No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Theorizing Modernity and Technology
Abstract
If asked, most people would agree that there are deep connections between technology and the modern world, and even that technology is the truly distinctive feature of modernity. Until recently, however, there has been surprisingly little overlap between technology studies and modernity theory. The goal of this ambitious book is to lay the foundations for a new interdisciplinary field by closely examining the co-construction of technology and modernity.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I lays the methodological groundwork for combining studies of technology and modernity, while integrating ideas drawn from feminism, critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and socioeconomics. Part II continues the methodological discussion, focusing on specific sociotechnical systems or technologies with prominent relations to modernity. Part III introduces practical and political issues by considering alternative modes of technology development and offering critiques of modern medicine, environmental technology, international development, and technology policy. The book as a whole suggests a broad research program that is both academic and applied and that will help us understand how contemporary societies can govern technologies instead of being governed by them.
... Kline and Pinch (1999) also see it as important to consider how identities of social groups are reconstituted in the process of technology development, attributing agency to technological artifacts. In this respect, an offshoot of SCOT that is not applied in this thesis is Actor-Network Theory (ANT) which expands upon this viewpoint; technological development processes in ANT are seen through a lens of 'actor networks', i.e. heterogeneous networks of entities consisting of both human and nonhuman actors under the principle of 'generalized symmetry', to explain technology development (Brey, 2003;Latour, 2005). The reason for not using ANT is because ANT involves looking at phenomena entirely through actor-networks, their interconnections and use of derived terms -such as 'boundary objects' (Star and Griesemer, 1989) and 'translation' processes (Callon, 2007). ...
... contestation and negotiation of technologies over time), as well as SCOT's fundamental socio-technical underpinning. With respect to understanding of 'coconstruction' of technology, Brey (2003) notes that SCOT can be seen apart from social constructivism in an extreme sense since SCOT does not go as far as seeing technologies as purely mental constructions where technological characteristics are merely the outcome of social interactions. SCOT does recognize inherent characteristics of technologies, where Brey makes a distinction between 'weak' and 'strong' social constructivism as elaborated in the following: ...
... Whether a certain technology works or is efficient or user-friendly, and the nature of its functions, powers, and effects is not a pregiven, but the outcome of social processes of negotiation and interpretation." (Brey, 2003) With respect to the partnership innovation processes in access2innovation in which technology co-construction is analyzed, Figure 16 explains how innovation was generally understood within the secretariat. The process is illustrated as a linear model, though 'spaghetti-like' and iterative in practice . ...
Partnerships are seen as way to develop sustainable solutions in developing countries, and are supported through Danish international development cooperation instruments and other initiatives. In this thesis, the focus is on bridging through partnership innovation within access2innovation – an association facilitating partnerships mainly in East Africa.
The aim of the thesis is to investigate how technology is socially constructed in partnership innovation for developing countries, and how sustainable and inclusive innovation can be co-constructed. It draws empirically from access2innovation case studies within Solid Waste Management (SWM) in Vietnam and Uganda. The research is motivated by knowledge gaps regarding sustainability and inclusivity in business modeling and technology development, by considerations towards inclusivity across geographical contexts/ cultures and by applying a socio-technical understanding to inform partnership innovation processes.
The thesis is based on action research and participant observation, guided by Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) and Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA). Promoting sustainable and inclusive innovation is found to rest upon e.g. understanding of socio-technical systems, structuring for proactive intake of knowledge and bridging through balancing of representation among actors. The findings contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals agenda, including research, policy and practice especially with respect to Goal 17 dealing with partnerships.
... Modernity, however, is more than just about technology and its relationship with society. Whilst modernity is shaped by technology and, simultaneously, technologies are created by the systems of thought associated with modernity [11], it is these systems of thought which define modernityalbeit privileging technology and technological development. ...
... It is, however, the transformations of social life and personal relationships enabled by the Internet and associated technologies that have moved technology from an external facilitator to a stage of being internal to man. 11 The potential for the Internet and associated software to be socially transformational were identified almost at its inception, indeed notions of culture pervade early discussions of the Internet. For example, a year after the launch of the World Wide Web (WWW), 12 Dery [18] defined the term cyberculture as "A far-flung, loosely knit complex of sublegitimate, alternative, and oppositional subcultures whose common project is the subversive use of technocommodities often framed by radical body politics. ...
... Increasingly, Internet services are claimed to be essential, comparable with utilities such as electricity and waterthe UK Government has proposed the introduction of a Universal Service Commitment for the delivery of a 2 Mbps connection to virtually every household in the UK by 2012 ( [36]). 11 "No longer face to face with man but is integrated with him" ( [21]: 6), and in some extreme cases, "progressively absorbs him" ( [21]). 12 The World Wide Web (WWW) was launched by a British computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, on August 6, 1991 (see: (http://groups.google. ...
A phatic technology’s purpose is to establish, develop and maintain personal and social relationships. The invention and development of phatic technologies, and their influence on human society, have been accelerating rapidly in the past decade, exemplified by the growth of social networking technologies based on the Internet. To understand this acceleration we propose to analyse the phenomenon of phatic technologies with the aid of sociological concepts of the nature of contemporary society. Specifically, in this paper, we use some key notions in Giddens’ theory of modernity as analytical tools to support and facilitate our argument that certain abstract social conditions that are characteristic of modernity amplify significantly the human need for, and thus the development of, phatic technologies.
... There is clearly an elective affinity between these macro-level accounts that accent order and rationality and the modernist era's drive for control, order, and predictability. Such authors as Chandler, James Beniger (1989), David Landes, many macro-level sociologists and modernity theorists, and for a time most philosophers of technology, adopted macro-level methods of research and analysis and generated results that followed from these methods (Brey 2003;Misa 2004b). These authors focused on the large-scale processes of ordering, rationalizing, disciplining, standardizing, and modernizing that they saw as self-evident in the modern world around them. ...
... Philip Brey's strategy of interlevel analysis for bridging the gap between micro-and macro-level accounts reflects his training as a philosopher. Brey (2003) argues forcefully that technology has a pervasive role in the making of modernity, even terming it a "necessary condition" for the functioning of modern institutions. Understanding technology as a defining feature of modernity is necessary, he reminds us, since not only do modern institutions depend on technology but also many modern functions and practices are crucially mediated by modern technologies. ...
... Winner's (1980) classic account of Long Island's bus-blocking bridges as a case of "artifacts have politics" spawned rejoinders byJoerges (1999) andWoolgar and Cooper (1999). 3 See especially the work ofMisa (1988Misa ( , 1994Misa ( , 2004b,Brey (2003), andEdwards (2003). ...
