This volume explores a wide range of topics for those wishing to augment their technological skills and comprehension. Making sense of how devices, software, and digital platforms operate can help in navigating many of the technologies that have become part of daily life. Taking a look back at how computers and later technologies developed sheds light on how profound an effect digital technology has had on humanity, with developments such as artificial intelligence raising questions about what it even means to be human. Access to digital technology plays an important role in determining individual opportunity, and several efforts are underway to lessen the digital divide.--Publisher.

Computer literacy Information technology Digital media. Introduction -- Contributors -- Social Movements & Collective Behavior -- Collective Behavior: Contagion Theory -- Convergence Theory -- Dispersed Collectivities: Rumors and Gossip -- Emergent-Norm Theory -- Gay Rights Movement -- Gender Socialization -- Localized Collectivities: Mobs, Riots and Crowd Behavior -- Mass Hysteria -- Mass Media, Propaganda and Public Opinion -- Moral Panic -- Moral Policing -- Narrative and Social Movements -- Religion & Sexuality -- Sexual Revolution and Counter Revolution -- Sociology of the Internet -- Women's Rights Movement -- Stratification & Class in the U.S. -- Assessing Class: Education -- Assessing Class: Income -- Assessing Class: Lifestyle Choices -- Assessing Class: Wealth -- Class System -- Contradictory Class Locations -- Cultural Theories of Poverty -- Demographics of Poverty -- Gender and Stratification: The Effects of Social Marginalization -- Middle Class in America -- Poor and the Working Poor -- Poverty and Social Exclusion -- Social Exclusion -- Social Exclusion and Crime -- Social Mobility and the Postindustrial Society -- Social Mobility in the U.S. -- Stratification and Class: Income Inequality -- Underclass in America -- Upper Class -- Wealth Inequality -- Working Class -- Social Interaction in Groups & Organizations -- Authoritarian, Democratic, and Laissez-Faire Leadership -- Bourdieu's Habitus -- Bureaucratic Inertia -- Bureaucratic Surveillance -- Characteristics of Bureaucracies -- Coercive Organizations -- Conformity -- Corporate Dissenters -- Deindividuation -- Group Polarization -- Group Size -- Groupthink -- Heterogeneous and Homogeneous Groups -- Informal Relations within Bureaucracies -- Ingroups and Outgroups -- Japanese Formal Organizations -- McDonaldization -- Mechanistic and Organic Organizations -- Merton's Dysfunctions of Bureaucracies -- Normative Organizations -- Oligarchies -- Open Organizations -- Organizational Environment -- Primary and Secondary Groups -- Race and Gender in Formal Organizations -- Reference Groups and Role Models -- Scientific Management in Organizations -- Social Category and Social Aggregate -- Social Interaction: Networks -- Social Media as Social Interaction -- Social Networks: Social Capital -- Technology in Modern Organizations -- Transformational and Transactional Leadership -- Types of Authority -- Utilitarian Organizations -- Sociology of Religion -- Assessing Religiosity -- Atheism in America -- Churches, Denominations, Sects & Cults -- Civil Religion -- Feminist Theology -- Media Ministries -- Religion, Government & Politics -- Religion & Industrialization -- Religion & Social Change -- Religion & Society: Religious Persecution -- Religious Economy -- Religious Nationalism -- Secularization -- Sociological Theories of Religion: Conflict Analysis -- Sociological Theories of Religion: Structural Functionalism -- Sociological Theories of Religion: Symbolic Interactionism -- World Religions.