What is a «good life» and how can it be achieved? In this volume, communication scholars and media experts explore these fundamental questions about human existence and aspiration in terms of what a «good life» might look like in a contemporary, mediatized society. While in many ways a mediatized society brings us closer to some version of the «good life», it also leads us away from it. The affordances of new technologies seem to have shifted, for many, from an opportunity to an obligation. Rather than choosing when and where to be connected to these larger networks of information and acquaintances, we feel we must be permanently available, thus losing the luxury of controlling our time and attention.
This volume illuminates the complexity of our modern era, exploring how society can leverage exciting new opportunities whilst recognizing the complex challenges we face in a time of constant change. It helps us understand how we have come to this point and where we may be going so that we may study the opportunities and the dangers, the chances and the risks, that digital media pose in our quest for some version of «the good life».

Hua Wang (PhD, University of Southern California) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

Content: Stacey Spiegel/Heli Tuomi Carlile: In Search of the Good Life ¿ Charles M. Ess: The Good Life: Selfhood and Virtue Ethics in the Digital Age ¿ Rich Ling: Eudaimonia: Mobile Communication and Social Flourishing ¿ Mary Beth Oliver/Julia K. Woolley: Meaningfulness and Entertainment: Fiction and Reality in the Land of Evolving Technologies ¿ Peng Hwa Ang: Media Policy for Happiness: A Case Study of Bhutan ¿ Leo W. Jeffres/Kimberly A. Neuendorf/David Atkin: Communication and Perceptions of the Quality of Life ¿ Allison Eden/Tilo Hartmann/Leonard Reinecke: Tuning in versus Zoning out: The Role of Ego Depletion in Selective Exposure to Challenging Media ¿ Jian Raymond Rui/Michael A. Stefanone: The Secret to Happiness: Social Capital, Trait Self-Esteem, and Subjective Well-Being ¿ Diana Mok/Barry Wellman/Dimitrina Dimitrova: Modeling Communication in a Research Network: Implications for the Good Networked Life ¿ Robert LaRose/Saleem Alhabash/Mengtian Jiang/Ruth Shillair/Hsin-yi Sandy Tsai/Shelia R. Cotton/Nora J. Rifon: Communicating Online Safety: Protecting Our Good Life on the Net ¿ Andreas Hepp/Peter Lunt, Maren Hartmann: Communicative Figurations of the Good Life: Ambivalences of the Mediatization of Homelessness and Transnational Migrant Families ¿ Meryl Alper/Elizabeth Ellcessor/Katie Ellis/Gerard Michael Goggin: Reimagining the Good Life with Disability: Communication, New Technology, and Humane Connections ¿ Susan B. Kretchmer/Joy Pierce/Laura Robinson: The 20th Anniversary of the Digital Divide: Challenges and Opportunities for Communication and the Good Life ¿ Henri Lipmanowicz/Arvind Singhal/Keith McCandless/Hua Wang: Liberating Structures: Engaging Everyone to Build a Good Life Together.