In this paper, I outline several methodological questions that we need to confront. The chief question is how can we identify
the nature of technological change and its varied cultural consequences—including social, political, institutional, and economic
dimensions—when our different research methods, using distinct ‘levels’ or ‘scales’ of analysis, yield contradictory results.
What can we say, in other words, when our findings about technology follow from the framings of our inquiries? In slightly different terms, can we combine insights from the fine-grained “social shaping of technology”
as well as from complementary approaches accenting the “technological shaping of society?” As a way forward, I will suggest
conducting multi-scale inquiries into the processes of technological and cultural change. This will involve recognizing and
conceptualizing the analytical scales or levels on which we conduct inquiry (very roughly, micro, meso, macro) as well as
outlining strategies for moving within and between these scales or levels. Of course we want and need diverse methodologies
for analyzing technology and culture. I find myself in sympathy with geographer Brenner (New state spaces: urban governance
and the rescaling of statehood, 2004, p. 7), who aspires to a “theoretically precise yet also historically specific conceptualization
of [technological change] as a key dimension of social, political and economic life.”
... Ciborra (2001, p.2) described corporate information infrastructures and the design and implementation processes that lead to their construction and operation as puzzles, or collages, which are embedded in larger, contextual puzzles and collages (Ciborra 2001, p.2). "Inter-dependence, intricacy, and interweaving of people, systems, and processes are the culture bed of infrastructure" (Ciborra 2001, p.2). If ICT infrastructure is perplexing, because we don't have a good model to apply to its analysis (Brey 2003;Edwards 2003), then how policy makers can develop an appropriate policy given the complexity of the problem? Axelrod and Cohen (1999), propose a way to deal with the difficulty of policy making, a solution to the Ciborra's puzzle. ...
... In spite of the attention, there is still no error-prone method on how to connect macrolevel and microlevel analyses. This comes as no surprise, since, according to Brey (2003), considerable confusion exists over what makes a phenomenon studied in the social sciences a macro or micro: one view is that macrolevel phenomena and the concepts that refer to them are abstract and general, whereas microlevel phenomena tend to be concrete and specific; the other view is the size of the object (small size is associated with micro, large size -with macro) (Brey 2003, p.63). To bridge the micro-and macrolevels, analysts have to work at level building, engaging in what Brey (2003, p.69) called decomposition, suibsumption, deduction, and specification. ...
Development of national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure is a kind of activity that government engage to in order to create a rubric of progress and to promote diffusion of information technology (IT) revolution. ICT infrastructure is perplexing because we do not have a good model to use to analyze its development. Besides, the modernist style of regulation in the countries promoting diffusion of IT revolution does not require the technology developers to consider the impacts of technology systematically, which creates substantial uncertainty in regard to possible trajectory of technological development. To improve the construction of effective policy planning for large information infrastructures, the conceptual link between the abstract enabling structures and concrete technologies - the building blocks of infrastructur e - must be established. This paper presents a work in progress on a conceptual model which should help us to do the analytical work necessary to improve the policymaking for ICT.
... Ciborra (2001, p.2) described corporate information infrastructures and the design and implementation processes that lead to their construction and operation as puzzles, or collages, which are embedded in larger, contextual puzzles and collages (Ciborra 2001, p.2). "Inter-dependence, intricacy, and interweaving of people, systems, and processes are the culture bed of infrastructure" (Ciborra 2001, p.2). If ICT infrastructure is perplexing, because we don't have a good model to apply to its analysis (Brey 2003;Edwards 2003), then how policy makers can develop an appropriate policy given the complexity of the problem? Axelrod and Cohen (1999), propose a way to deal with the difficulty of policy making, a solution to the Ciborra's puzzle. ...
... In spite of the attention, there is still no error-prone method on how to connect macrolevel and microlevel analyses. This comes as no surprise, since, according to Brey (2003), considerable confusion exists over what makes a phenomenon studied in the social sciences a macro or micro: one view is that macrolevel phenomena and the concepts that refer to them are abstract and general, whereas microlevel phenomena tend to be concrete and specific; the other view is the size of the object (small size is associated with micro, large size -with macro) (Brey 2003, p.63). To bridge the micro-and macrolevels, analysts have to work at level building, engaging in what Brey (2003, p.69) called decomposition, suibsumption, deduction, and specification. ...
Development of national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure is a kind of activity that government engage to in order to create a rubric of progress and to promote diffusion of information technology (IT) revolution. ICT infrastructure is perplexing because we do not have a good model to use to analyze its development. Besides, the modernist style of regulation in the countries promoting diffusion of IT revolution does not require the technology developers to consider the impacts of technology systematically, which creates substantial uncertainty in regard to possible trajectory of technological development. To improve the construction of effective policy planning for large information infrastructures, the conceptual link between the abstract enabling structures and concrete technologies -- the building blocks of infrastructure -- must be established.
... However, viewing 'modernity', a concept with which Brey (2003) considers alongside technology, as a process or goal, is in itself a problematic term with little analytic purchase (Cooper, 2005). ...
This qualitative, inductive dissertation explores a social enterprise’s management of for-profit and not-for-profit missions administered through different programmes. Ineffective balancing negatively impacted the design, development, and implementation strategy of an education technology (EDTech) trial in no-fee government schools in Mpumalanga, South Africa intended to fund a non-profit music academy.
This study builds upon existing literature in information technology management; the implications of managing multiple missions in social enterprises; as well as technology design and development theory. These are used to offer a descriptive account of limited/non-use of education technology in areas facing deep rooted inequalities.
Through adopting a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews, observation, and document analysis; rich data was gathered to construct three case studies of individual schools. These case studies are compared to the expectations and reflections of the social enterprise’s board and management in light of limited/non use of EDTech.
The research finds high degrees of nuance between schools; even within 5 Kilometres of each other. Such nuance is reflected in uneven provision of devices, educational resources, and infrastructure; varying technology integration strategies between schools; in addition to the individualistic sense making of education technology by teachers.
This research provides a rich example of the difficulty for social enterprises in balancing disintegrated social and commercial value chains. This increases the risk of such organisations ineffectively allocating resources by prioritising speculative financial gain over social impact; resulting in failure to achieve multiple, differentiated missions.
