lassiter, Thomas J. Sugrue, Michael Vorenberg, and Michael Willrich.