Audiences are transforming from 'effects of media' into 'agents of knowledge.' Digital literacy has implications not only for teenage consumerism but also (simultaneously) for the growth of science, imagination and innovation, using the creative capital of whole populations. Instead of the...

China has a reputation as an economy based on utility: the large-scale manufacture of low-priced goods. But useful values like functionality, fitness for purpose and efficiency are only part of the story. More important are what Veblen called ‘honorific’ values, arguably the driving force of...