... The evolution of the semantic Web, or Web 2.0, enabled social interactivity, inviting social media forums, such as Twitter (microblogging), Facebook (multimedia social profiling), YouTube (video-sharing): sites and social networks involving digital technologies, media platforms, and communication skills that did not exist only a decade ago. Engaging with each other on-line and off, we now constitute life in intersubjective realities (Brey, 2003a(Brey, , 2003b. ...
Communicative practices have gone through revolutionary changes since Canale's (1983) research statement of competencies to be tested in communicative approaches to French as a second language (FSL) instruction. Refined from Canale & Swain's (1980) framework, communicative competence patterned 4 component competencies: language/grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic, describing what could be pedagogically expected of a learner of FSL in the context of Ontario, Canada with respect to the media of communication of the day realizing speech and (alphabetic) text. Communicative input/output was encapsulated as four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Tests were unquestionably written on paper with a pencil of specified graphite density (e.g., HB, or 2B). Handwriting, and typing on a typewriter were the processing mechanisms. Fast forward three decades… Communicative competence is alive and well, the framework having been uncritically appropriated for communicative language teaching generally; and absorbed as doctrine in communicative approaches to English as a second language (ESL) teaching (Leung, 2005). The four skills framework continues to form the backbone of gate-keeping English language tests, such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), as exemplified in this quote from Educational Testing Services (ETS) (2013): "the TOEFL iBT® test is given in English and administered via the Internet. There are four sections (listening, reading, speaking and writing) which take a total of about four and a half hours to complete." (ETS, 2013). The Internet, in this quote, is a vehicle for transmission of print text. However, the technical media of communication have changed dramatically, particularly over the past decade, deeply influencing how, where, when, why, and with whom we communicate, and the resultant communicative forms extend well beyond four identifiable skills. Can a theory outlined for the communications media of the 1980s, then, still dependably encapsulate the communicative needs of today? This chapter focuses on how communication has changed over the past three decades, and questions the growing gap between social communication practices and formal language and literacy education, asking, "what does communicative competence look like now? Can we still reliably utilize a framework of: language/grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competencies?
... Technological revolution: Technological revolution is the hallmark of modernity and finds expression in transportation, communication, security, and globalization among others. Technological revolution is the focus of modernity, constantly influencing it (Brey, 2003). ...
... This has relevance to the Web because it argues that social groups, as Pinch & Bijker (2002, p.360) argue, "...adapt, stabilise and agree..." on technology. An example is bicycle design, which has shown social repurposing over time (Brey, 2003, Klein & Klienmann, 2002. ...
We fail to teach students to think critically about the Web in schools within the United Kingdom (UK). This is a problem. It is also the focus of this thesis. As a teacher, I feel this problem is an unacceptable status quo. One that ensures we fail to empower young people as knowledgeable citizens of society and the Web itself. So, I offer here an original contribution to knowledge in order to change this, through a research investigation that aims to move us in the right direction. It is a contribution because it begins to solve the problem of a lack of critical education about the Web in schools through reporting the findings of a participatory study. This study sheds light on how we might develop principles for Web education in two schools within the UK; my thesis offers a foundational framework for pedagogy about the Web that can be used in schools. It analyses the views of teachers and students, actors with much experience in this landscape, about issues surrounding teaching and learning the Web, at a time when such views have not been adequately considered. Their insight was necessary to better understand the status quo.
Hence, this thesis arose from a desire to explore the problem described above, particularly from the view of those most directly involved: teachers and students. I aimed to discover what was currently taught about the Web within UK secondary schools, any strengths and weaknesses, and how we might approach it in the future. I set out to learn what actors felt about teaching the Web and learning about the Web. To do so, I asked how it might be done differently and, through this investigation, what original reflections could be forged. I aimed to make these capable of informing future educational development. Hence, I formulated four research questions:
1. How is the Web currently taught in schools?
2. What is the insight of teachers and students?
3. What might an alternative intervention look like?
4. What is the critical reflection and lessons we can learn from that?
To answer these questions, I adopted a design research method. I produced a co-constructed, mixed-method study that interviewed a sample of 49 students, aged 11-18, and 20 teachers, of varying positions and ages, located in two different schools. These interviews informed my thinking, as well as topic choice, for a teaching intervention design. I deployed this as a six lesson teaching intervention with a total of 20 students. These students were split evenly into two classes, one located in each school. To reflect upon my intervention, I then gained feedback from 10 teachers and those same 20 students. Both groups appraised my concept through a post-study questionnaire. Web Science, the interdisciplinary banner I fly my intervention to teach about the Web under, has never charted this course before. With this in mind, my investigation frames an unorthodox manifesto for future researchers to build on.
... (Rachmat, 2004: 97) The correlation between modernity and technology is almost unquestionable (Thompson, 1995). Technology made, shaped and propelled modernity while the converse is also true in that modernity creates technology (Brey, 2003). In this light, the church's motivation to use technology as part of its marketing materials demonstrates a desire to be 'modern'. ...
Against the backdrop of dominant Muslim presence, an aspiring middle class and the modernisation of Indonesia as an emerging market, we explore how a contemporary megachurch in Indonesia constructs a corporate identity and examine how ‘Western’ ideals and modernity influence organisational practices and communication in a religious setting. We deploy discourse analysis as our approach, which includes a critical reading and semiotic analysis of corporate artefacts to understand their underlying structures and discourse in enacting the corporate identity. We examine how discourses of self-empowerment, Westernisation and modernisation, business and nationalism coalesce to construct a marketable corporate identity for the megachurch. From this perspective, we argue that corporate identity is fluid and is shaped by meaningful choices taken to discursively construct a particular image for its intended audience(s).
... The evolution of the semantic Web, or Web 2.0, enabled social interactivity, inviting social media forums, such as Twitter (microblogging), Facebook (multimedia social profiling), YouTube (video-sharing): sites and social networks involving digital technologies, media platforms, and communication skills that did not exist only a decade ago. Engaging with each other on-line and off, we now constitute life in intersubjective realities (Brey, 2003a(Brey, , 2003b. ...
... A healthy environment, public health, enablement of urban development and many other regional impacts are examples of how the availability of water services to others has a radical effect on people. It is fundamentally linked to societies' development processes that are made up of socio-technical networks, consisting of arrangements of linked human and non-human actors that tie communities into functional wholes (Brey, 2003). From this viewpoint, it is essential how water services affect people's well-being by contributing to these development processes. ...
