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The aim of this book is to examine digitalized mass society through the new collective behaviors of people connected by smartphones and other electronic devices. It departs from previous works by rethinking the plausibility of invisible crowds and digital swarms that form in cyberspace to become commercially and politically expedient.

AbstractThe transition from solid to liquid modernity has led Bauman to suggest that nowadays people have come to be like tourists living from one moment to another. Addressing this behavior as the tourist syndrome, he proposes to treat the contemporary meaning of social interaction as inseparable from the consumption of sensations and looseness of ties. This is most apparent in the case of leisure travel where the organization of escapism is premised on the excitement of rapidly changing scenery and absence of belonging. In these scenarios of impermanence, order and regularity are overshadowed by the impulse for disengagement, flexibility and transience. Yet the fluidity of travel is not simply a metaphor for the fading of structured expectations, ordered modalities and patterned perceptions. Many people exposed to the asperity of being on the road do not want to be alienated from the familiar and the predictable. A description of Malaysian travellers on packaged tours suggests that their attraction to the liquid sensationalism of distant travels does not necessarily rule out the predilection for order and habitual attachments. As an aspect of Malaysian modernity, the popularity of packaged tourism reflects the attraction of the affluent middle class to the promotion of liquid leisure in planned travels that do not deny them their sense of order.

Weber's portrayal of modern society as disenchanted was implicitly a way of considering the rationalization of social futures. These are futures derived from empiricist understandings of world mastery and regarded as devoid of mystery. Yet he devoted some writings to charisma and magic that were incongruent with his focus on rationality, suggesting alternative social futures that highlight mysteries for the recovery of meaning. By examining these writings in the context of his critique of modernity, it is possible to draw out some of his ideas on re-enchantment as the key to understanding alternative social futures.

La religion a perdu son exclusivité définitionnelle en raison de changements sociaux et culturels qui ont réduit la distance entre le sacré et le profane. Aujourd'hui, être ``croyant'' peut aussi bien désigner le fait d'aller régulièrement à l'église ou au temple que celui d'assister à des matches de football ou de suivre des cours de tai-chi. Toutefois, les ``activités spirituelles'' sont en nombre croissant et le souci du développement spirituel ne se dément pas. Ce paradoxe souligne un dilemme émergeant du moi: le moi peut-il continuer à revendiquer le caractère sacré de ses constructions institutionnelles tout en cherchant à renforcer son propre champ spirituel? C'est dans le contexte du réenchantement que ce dilemme trouve sa solution. Le fait que le charisme se soit libéré des institutions religieuses alimente le réenchantement, au point que la religion semble imploser sous les auspices d'une insistance constante sur l'expérience individuelle. Dans ce contexte, le sacré ne correspond pas nécessairement à la signification conventionnelle de la religion, dès lors que la subjectivité est devenue un élément central de la connaissance du divin plutôt que d'être inféodée aux structures de la religion.

The concept of liquid modernity proposed by Zygmunt Bauman suggests a rapidly changing order that undermines all notions of durability. It implies a sense of rootlessness to all forms of social construction. In the field of development, such a concept challenges the meaning of modernization as an effort to establish long lasting structures. By applying this concept to development, it is possible to address the nuances of social change in terms of the interplay between the solid and liquid aspects of modernization.

Malaysians are under no illusion that they have shed their racial identities to embrace a single national identity. Yet the multiculturalism practiced in contemporary Malaysia seems to be compatible with a patriotic nationalism espoused by the government. This compatibility has the appearance of multiculturalism surviving the ordeal of postcolonial racial politics. The turbulence of racial politics seems to have been surpassed by a revitalized nationalism that does not blatantly erase racial heritage. The question of race relations in Malaysia is therefore a question of how multiculturalism and nationalism are successfully presented as icons of integration, overshadowing the more gritty issues of racial politics. These issues are not denied, but have become less transparent as national identity is developed in an arena of new images. (AAS/DÜI)

Baudrillard's fatalism could be interpreted as a unique synthesis of poststructuralism and Eastern philosophy. It may be construed as an effort to integrate the critique of the political economy of the sign with a romantic anthropology of symbolic exchange that is partly influenced by Taoist philosophy. As a whole, it comprises a type of countercultural response to a burgeoning simulacral order. This is a response that draws upon some aspects of Taoist thought because it ideally provides a non-Marxist approach to the critique of the sign, but is insufficiently developed to consider the problem of agency in Taoist non-causal action. This paper surveys the general direction of Baudrillard's writings and suggests possible areas of research emerging from the ambiguities of fatal theory.

Jean Baudrillard's fatalism could be interpreted as a unique synthesis of poststructuralism & Eastern philosophy. It may be construed as an effort to integrate the critique of the political economy of the sign with a romantic anthropology of symbolic exchange partly influenced by Taoist philosophy. It comprises a type of countercultural response to a burgeoning simulacral order. This is a response that draws on some aspects of Taoist thought because it ideally provides a non-Marxist approach to the critique of the sign, but is insufficiently developed to consider the problem of agency in Taoist noncausal action. Here, the general direction of Baudrillard's writings is explored, & possible areas of research emerging from the ambiguities of fatal theory are suggested. 30 References. Adapted from the source document.