In recent years there has been a large and diverse body of writing from scholars in the social sciences who have been studying changes brought about by new communication technologies in general and the Internet in particular. The question of how people behave, interact and organize themselves in relation to this form of communication has been given added prominence by developments within new social theory, especially in relation to the novelty of contemporary social formations and the importance of mass communications to this changed order. For the student new to the study of technology and society, there are a bewildering array of claims and counter claims, representing a spectrum of theoretical, methodological and critical sensibilities in relation to the Internet.In this new book Allison Cavanagh evaluates the work in this area by: investigating the novelty of the Internet and setting the Internet in the context of communication histories; and, evaluating the extent and rate of change through a synthesis of the available empirical literature. Providing a key to understanding the changes identified through an evaluation of the utility of new social theory, "Sociology in the Age of the Internet" is essential reading for academics and students with an interest in the relationship between the internet and society.

Allison Cavanagh is a lecturer in Communications Studies at the University of Leeds