In this article, the current management paradigm of water services in Finland is conceptualised. For this purpose, the managers of water utility in ten Finnish municipalities were interviewed. Consequently, the ways in which water services are perceived and managed are also described in this article. In addition, it is argued that the current paradigm produces systemic behaviour that can be considered to give rise to unsustainable ways of developing water services. Based on the problems of the current paradigm, an alternative paradigm is drafted that rethinks the value-creation logic. This alternative paradigm implies that one should be aware of the interactions between systems in which water services play a crucial role, and act accordingly.
... Comprehending the contested nature of the relation between modernity and technology is of utility here. Modernity as a macro-level, abstract theoretical construct justifies the incorporation of rationalization as a practice enhancing a culture of calculation and control within social and cultural processes (Feenberg 2010 (Brey 2003;Misa 2003). 3. ...
The main objective of this paper is to investigate deliberate instances of the unclogging of congested urban infrastructures through such measures as widening roads and constructing underpasses. Such decongestive actions have increasingly become routine in the burgeoning cities of the Global South. The city of Bengaluru, India’s hub for business process outsourcing and for new information technology innovation and entrepreneurship, provides an apt location to examine and excavate the political connotations of decongestive work. In doing so, this paper proposes infrastructure scape as an explanatory concept to describe three facets of decongestive efforts in Bengaluru - first, the organizing principle that assembles them, second, the technological sensibility that constitute these efforts, and finally the value commitments that each scape proposes.
... The role of technology needs further analysis, especially as both feminist theory and social theory have tended to neglect the role of science and technology. As Brey (2003) points out in his comprehensive review of literature pertaining to technology and modernity, much of the modernity literature makes, at best, only passing reference to technology. He argues that this is not because modernity authors do not recognize the importance of technology but rather because they see it as the means by which regulative frameworks such as capitalism, the nation-state or the family are governed and not as an institution itself. ...
This article examines second wave and post-second wave feminist writing about the possibilities of (contemporaneously) new information and communication technologies. A number of texts by key authors, including Shulamith Firestone, Valerie Solanas, Cynthia Cockburn, Donna Haraway and Sadie Plant, are examined in light of the social and political context of their time of writing as well as in relation to ‘mainstream’ information society theorists such as Daniel Bell and Manuel Castells. The main focus is on how these authors understand the transformative potential of technologies, and attention is drawn to the swings between optimism and pessimism about the role of technology for a feminist political agenda. The role and nature of manifestos are also explored, and the question of whether it is time for another feminist technology manifesto is raised. The article concludes by posing some methodological and theoretical challenges of developing an anti-essentialist (in relation to both gender and technology), politically engaged and relevant feminist research agenda that takes seriously both lived experience and structures of power. The footnotes are an experiment in autobiographical writing in which I make explicit my own connection to this literature and the politics of these debates.
... Complexity of the governance of infrastructure development is not a recent problem (Brey, 2003;Ciborra, 2001;Edwards, 2003). Ciborra described corporate information infrastructures and the design and implementation processes that lead to their construction and operation as puzzles, or collages, which are embedded in larger, contextual puzzles and collages (Ciborra, 2001, p.2). "Interdependence, intricacy, and interweaving of people, systems, and processes are the culture bed of infrastructure" (Ciborra, 2001, p.2). Perplexing nature of national ICT infrastructure is a barrier to policy makers in developing appropriate governance models. ...
As the issue of open standards becomes more involved in government policy-making, an understanding of various perspectives on issues involved in the governance of ICT infrastructure is crucial. This research presents results from a multi-round Delphi survey of key experts in the field of standardization to better understand which issues in governance of open standards must be taken under the government policy control within the next 5 years.
... In this view, pedagogy is primary and the technology secondary. Overall the field if characterized by a social shaping approach as defined by Brey (Brey, 2003). This review has only been able to provide a broad brush stroke account of the discursive planes, and there are certainly more complex and subtle mappings needed, in order to surface that the variety of theories, approaches and methods which inform the field. ...
Abstract This paper uses the literature of educational technology as the site of analysis in order to map the field of educational technology. Having considered Kuhn and Bourdieu's theories, the paper frames the analysis of the field in Bernsteinian terms as a horizontal knowledge structure in a vertical knowledge discourse. Using the concepts of interacting discursive planes, the paper maps the field in terms of its general approach planes and its problem planes. Finally, the paper shows that researchers in the field themselves acknowledge its weak grammar, and calls for commensurability of approaches to be acknowledged in order for robust knowledge to be developed and the legitimacy of the field to be enhanced.
... The problems with such a reading are manifold. As science and technology studies (STS)-a field devoted to the social implications of technology-have demonstrated convincingly that technology never sits neutrally outside of society (e.g., Misa, 2003;Brey, 2003). We can see that the researchers designed Lumino within a given socio-historical context, evidence of which is inscribed throughout their work. ...
Though interaction designers critique interfaces as a regular part of their research and practice, the field of HCI lacks a proper discipline of interaction criticism. By interaction criticism I mean rigorous interpretive interrogations of the complex relationships between (a) the interface, including its material and perceptual qualities as well as its broader situatedness in visual languages and culture and (b) the user experience, including the meanings, behaviors, perceptions, affects, insights, and social sensibilities that arise in the context of interaction and its outcomes. Interaction criticism is a knowledge practice that enables design practitioners to engage with the aesthetics of interaction, helping practitioners cultivate more sensitive and insightful critical reactions to designs and exemplars. Benefits of such an engagement can include informing a particular design process, critiquing and innovating on design processes and methods more generally, developing original theory beneficial to interaction design, and exposing more robustly the long-term and even unintended consequences of designs. In this article I offer a synthesis of practices of criticism derived from analytic philosophy of aesthetics and critical theory, including the introduction of five core claims from this literature; I outline four perspectives that constitute a big-picture view of interaction criticism; and I offer a case study, demonstrating interaction criticism through each of these four perspectives.
... We followed the call to shift the research focus from "situation-free people with broad trait adjectives to analyzing the specific interactions between conditions and the cognitions and behaviors of interest" (Davis & Luthans, 1980, p.287). Studying organizational behavior in situ bears a promise of better understanding of the person-behavior-environment dynamic, which must be a preferred rationale for driving the design of services in the Information Society, rather than the currently dominant political one (Brey, 2003;Lines, 2005). ...
Development and advancement of Information Society1 in on agenda of many nation states today. As scholars, we can contribute to the effort by attempting to reconcile the official rhetoric with the real life situations of “netizens2. This paper is inspired by the publication of Leonard Jessup and Daniel Robey [2002], in which the authors use anecdotes to demonstrate what advanced service possibilities are afforded by ubiquitous technology as contrasted to the residue of social behavior. This story illustrates that the success of establishing Information Society should not be measured by the number of available services to citizens over the wireline and mobile Internet. The ultimate measure for success must be the extent to which people are aware about the availability of relevant content and are using the services [Daniel and Wilson, 2003, p.285].
