Exploring Technology And Social Space

Examining the fundamental assumptions that we hold about the role of technology in our lives, Technology and Social Space describes the possibilities and limitations of human agency within the new wired world. In a patient and thoughtful style, author J. Macgregor Wise elaborates a critical, philosophical, and epistemological framework from which to better understand our relations to technology and social space. The book argues that most treatments of technology and society arise from a modernist episteme (or set of assumptions) that radically separates humans from technologies, focusing on questions of determination and identity. In an attempt to provide a clearer view of technology and social space, the book explores alternative perspectives centered on notions of agency. Working from within these alternative epistemes, the book turns its attention to the burgeoning technological assemblage of communication and information characterized by the Internet and cyberspace. Technology and Social Space draws on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and the actor-network sociology of Bruno Latour, and brings together diverse examples from cyborg films, television, museums, cyberspace, and debates over a New World Information and Communication Order. Ultimately, the book describes the possibilities and limitation of human agency within the new wired world. This groundbreaking volume will be of interest to professionals and academics in popular culture, media studies, mass communication, and sociology.

French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu’s relevance for studies of spatiality and mobility has received less attention than other aspects of his work. Here, Deborah Reed-Danahay argues that the concept of social space, central to Bourdieu’s ideas, addresses the structured inequalities that prevail in spatial choices and practices. She provides an ethnographically informed interpretation of social space that demonstrates its potential for new directions in studies of mobility, immobility, and emplacement. This book traces the links between habitus and social space across the span of Bourdieu’s writings, and places his work in dialogue with historical and contemporary approaches to mobility.

"For researchers and scholars working at the intersection of physical, social, and technological space, this book provides critical research from leading experts in the space technology domain"--Provided by the publisher.

Some chapters were previously published.

In this exciting new book, Mike Michael uses case studies of mundane technologies such as the walking boot, the car and the TV remote control to question some of the fundamental dichotomies through which we make sense of the world. Drawing on the insights of Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway and Michel Serres, the author elaborates an innovative methodology through which new hybrid objects of study are creatively constructed, tracing the ways in which the cultural, the natural and the technological interweave in the production of order and disorder. This book critically engages with and draws connections between a wide range of literature including those concerned with the environment, consumption and the body.

An Introduction to Cybercultures provides an accessible guide to the major forms, practices and meanings of this rapidly-growing field. From the evolution of hardware and software to the emergence of cyberpunk film and fiction, David Bell introduces readers to the key aspects of cyberculture, including email, the internet, digital imaging technologies, computer games and digital special effects. Each chapter contains `hot links' to key articles in its companion volume, The Cybercultures Reader, suggestions for further reading, and details of relevant websites. Individual chapters examine: · Cybercultures: an introduction · Storying cyberspace · Cultural Studies in cyberspace · Community and cyberculture · Identities in cyberculture · Bodies in cyberculture · Cybersubcultures · Researching cybercultures

"Culture + Technology is an essential guide to the fascinating history of these debates, and offers new perspectives that give readers the tools they need to make informed decisions about the role of technology in our lives. In clear and compelling language, Slack and Wise untangle and expose the cultural assumptions that underlie our thinking about technology, stories so deeply held we often don't recognize their influence. The book considers the perceived inevitability of technological advance and our myths about progress. It also looks at sources of resistance to these stories from the Luddites of the 19th century to the Unabomber in our own time. Slack and Wise help readers sift through the confusions about culture and technology that arise in their own everyday lives."--BOOK JACKET.

Discover why social work must be restructured if it is to remain viable! Social Work: Seeking Relevancy in the Twenty-First Century provides you with a critical examination of the major issues that social work education and practice must confront if social work is to remain as a mainline profession. The book explores issues that are not normally covered in social work literature, such as the challenge of reconstructing the social work profession, the use of technology in social work, and the tension surrounding various social work education curriculums. You will benefit from this thorough discussion of the many problems that the social work profession is facing: a lack of scholarly research, inadequate educational programs, and the use of hypertechnology to educate social work students. Social Work: Seeking Relevancy in the Twenty-First Century examines the epistemological, theoretical, socio/technical, and practice directions that social work has branched into. You'll discover that today's central direction for social work is generated from liberal, postmodern, and increasingly feminist ideological perspectives. In a field where conceptual and theoretical input rarely allow for intellectual diversity, this volume demonstrates that several views are best for inquiry and exploration in social work. Issues discussed include: examining real or unreal social work values by separating them from beliefs, preferences, norms, attitudes, and opinions creating social work course outlines that incorporate practices developed around the globe, allowing for more conceptual and theoretical growth within the field realizing the tremendous difference between communication in the instrumental sense via technology, and in the affective, soul-oriented sense via personal interaction investigating the negative effects of communicating with hypertechnology (modems, e-mail) in the social work profession realizing the need for a greater quantity and quality of social work research to progress further in the field Social Work: Seeking Relevancy in the Twenty-First Century invites you to reinvent social work for today's post-industrial and post-modern era. You will discover a series of challenges that social work must meet and overcome if it is to move into the new century as a relevant and viable profession. You will explore solutions such as increasing scholarship and research among social workers, and decreasing the use of technology (for example, classes held via the Internet) in social work education programs in order to increase the quality of the social work profession.