Book by Antón Barba-Kay: “There no longer seems any point to criticizing the internet. We indulge in the latest doom-mongering about the evils of social media-on social media. We scroll through routine complaints about the deterioration of our attention spans. We resign ourselves to hating the internet even as we spend much of our waking lives with it. Yet our unthinking surrender to its effects-to the ways it recasts our aims and desires-is itself digital technology’s most powerful achievement. A Web of Our Own Making examines how online practices are reshaping our lives outside our notice. Barba-Kay argues that digital technology is a ‘natural technology’-a technology so intuitive as to conceal the extent to which it transforms our attention. He shows how and why this technology is reconfiguring knowledge, culture, politics, aesthetics, and theology. The digital revolution is primarily taking place not in Silicon Valley but within each of us…(More)”.
Public Policy and Technological Transformations in Africa
Book edited by Gedion Onyango: “This book examines the links between public policy and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technological developments in Africa. It broadly assesses three key areas – policy entrepreneurship, policy tools and citizen participation – in order to better understand the interfaces between public policy and technological transformations in African countries. The book presents incisive case studies on topics including AI policies, mobile money, e-budgeting, digital economy, digital agriculture and digital ethical dilemmas in order to illuminate technological proliferation in African policy systems. Its analysis considers the broader contexts of African state politics and governance. It will appeal to students, instructors, researchers and practitioners interested in governance and digital transformations in developing countries…(More)”.
Philosophy of Open Science
Book by Sabina Leonelli: “The Open Science [OS] movement aims to foster the wide dissemination, scrutiny and re-use of research components for the good of science and society. This Element examines the role played by OS principles and practices within contemporary research and how this relates to the epistemology of science. After reviewing some of the concerns that have prompted calls for more openness, it highlights how the interpretation of openness as the sharing of resources, so often encountered in OS initiatives and policies, may have the unwanted effect of constraining epistemic diversity and worsening epistemic injustice, resulting in unreliable and unethical scientific knowledge. By contrast, this Element proposes to frame openness as the effort to establish judicious connections among systems of practice, predicated on a process-oriented view of research as a tool for effective and responsible agency…(More)”.
De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies
Book edited by Min Reuchamps, Julien Vrydagh and Yanina Welp: “Citizens’ Assemblies (CAs) are flourishing around the world. Quite often composed of randomly selected citizens, CAs, arguably, come as a possible answer to contemporary democratic challenges. Democracies worldwide are indeed confronted with a series of disruptive phenomena such as a widespread perception of distrust and growing polarization as well as low performance. Many actors seek to reinvigorate democracy with citizen participation and deliberation. CAs are expected to have the potential to meet this twofold objective. But, despite deliberative and inclusive qualities of CAs, many questions remain open. The increasing popularity of CAs call for a holistic reflection and evaluation on their origins, current uses and future directions.
The De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies showcases the state of the art around the study of CAs and opens novel perspectives informed by multidisciplinary research and renewed thinking about deliberative participatory processes. It discusses the latest theoretical, empirical, and methodological scientific developments on CAs and offers a unique resource for scholars, decision-makers, practitioners, and curious citizens to better understand the qualities, purposes, promises but also pitfalls of CAs…(More)”.
Connecting After Chaos: Social Media and the Extended Aftermath of Disaster
Book by Stephen F. Ostertag: “Natural disasters and other such catastrophes typically attract large-scale media attention and public concern in their immediate aftermath. However, rebuilding efforts can take years or even decades, and communities are often left to repair physical and psychological damage on their own once public sympathy fades away. Connecting After Chaos tells the story of how people restored their lives and society in the months and years after disaster, focusing on how New Orleanians used social media to cope with trauma following Hurricane Katrina.
Stephen F. Ostertag draws on almost a decade of research to create a vivid portrait of life in “settling times,” a term he defines as a distinct social condition of prolonged insecurity and uncertainty after disasters. He portrays this precarious state through the story of how a group of strangers began blogging in the wake of Katrina, and how they used those blogs to put their lives and their city back together. In the face of institutional failure, weak authority figures, and an abundance of chaos, the people of New Orleans used social media to gain information, foster camaraderie, build support networks, advocate for and against proposed policies, and cope with trauma. In the efforts of these bloggers, Ostertag finds evidence of the capacity of this and other forms of cultural work to motivate, guide, and energize collective action aimed at weathering the constant instability of extended recovery periods. Connecting After Chaos is both a compelling story of a community in crisis and a broader argument for the power of social media and cultural cooperation to create order when chaos abounds…(More)”.