The nineteenth century was an era of rapid urban growth, increasing temporal awareness, and a rising demand for precision. Time measurement and display became particularly important in this context, not just for scientific or military purposes, but also for administrations, businesses and for the general public. There was, however, one significant problem: making all the public clocks show the same and correct time, which led to the development of urban temporal infrastructures as symbols of urban modernity and a source of civic pride. This article presents an account of the origins of two temporal infrastructures in Paris, focusing particularly on the electrical network devised by the scientists of the Paris Observatory.
RESUMEN: Este artículo aborda las conexiones históricas entre modernidad y tecnología desde el marco regional. Concretamente, se orienta a explicar los aspectos técnicos, organizativos y culturales que distinguieron la introducción y expansión de la telefonía como expresión del despliegue de la modernidad en Cienfuegos, una región cubana en el tránsito entre el fin del dominio colonial es-pañol y las primeras décadas republicanas. Primero, se analiza la génesis y trans-ferencia de la telefonía dentro del influjo de la modernidad estadounidense sobre Cuba y los nexos históricos de dependencia hacia el país norteño, que lo convirtie-ron en emisor expedito de innovaciones tecnológicas y otras realizaciones hacia la Isla. Luego, se exponen por etapas, los aspectos técnicos y organizativos del des-pliegue de la telefonía por el contexto regional cienfueguero. Por último, se aborda el aspecto cultural y los significados sociales generados por esta práctica tecnoló-gica en la región, asociados a la actividad económico-comercial, la jerarquización
Digitalization is often associated with optimistic grand narratives about a future society in academic discourse. While the word is frequently linked with hopes and expectations of societal rebirth and beneficial changes for societies and organizations, there has been little attention given to systematically investigating the risks associated with digitalization. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between digitalization and risk, thereby characterizing “the digital risk society.” By conducting a narrative summary and thematic analysis of 34 academic papers three aggregated themes were outlined: First, in the digital risk society, intangible technologies serve as solutions while simultaneously introducing new risks. Second, as an increasing number of tasks are delegated to machines with opaque inner functions, society is suffering from dehumanization. Third, scholars are calling for new approaches to govern these technologies, spurred by concerns over their potentially harmful use.
Pneumatic tube systems have been, and partly still are, an important element in both communication and transport infrastructures: their main purpose is to carry letters, official documents, small objects and medicines in a fast and reliable way. This contribution analyses the role they played in private companies and state-owned enterprises; it also takes into consideration the meaning attributed to the tubes in the organisation of the working environment and its (relational) space, and places infrastructures as frameworks for cooperation in a historical context. Based on historical sources originating from different actors and fields, such as administrative documents, staff magazines and publications by the manufacturers of pneumatic systems, the contribution shows how the tubes (re)defined the conditions for working and living together during the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century. Involving flows of both information and material, they generated new possibilities of cooperation within and between enterprises. Above all, the ability to transfer both messages and material led to the combination of pneumatic tube systems with other infrastructures, enabling cooperation and creating new kinds of collaborative practices – or hindering them in the case of technical problems (and consequently leading to the emergence of other forms of cooperation). This contribution considers infrastructures, space and cultural representations as being constructed by different material and human actors with different concerns such as technicians, workers and company owners. The concept of meta-infrastructure will be used as an analytical tool to shed light on the entanglement of pneumatic tubes with other systems and on how different infrastructures as well as communicative and organisational practices co-constitute each other. While administrative structures influenced the way the networks were planned, these, in turn, shaped working environments and the employees’ identification with their enterprise.
If we ask ourselves the question, how does traditional healers, priests and priestesses know what they know? One of the ideas, amongst many, that become evident is the fact that even if they know enough to heal or help people, they are not necessarily available anytime and anywhere for anyone who seeks their help. Though the detailed procedures of some traditional healers are known to them alone, and difficult to share sometimes, it will be good for some of these procedures to be readily available to people. In recent times, modern technology has completely transformed societies and proved its vitality and viability in information sharing and acquisition processes. With the aid of modern technology, people and cultures have evolved greatly. Modern technology has allowed the delivery of information in places and times that were out of reach before. Based on this, the chapter argues that aspects of African cultural practices, like traditional healer’s consultation processes, can possibly use technology to provide and deliver more reliable information to people in need. Hence, there is a need to combine some cultural practices with modern technology to make information readily available to people so that they can use it when necessary.
This article describes advantages and disadvantages of federal government centralized geographic information networks and decentralized peer-to-peer geographic information networks as they pertain to North American Indian tribal governments and communities. Geographic information systems (GIS) are used by indigenous groups for natural resource management, land claims, water rights, and cultural revitalization activities on a global-scale. North American groups use GIS for the same reasons, but questions regarding culturally appropriate GIS, cross-cultural understandings of geographic knowledge, and cultural assimilation through Western digital technologies have been raised by scholars. Two network models are germane to American Indian government operations and community organizations. The first is a prescriptive top-down network emanating from federal government agencies. Federal agencies are responsible for the diffusion of nationwide GIS programs throughout indigenous communities in the United States. A second, potentially more inclusive model is a decentralized peer-to-peer network in which all nodes are responsible for the success of the network.
The convergence of television with internet technologies has further upheld the participatory role of Internet in modern political communication. The adoption of Internet communication regulations in television programs has created a new hybrid model of “Internetized Television” which has the potential to strengthen citizens’ voice in political life. In this research paper, an extensive empirical study of certain variables relating to participation in internetized television was conducted, focusing, in particular, on the impact of this new medium during the 2007 national elections in Greece, when a specific broadcast was aired on TV, namely the “Skai-YouTube Debate.” Based on the results of our survey, an in-depth theoretical discussion of the political and communicative challenges imposed by this form of internetized television was conducted.
