The Social Dynamics Of Information And Communication Technology

What shapes the role of Information and Communication Technologies in our everyday life? Despite the speed with which information and communication technologies such as the PC, mobile telephone and internet have found their way into society, there remains a good deal of debate surrounding their adoption and use. Through empirical studies covering a broad range of everyday life and work settings, this volume provides grounded insights into the social dynamics influencing how ICTs are both shaped and experienced. Specifically, the book examines the contributions of diverse disciplines to our understanding of these processes, the symbolic nature of technologies, the influence of design on the experience of ICTs, the role of users in influencing that design, the social constraints affecting the use of those technologies, and strategies for evaluating the social consequences of ICT innovations.

This book is the first general social analysis that seriously considers the daily experience of information disruption and software failure within contemporary Western society. Through an investigation of informationalism, defined as a contemporary form of capitalism, it describes the social processes producing informational disorder. While most social theory sees disorder as secondary, pathological or uninteresting, this book takes disordering processes as central to social life. The book engages with theories of information society which privilege information order, offering a strong counterpoint centred on "disinformation." Disorder and the Disinformation Society offers a practical agenda, arguing that difficulties in producing software are both inherent to the process of developing software and in the social dynamics of informationalism. It outlines the dynamics of software failure as they impinge on of information workers and on daily life, explores why computerized finance has become inherently self-disruptive, asks how digital enclosure and intellectual property create conflicts over cultural creativity and disrupt informational accuracy and scholarship, and reveals how social media can extend, but also distort, the development of social movements.

Within only a few years, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, You Tube and other social media have become an intimate part of everyday life. Web 2.0, the collective term for all forms of interactive online communication, is characterized by the overwhelming ability of users to collaboratively create content. The implications of Web 2.0 have become a central focus for interdisciplinary social science research. This book comprehensively addresses the profound impact of Web 2.0 on contemporary society and its dynamics in a multiplicity of fields. The chapters, authored by world-leading experts, vividly demonstrate that Web 2.0 is a dynamic basis for collective action and an unlimited source of societal destabilisation and revolutionary change, for better or for worse. Various aspects of the radical transformative potential of Web 2.0 are imaginatively and critically discussed in the analytical context of quantitative approaches, qualitative works and case studies. This book provides key insights into the wide-reaching implications of recent technological developments, casting new light into an area which may potentially contribute to a more peaceful and sustainable future. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Lelia Green looks at what drives technological change, showing that the adoption of new technologies is not inevitable. She also explores how a variety of technology cultures coexist and interact.

How best can we understand why the application of information and communication technology in organizations succeeds or fails? Calling on technical, organisational, social, psychological and economic perspectives, this book provides a fresh and comprehensive framework for answering this question. Consideration is given to how ICT is adopted, implemented and used within organizations. Throughout special features will help readers clarify their understanding. These features include: - Case studies and vignettes that chart the opportunities and pitfalls created by ICT - Useful chapter introductions - An up to date glossary of concepts and abbreviations

This book argues that information communication technologies are not creating new forms of social structure, but rather altering long-standing institutions and amplifying existing trends of social change that have their origins in ancient times. Using a comparative historical perspective, it analyzes the applications of information communication technologies in relation to changes in norms and values, education institutions, the socialization of children, new forms of deviant and criminal behaviors, enhanced participation in religious activities, patterns of knowledge creation and use, the expansion of consumerism, and changing experiences of distance and time.

This book is the first general social analysis that seriously considers the daily experience of information disruption and software failure within contemporary Western society. Through an investigation of informationalism, defined as a contemporary form of capitalism, it describes the social processes producing informational disorder. While most social theory sees disorder as secondary, pathological or uninteresting, this book takes disordering processes as central to social life. The book engages with theories of information society which privilege information order, offering a strong counterpoint centred on "disinformation." Disorder and the Disinformation Society offers a practical agenda, arguing that difficulties in producing software are both inherent to the process of developing software and in the social dynamics of informationalism. It outlines the dynamics of software failure as they impinge on of information workers and on daily life, explores why computerized finance has become inherently self-disruptive, asks how digital enclosure and intellectual property create conflicts over cultural creativity and disrupt informational accuracy and scholarship, and reveals how social media can extend, but also distort, the development of social movements.