Digital Participation Through Social Living Labs

Digital Participation through Social Living Labs connects two largely separate debates: On the one hand, high speed internet access and associated technologies are often heralded as a means to bring about not only connectivity, but also innovation, economic development, new jobs, and regional prosperity. On the other hand, community development research has established that access by itself is necessary but not sufficient to foster digital participation for the broadest possible range of individuals. Edited by leading scholars from the fields of education, youth studies, urban informatics, librarianship, communication technology, and digital media studies, this book is positioned as a link to connect these debates. It brings together an international collection of empirically grounded case studies by researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds. They advance knowledge that fosters digital participation by identifying the specific digital needs, issues and practices of different types of communities as they seek to take advantage of access to digital technologies. Collectively, these cases propose new ways for enabling residents to develop their digital confidence and skills both at home and in their local community, particularly through a ‘social living labs’ approach. The book is organised around key focus areas: digital skills enhancement, youth entrepreneurship, connected learning, community digital storytelling, community-led digital initiatives and policy development. Highlights that high speed internet is necessary that high speed internet access is necessary but not sufficient to resolve digital divides and foster social inclusion; Brings together international, empirically grounded case studies to identify digital needs, issues and practices of different communities, and contextualises these with expert comment; Presents contributions from multiple disciplines, with most chapters incorporating more than one disciplinary background; Gives insight on the place of the digital in contemporary society; Illustrates the innovative potential of social living labs to foster digital learning and participation in a variety of community contexts.

This volume contains research from the 10th International Conference on Sustainable Development and Planning. The papers included in this volume form a collection of research from academics, policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders from across the globe who discuss the latest advances in the field. Problems related to development and planning, which affect rural and urban areas, are present in all regions of the world. Accelerated urbanisation has resulted in deterioration of the environment and loss of quality of life. Urban development can also aggravate problems faced by rural areas such as forests, mountain regions and coastal areas, amongst many others. Taking into consideration the interaction between different regions and developing new methodologies for monitoring, planning and implementation of novel strategies can offer solutions for mitigating environmental pollution and non-sustainable use of available resources. Energy saving and eco-friendly building approaches have become an important part of modern development, which places special emphasis on resource optimisation. Planning has a key role to play in ensuring that these solutions as well as new materials and processes are incorporated in the most efficient manner. The application of new academic findings to planning and development strategies, assessment tools and decision making processes are all covered in this book.

This book brings together new research on the practices of newsmaking. Participation, engagement and collaboration have long been heralded as a vision, goal or emerging practice in the news. The claim in this volume is that they have now become sedimented as the common-sense baseline for everyday newsmaking routines. The issue for newsmakers is not ‘whether’ to engage with readers and users, but ‘how’ to engage with them. The contributions span a wide range of newsmaking contexts, including analytics-based online headline testing, the communication efforts of a Brussels-based free marketeer thinktank, collaborative science journalism and rapidly changing journalistic sourcing and writing routines from legacy to social media. Together they argue for a postfoundational perspective, which observes how participation, engagement and collaboration have emerged as a ‘foundation’ which is no longer questioned, but which can lead to new tensions in newsmaking. As such, the book provides inspirational reading for anyone in the social sciences and humanities who is interested in understanding how the ubiquity of participation, engagement and collaboration in the making of the news impacts on issues of power, transparency and control in the twenty-first century.

This book adopts a critical youth studies approach and theorizes the digital as a key feature of the everyday to analyse how ideas about youth and cyber-safety, digital inclusion and citizenship are mobilized. Despite a growing interest in the benefits and opportunities for young people online, both ‘young people’ and ‘the digital’ continue to be constructed primarily as sites of social and cultural anxiety requiring containment and control. Juxtaposing public policy, popular educational and parental framings of young people’s digital practices with the insights from fieldwork conducted with young Australians aged 12–25, the book highlights the generative possibilities of attending to intergenerational tensions. In doing so, the authors show how a shift beyond the paradigm of control opens up towards a deeper understanding of the capacities that are generated in and through digital life for young and old alike. Young People in Digital Society will be of interest to scholars and students in youth studies, cultural studies, sociology, education, and media and communications.

This important book chronicles, responds to, and advances the leading theories in the public relations discipline. Taking up the work begun by the books Public Relations Theory and Public Relations Theory II, this volume offers completely original material reflecting public relations as practiced today. It features contributions by leading public relations researchers from around the world who write about new developments in the field. Important subjects include: a turn to more humanistic, social, dialogic, and cocreational perspectives on public relations; changes in the capacity and use of new information technologies; a greater emphasis on non-Western international and intercultural public relations that considers an increasingly politically polarized culture; and issues of ethics that look beyond how clients and the traditional mass media are treated and into much broader questions of voice, agency, race, identity, and the economic and political status of publics. This book is a touchstone for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in public relations theory and a key reference for researchers.

In achieving civic engagement and social justice in smart cities, literacy programs are offered in the society by three essential information service providers: libraries, archives, and museums. Although the library and museum services are documented in literature, there is little evidence of community-led library or museum services that make a full circle in understanding community-library, community-archive, and community-museum relationships. The Handbook of Research on the Role of Libraries, Archives, and Museums in Achieving Civic Engagement and Social Justice in Smart Cities examines the application of tools and techniques in library and museum literacy in achieving civic engagement and social justice. It also introduces a new outlook in the services of libraries and museums. Covering topics such as countering fake news, human rights literacies, and outreach activities, this book is essential for community-based organizations, librarians, museum administrations, education leaders, information professionals, smart city design planners, digital tool developers, policymakers engaged in diversity, researchers, and academicians.

Though entrepreneurship has been studied for decades, in recent years, the study of “rural entrepreneurship” has emerged as an upcoming subtopic of the area. With the growth and continual ease of utilizing digital technologies to support entrepreneurial activities, these technologies now provide unique opportunities for advancing rural entrepreneurship. Though prior research focused on challenges for IT use in rural areas that specifically investigated investment and management issues, it is important to study all challenges and opportunities involved in this developing area of research. Rural Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Digital Era is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the utilization of digital technologies in rural business ventures. Unlike other references, this book studies the conceptualization process of rural entrepreneurship and innovation with the intention of providing guidelines and support for entrepreneurs. While highlighting topics such as microfinancing, risk management, and rural development, this publication explores innovative practices as well as the methods of IT investment and management. This book is ideally designed for business professionals, entrepreneurs, business researchers, academics, and business students.