This article contributes to knowledge in how a human agent through alternative education brings changes in the health and nutrition habit of socially backward people. It is the findings of an empirical study conducted in a rural area of Gorkha District, Nepal, where a human agent has been working as a social mobilizer for two years. The social mobilizer interviewed qualitatively to narrative "what she did to bring what changes" with evidence. Both qualitative information and secondary data were analyzed to explore her role to change the notion of villagers and aware of their rights. The social mobilizer, on the one hand, closely observed the health and nutrition habit of the villagers, persuades and forced for changing, and on the other, aware of their moral and constitutional rights to get from state agencies. Via two-years long continuous efforts, villagers especially women and Dalit shifted allopathic hospitals from witchcraft, well sanitation, and a balanced diet for maternity and child. findings of the study suggest that social change needs human leadership with people along with a well-planned and sincerely implemented program. ;dfh ljsf;df j} slNks lzIffsf] e" ldsf / dfgjLo ;+ jfxssf] cfjZostf n] v ;f/ o; n] vn] ;dfhdf kl5 k/] sf] ;d' bfonfO{ j} slNks lzIff dfkm{ t ;dfhsf] d" n wf/df Nofpg dfgjLo ;+ jfxs cfjZos x' g] ] lhls/ u/] sf] 5. uf] /vf lhNnf c>fª\ uflj;df sfo{ /t ;fdflhs kl/rflnsfn] lk5l8Psf ;d' bfosf gful/sdf r] tgf :t/ a9fpg / :j:Yo ;DjGwL jfgL Jojxf/ ljsf; u/fpg v] n] sf] e" ldsfnfO{ :ynut cjnf] sg u/L pTkfbg ul/Psf] hfgsf/LnfO{ ljZn] if0f u/L lgsflnPsf] k| flKtsf cfwf/df of] lhls/ ul/Psf] xf]. oxfF vf; u/L lzIff / ljsf;, j} slNks lzIff, / dfgjLo ;+ jfxs tLg cjwf/0ffdf k" j{ ;flxTosf] ;dLIff u/L tof/ ul/Psf] ;} 4flGts vfsfdf cfwfl/t eP/ If] q cWoogdf hfgsf/Lsf] pTkfbg / ljZn] if0f ul/Psf] 5 eg] ;fdflhs kl/rfnsn] ;r] t u/fpg] , ;Demfpg] / ;xof] u ug{ ] sfdfdf v] n] sf] /rgfTds e' ldsfnfO{ ;} 4flGts/0fsf] k| ofz ul/Psf] 5. ljljw ;fdflhs c;dfgtf o' Qm xfd| f] d' n' sdf j} slNks lzIff dfkm{ t ;dfh ljsf;sf] ult a9fpgsf] nflu dfgjLo ;+ jfxs clgjfo{ x' g] s' /fnfO{ k| sfz kfl/Psf] 5. k/Dk/fut ljlwn] cf} krfl/s lzIffaf6 lbIfLt dfgjLo ;+ jfxsn] cfˆgf] l;ldt 1fg, l;k / clej[ lQn] ;fdflhs kl/jt{ gdf o;/L pNn] vgLo e' ldsf v] Nb5 eg] j} slNks lzIffsf] bfz{ lgs cfwf/ ePsf] dfgjLo ;+ jfxs ePdf p;sf] sfo{ bIftf cem pRr x' G5 eGg] s' /fnfO{ klg oxfF ;+ s] t ul/Psf] 5 .
From the 1980s, building the cybercity became an important issue of
urban development. This phenomenon began in the U.S., and then was
followed by many countries all over the world. This paper uses the
concepts of “governance of technology” to study the information policy in Taiwan in 1979-1999, in order to understand the spatial-social-technological process of the policy. To sum up, since the
1990s, Taiwan’s information policy has already been transformed by the currency of the liberalization of the telecommunication and the character of the internet so that the governing institutions had to include the urban and rural areas in order to meet the new challenge. As a consequence, the material power of the infrastructure seems became the key factor in the policy-making process.
Modern insanın rasyonalist-pozitivist dünya anlayışının siyasi argümanlar ile birleşmesinden sonra devletler bazında kabul
gören determinist yaklaşım, uzun bir süre egemen düşünce olarak kabul görmüştür. Bu anlayışa göre, bireyler gibi toplumlar
da fizik kurallarına uygun olarak genel evrensel kurallar çerçevesinde değerlendirilebilir ve bunlar ideal olana evrileceklerdir.
Ancak bireyler gibi toplumların da evrileceği ve bu süreçte sekülerleşme, rasyonelleşme ve bireyselleşme gibi temel değerler
ile donanacağına yönelik inanç son zamanlarda önemli oranda eleştirilere muhatap kalmaktadır. Toplumların, bireylerin
makro teorileri terk etmesi birçok kimliği kendi bünyesine katması, görünüşte çelişik olan argümanları kendi özelinde bir
araya getirmesi temelinde gelişen kimlik politikaları ile artık ‘genelleme’ nin oldukça zorlaştığına dikkat çekilmektedir. Ancak
sosyal bilimlerde toplumsal ilişkilerin bu şekilde çözülüşüne dair hemfikir olma durumu var iken; içinde bulunduğumuz
dönemi tanımlama noktasında çeşitli farklılaşmalar yaşanmaktadır. Örneğin A. Giddens, J. Habermas ve F. Jameson gibi sosyal
bilimlerde öne çıkan isimler modern dönemin bitmediğini fakat bunu günümüzde daha radikal bir şekilde deneyimlediğimizi
öne sürmektedirler. Ancak buna karşın J. F. Lyotard, J. Baudrillard S. Hall, U. Beck, Z. Bauman ve D. Bell gibi kişiler ise günümüz
gerek sosyal ilişkilerinin gerekse de siyasal eğilimlerinin kazanmış olduğu boyutun eski dönemin ötesinde olduğunu öne sürerek
yeni tanımlayıcı isimler sunmaktadırlar. Bu çalışmanın temel amacı da sosyal bilimlerde sıkça karşılaştığımız bu gelişmeleri bir
araya getirerek söz konusu çağdaş öncü bilim insanlarının neye göre modern dönemin bitmediğini ya da neye göre bittiğini
savunduklarını temel referanslar ışığında kategorik-teorik olarak bir araya getirmektedir.
The objective to fast-track the mapping and registration of large numbers of unrecorded land rights globally, leads to the experimental application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the domain of land administration, and specifically the application of automated visual cognition techniques for cadastral mapping tasks. In this research, we applied and compared the ability of rule-based systems within Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA), as opposed to human analysis, to extract visible cadastral boundaries from Very high resolution (VHR) World View-2 image, in both rural and urban settings. From our experiments, machine-based techniques were able to automatically delineate a good proportion of rural parcels with explicit polygons where the correctness of the automatically extracted boundaries was 47.4% against 74.24% for humans and the completeness of 45% for machine, as against 70.4% for humans. On the contrary, in the urban area, automatic results were counterintuitive: even though urban plots and buildings are clearly marked with visible features such as fences, roads and tacitly perceptible to eyes, automation resulted in geometrically and topologically poorly structured data, that could neither be geometrically compared with human digitised, nor actual cadastral data from the field. These results provide an updated snapshot with regards to the performance of contemporary machine-drive feature extraction techniques compared to conventional manual digitising.