Index, A History of the
“A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age” by Dennis Duncan: “Most of us give little thought to the back of the book—it’s just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.
Charting its curious path from the monasteries and universities of thirteenth-century Europe to Silicon Valley in the twenty-first, Duncan uncovers how it has saved heretics from the stake, kept politicians from high office, and made us all into the readers we are today. We follow it through German print shops and Enlightenment coffee houses, novelists’ living rooms and university laboratories, encountering emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians and—of course—indexers along the way. Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart—and we have been for eight hundred years…(More)”.
How to Stay Smart in a Smart World
Book by Gerd Gigerenzer: “From dating apps and self-driving cars to facial recognition and the justice system, the increasing presence of AI has been widely championed – but there are limitations and risks too. In this book Gigerenzer shows how humans are often the greatest source of uncertainty and when people are involved, unwavering trust in complex algorithms can become a recipe for disaster. We need, now more than ever, to arm ourselves with knowledge that will help us make better decisions in a digital age.
Filled with practical examples and cutting-edge research, How to Stay Smart in a Smart World examines the growing role of AI at all levels of daily life with refreshing clarity. This book is a life raft in a sea of information and an urgent invitation to actively shape the world in which we want to live…(More)”.
Vulnerability and Data Protection Law
Book by Gianclaudio Malgieri: “Vulnerability has traditionally been viewed through the lens of specific groups of people, such as ethnic minorities, children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. With the rise of digital media, our perceptions of vulnerable groups and individuals have been reshaped as new vulnerabilities and different vulnerable sub-groups of users, consumers, citizens, and data subjects emerge.
Vulnerability and Data Protection Law not only depicts these problems but offers the reader a detailed investigation of the concept of data subjects and a reconceptualization of the notion of vulnerability within the General Data Protection Regulation. The regulation offers a forward-facing set of tools that-though largely underexplored-are essential in rebalancing power asymmetries and mitigating induced vulnerabilities in the age of artificial intelligence.
Considering the new risks and potentialities of the digital market, the new awareness about cognitive weaknesses, and the new philosophical sensitivity about the condition of human vulnerability, the author looks for a more general and layered definition of the data subject’s vulnerability that goes beyond traditional labels. In doing so, he seeks to promote a ‘vulnerability-aware’ interpretation of the GDPR.
A heuristic analysis that re-interprets the whole GDPR, this work is essential for both scholars of data protection law and for policymakers looking to strengthen regulations and protect the data of vulnerable individuals…(More)”.
Psychological Processes in Social Media: Why We Click
Book by Rosanna Guadagno: “Incorporating relevant theory and research from psychology (social, cognitive, clinical, developmental, and personality), mass communication, and media studies, Psychological Processes in Social Media: Why We Click examines both the positive and negative psychological impact of social media use. The book covers a broad range of topics such as research methods, social influence and the viral spread of information, the use of social media in political movements, prosocial behavior, trolling and cyberbullying, friendship and romantic relationships, and much more. Emphasizing the integration of theory and application throughout, Psychological Processes in Social Media: Why We Click offers an illuminating look at the psychological implications and processes around the use of social media..(More)”.
Computer: A History of the Information Machine
Updated edition of book by Martin Campbell-Kelly, William Aspray, Nathan Ensmenger, Jeffrey R. Yost; “…traces the history of the computer and shows how business and government were the first to explore its unlimited, information-processing potential. Old-fashioned entrepreneurship combined with scientific know-how inspired now famous computer engineers to create the technology that became IBM. Wartime needs drove the giant ENIAC, the first fully electronic computer. Later, the PC enabled modes of computing that liberated people from room-sized, mainframe computers.
This third edition provides updated analysis on software and computer networking, including new material on the programming profession, social networking, and mobile computing. It expands its focus on the IT industry with fresh discussion on the rise of Google and Facebook as well as how powerful applications are changing the way we work, consume, learn, and socialize. Computer is an insightful look at the pace of technological advancement and the seamless way computers are integrated into the modern world. Through comprehensive history and accessible writing, Computer is perfect for courses on computer history, technology history, and information and society, as well as a range of courses in the fields of computer science, communications, sociology, and management…(More)”.