The contemporary world is confronted by a double challenge: environmental degradation and social inequality. This challenge is linked to the dynamics of the First Deep Transition (Schot, 2016): the creation and expansion of a wide range of socio-technical systems in a similar direction over the past 250 years. Extending the theoretical framework of Schot and Kanger (2018) this paper proposes that the First Deep Transitions has been built up through successive Great Surges of Development (Perez, 2002), leading to the emergence of a macro-level selection environment called industrial modernity. This has also resulted in the formation of a portfolio of directionality, characterized by dominant and durable directions, occasional discontinuous shifts as well as continuous variety of alternatives sustained in niches or single systems. This historically-informed view on the co-evolution of single socio-technical systems, complexes of systems and industrial modernity has distinctive implications for policy-making targeted at resolving the current challenges.
In recent years, Pema Tseden and Sonthar Gyal have created a number of films on Tibet that have won many international awards. Their works diverge greatly from the stereotypical images of Tibet. This paper explores the re-representation of Tibet in their works from a postcolonial perspective by employing Stuart Hall’s (1996) theorisation of articulation as a strategy of resisting visual stereotypes. The purpose is to explore the directors’ attempt at demystifying Tibet and their concern with Tibetan identity anxiety in the context of modernisation and globalisation. Through critical examination of the neorealist depiction of Tibet, the issues of modernity, the crisis in identity, and the characters’ attempts at self-redemption, it is argued that the directors voice the need for reconstructing the Tibetan identity by negotiating tradition and modern life. It is concluded that their works signify the inception of true minority nationality films in Chinese cinema. It is an inspiration to other ethnicities in China in speaking about their experiences in the world of modernisation and globalisation.
Artificial intelligence is the differentia specifica of the digital modern. It is fast becoming its core technology, and has long been one of its primary narrative devices. The confusion surrounding it is of exceptional interest culturally, intellectually, and scientifically. The subject connects the humanities community with fundamental questions about the nature of meaning, self, and reality, along with a fantastically rich range of technical opportunities. Understanding AI, and its implementation in devices that automate human labour and creativity, helps us understand the anxiety digital humanities prompts in many of its critics. Understanding its logical and technical boundaries helps us understand what it might mean for the future of humanities research.
The expansion of commercial air travel in Australia after the Second World War caused significant changes to women's fashion and its marketing in this country. The developing technology of aeroplanes as commercial carriers meant European clothes and ideas reached Australia increasingly rapidly. A long-term sense of stylistic inferiority diminished and the sometimes unquestioning acceptance of imported style was challenged. As post-war retailers expanded their product range, they sought possibilities to market Australian designed and made garments both in Europe and the US. Using co-marketing with the airline industry in particular, retailers began to foster a new confidence amongst middle-class women that by wearing local attire they could participate in a worldwide network of stylish production and consumption. For a brief period, Australian, US and European-made fashions were in serious competition. This article suggests promotional images featuring the connectivity between the technology of air transpo...
In order to help navigate the more in-depth context and interconnections of the book’s wider insights on disability and technology, it is important to provide a good working knowledge of the theories of disability and the theories of technology. Given the interdisciplinary ambitions of this book, no assumptions are made as to readers’ familiarity with disability studies and technology studies. Indeed, a section of the potential readership may be rooted in medicine, paramedical studies, occupational therapy and psycho-therapeutic domains and be schooled in very distinct literatures. This requires an overview of the key debates, therefore, one which assumes little prior knowledge. In that sense, the following does not aim to be a definitive version of disability models and theories, nor indeed of social theories of technology. These are available elsewhere and with more depth and acuity (Albrecht et al. 2001; Barnes et al. 1999; Ellul and Merton 1964; Goodley 2010; Heidegger 1977; Thomas 2007; Verbeek 2011; Wajcman 2010; Watson et al. 2012). However, the key debates and implications for understanding the intersections of disability and technology are required. There are, however, some new insights here even for readers rather more familiar with these debates, given the lens through which we will view technology, which will be much wider than simply microchip technology (Lane 2006) and will be in an interdisciplinary context (Repko 2008).
The article describes how CCTV has evolved in Denmark from 1954, where it is first mentioned in a specialist journal, to 1982, where legislation is passed that regulates how CCTV can be used and by whom. The article identifies four technological frames in which CCTV is placed in the period. Three of these are ‘use-directed’ as they point to various ways of using CCTV and identify certain advantages and obstacles for this use. These three frames are ‘CCTV in industries’, ‘CCTV in traffic’, and ‘CCTV in security practices’. The fourth technological frame is critical towards using CCTV; it fears that the relationship between citizens and state is hampered and that the privacy of citizens is at risk. This technological frame is labelled ‘CCTV as a democratic threat’. The article shows how there have been various controversies between the different interpretations of CCTV. Thus, CCTV in Denmark has not evolved through linear and uncontested progression; in fact, CCTV has been at the centre of several controversies in which surveillance practices have been negotiated and regulated.
Science Studies is an interdisciplinary area of scholarship comprising two different traditions, the philosophical History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) and the sociological Science and Technology Studies (STS). The elementary tension between the two is based on their differing scholarly values, one based on philosophy, the other on sociology. This tension has been both animating the field of Science Studies and complicating its internal self-understanding.
This thesis sets out to reconstruct the main episodes in the history of Science Studies that have come to formulate competing constructions of the cultural value and meaning of science and technology. It tells a story of various failed efforts to resolve existing antimonies and suggests that the best way to grapple with the complexity of the issues at stake is to work towards establishing a common ground and dialogue between the rival disciplinary formations: HPS and STS.
First I examine two recent theories in Science Studies, Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Both of them are found to be inadequate as they share a distorted view of the HPS-STS divide and both try to colonise the sociology of science with the tools of HPS. The genesis of this colonizing impulse is then traced back to the Science Wars which again is underpinned by a lack of clarity about the HPS-STS relationship. This finding further highlights the responsibility of currently fashionable theories such as ANT that have contributed to this deficit of understanding and dialogue.
This same trend is then traced to the work of Thomas Kuhn. He is credited with moderate achievements but recent re-evaluations of his work point to his culpability in closing the field to critical possibilities, stifling the sociological side and giving rise to a distorted view of the HPS-STS relationship as seen in SSK and ANT. Now that the origins of the confused and politically divided state of Science Studies is understood, there is the urgent task of re-establishing a balance and dialogue between the HPS and the STS sides.
I use two important theoretical threads in critical theory of science and technology to bring clarity to the study of these interrelated yet culturally distinct practices.
Firstly I look at the solid line of research established by Andrew Feenberg in the critical theory of technology that uses social constructivism to subvert the embedded values in the technical code and hence democratize technology.
Secondly I look at the work of Jürgen Habermas’s formidable Critical Theory of science that sheds light on the basic human interests inside science and technology and establishes both the limits and extent to which social constructivism can be used to study them.
Together Feenberg and Habermas show the way forward for Science Studies, a way to establish a common ground that enables close scholarly dialogue between HPS and STS yet understands and maintains the critical difference between the philosophical and the sociological approaches that prevents them from being collapsed into one indistinguishable entity. Together they can restore the HPS-STS balance and through their shared emancipatory vision for society facilitate the bringing of science and technology into a democratic societal oversight, correcting the deficits and shortcomings of recent theories in the field of Science Studies.
The primary thesis of this essay is that technology and society co-construct one another. The dynamics of co-construction are often encountered by scholars who conduct research on the rights of indigenous peoples, indigenous knowledge, media, mapping, the social impacts of geographic information systems (GIS), science and technology studies, history of technology, indigenous linguistics, English, and film studies. We often find ourselves working ‘in-between’ dialogues, mediating indigenous geographies, negotiation research agendas, incorporating social theories, relying heavily upon the humanities, and representing geographies using digital technologies. For some of us, the projects are modest. Issues of data source uncertainty, how GIS handles temporal data, and the GIS leanings toward quantified data are all important issues. However, we are never removed from the web of colonial or postcolonial histories; reminded how cartographers, ethnographers, and historians constructed historical geographies for Indigenous people in the past; and the processes that contributed the historical condition of American Indians and how we should approach modern histories that involve researching and writing about Indigenous people. Some scholars have adopted frameworks that highlight the hybridity of systems, the blending of ideas, and contradictory spaces making up American Indian historical geographies.
After eminent thinkers in the 1960s submitted critical views on technology, some philosophers of technology extended their macro perspectives. Since then, many historians and sociologists of technology steadily marginalized their general claims through richly empirical, constructivist case studies of concrete engineering processes. Some recent efforts have begun to bridge these two diverging orientations. This paper participates in such efforts with a case study of relationships between macro cultures and engineering processes. It shows that behind the adoption of systems engineering by engineers and managers who led the Apollo programme was a macro current of social values in the USA. Post-war American society saw the rise of highly individualistic social norms that valued mobility, meritocracy and clear-cut contractual working relationships. Such norms triumphed most conspicuously in the federal government during the 1960s. Engineers and managers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters, who tended to share such values, refined the formalized, depersonalized methods of systems engineering, which enabled them to perfect space technology. In order to show such a correlation between macro values and micro practices, this paper draws a comparison between engineering communities in different cultural settings in the USA and Japan. This paper thus explores the macro social environment that gave rise to systems engineering, which, in turn, continues to function as a skeletal structure for our technological society today.
This article seeks to describe technology and how its design and use embodies values embedded in the dominant culture and is meant to support the hegemonic goals of the dominant culture while suppressing the growth and development of marginalized groups. This article explores the viewpoints of several philosophers and researchers in the field of science and technology studies and uses a cultural studies model to define various ways technology is viewed and its impact on adult learners. This article will provide various definitions of technology, including feminist and afro-centric viewpoints, and seeks to explore the cultural dimensions of technology and its uses. I will draw from these various views of technology and propose a means of researching many "moments of intersection" between technology, adult learners and facilitators of adult learning.
Digital technologies like geographic information systems (GIS) pose new problems for indigenous people on a global scale. Some American Indian tribes see GIS as beneficial and a method of modernizing and gaining real or perceived technical legitimacy. Thus, institutions using the technology simultaneously shape and are shaped by GIS [E. Sheppard, GIS and society: Towards a research agenda, Cartography and Geographic Information Systems. 22 (1) (1995) 5–16]. Such impacts have prompted advocates of American Indian communities to raise concerns about the development of GIS in Indian Country [M. Palmer, Cut from the same cloth: The United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, geographic information systems, and cultural assimilation, in: L.E. Dyson, M. Hendriks, S. Grant (Eds.) Information technology and indigenous people, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA., 2007; M. Nantel, So as to hold many sheep: towards a culturally appropriate GIS, Unpublished Masters Thesis, McGill University, 1999]. In this paper, I will discuss some advantages and disadvantages of engaging with GIS networks emanating from federal government agencies and North American Indian communities. However, in both cases there are concerns among American Indians about the security of proprietary knowledge and information held in digital repositories. Digital technologies like GIS must be considered in relation to the future of indigenous knowledge systems. Indigital is a neologism that describes the emerging relationship between indigenous knowledges and digital technologies.
This article describes advantages and disadvantages of federal government centralized geographic information networks and decentralized peer-to-peer geographic information networks as they pertain to North American Indian tribal governments and communities. Geographic information systems (GIS) are used by indigenous groups for natural resource management, land claims, water rights, and cultural revitalization activities on a global-scale. North American groups use GIS for the same reasons, but questions regarding culturally appropriate GIS, cross-cultural understandings of geographic knowledge, and cultural assimilation through Western digital technologies have been raised by scholars. Two network models are germane to American Indian government operations and community organizations. The first is a prescriptive top-down network emanating from federal government agencies. Federal agencies are responsible for the diffusion of nationwide GIS programs throughout indigenous communities in the United States. A second, potentially more inclusive model is a decentralized peer-to-peer network in which all nodes are responsible for the success of the network.
Integration of Television with Internet technologies has renewed the discussion for a new era of political communication. The adoption of Internet communication rules in television, has introduced a new hybrid model of “Internetized Television”. This hybrid model aims to reverse the passiveness of tele-democracy, supporting a more active political participation of citizens. However, since now, the impact of this new medium in politics has not been studied adequately. In this research paper, we performed an extensive empirical study of the political impact of internetized television. In particular, we study the impact of this new medium in the 2007 national elections of Greece, when a specific broadcast was aired on TV, named “Skai-YouTube Debate”. Based on our survey results, we conduct an in-depth theoretical discussion of the political and communicative challenges imposed by internetized television.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.