Dik Roth and Linden Vincent
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780198082927
- eISBN:
- 9780199082247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198082927.003.0013
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter explores the conceptual terrain at the interface of physical–technical science and social science approaches to water management, looking for boundary concepts that allow us to think the ...
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This chapter explores the conceptual terrain at the interface of physical–technical science and social science approaches to water management, looking for boundary concepts that allow us to think the different dimensions of water management simultaneously rather than separately. It seeks to find ways to combine a socio-political perspective of water management policy, institutions, and organizations with a perspective on the politics of technology, infrastructure, and landscapes. It gives an overview of the different ways in which such conceptual hybridization has been attempted. More specifically, it illustrates how this has been elaborated in the South Asian context, particularly in the research conducted under the ‘Matching Technology and Institutions’ project of which this volume is the collective output. It reflects on the experience of the kind of interdisciplinary research that formed the basis of this volume and stresses the importance of this approach for future academic and policy-related research.Less
This chapter explores the conceptual terrain at the interface of physical–technical science and social science approaches to water management, looking for boundary concepts that allow us to think the different dimensions of water management simultaneously rather than separately. It seeks to find ways to combine a socio-political perspective of water management policy, institutions, and organizations with a perspective on the politics of technology, infrastructure, and landscapes. It gives an overview of the different ways in which such conceptual hybridization has been attempted. More specifically, it illustrates how this has been elaborated in the South Asian context, particularly in the research conducted under the ‘Matching Technology and Institutions’ project of which this volume is the collective output. It reflects on the experience of the kind of interdisciplinary research that formed the basis of this volume and stresses the importance of this approach for future academic and policy-related research.
Christina Dunbar-Hester
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262028127
- eISBN:
- 9780262320498
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028127.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The United States ushered in a new era of small-scale broadcasting in 2000 when it began issuing low-power FM (LPFM) licenses for noncommercial radio stations around the country. Over the next ...
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The United States ushered in a new era of small-scale broadcasting in 2000 when it began issuing low-power FM (LPFM) licenses for noncommercial radio stations around the country. Over the next decade, several hundred of these newly created low-wattage stations took to the airwaves. This book describes the practices of an activist organization focused on LPFM during this era. Despite its origins as a pirate broadcasting collective, the group eventually shifted toward building and expanding regulatory access to new, licensed stations. These radio activists consciously cast radio as an alternative to digital utopianism, promoting an understanding of electronic media that emphasizes the local community rather than a global audience of Internet users. The book focuses on how these radio activists impute emancipatory politics to the “old” medium of radio technology by promoting the idea that “microradio” broadcasting holds the potential to empower ordinary people at the local community level. The group’s methods combine political advocacy with a rare commitment to hands-on technical work with radio hardware, although the activists’ hands-on, inclusive ethos was hampered by persistent issues of race, class, and gender. This study of activism around an “old” medium offers broader lessons about how political beliefs are expressed through engagement with specific technologies.Less
The United States ushered in a new era of small-scale broadcasting in 2000 when it began issuing low-power FM (LPFM) licenses for noncommercial radio stations around the country. Over the next decade, several hundred of these newly created low-wattage stations took to the airwaves. This book describes the practices of an activist organization focused on LPFM during this era. Despite its origins as a pirate broadcasting collective, the group eventually shifted toward building and expanding regulatory access to new, licensed stations. These radio activists consciously cast radio as an alternative to digital utopianism, promoting an understanding of electronic media that emphasizes the local community rather than a global audience of Internet users. The book focuses on how these radio activists impute emancipatory politics to the “old” medium of radio technology by promoting the idea that “microradio” broadcasting holds the potential to empower ordinary people at the local community level. The group’s methods combine political advocacy with a rare commitment to hands-on technical work with radio hardware, although the activists’ hands-on, inclusive ethos was hampered by persistent issues of race, class, and gender. This study of activism around an “old” medium offers broader lessons about how political beliefs are expressed through engagement with specific technologies.
Taylor Dotson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036382
- eISBN:
- 9780262340861
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036382.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
This book provides an account of community through the lens of the politics of technology. That is, how do the artifacts, infrastructures, sociotechnical systems and techniques that constitute ...
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This book provides an account of community through the lens of the politics of technology. That is, how do the artifacts, infrastructures, sociotechnical systems and techniques that constitute everyday life influence the answer to “who gets what community, when and how?” This book responds with a conceptualization of community as a multidimensional phenomenon, which aids in the illustration of how different techniques, artifacts, organizational technologies and infrastructures encourage or constrain the enactment of the various dimensions of communality. Later chapters build upon this analysis, asking “How might everyday technologies better support a thicker practice of community life?” In order to describe how more community-supportive technological societies might be possible, the various social barriers to thick communitarian technologies are explored. In other words, what policies, subsidies, institutional arrangements and patterns of thought would need to change in order to enable more citizens to strive toward thicker local communities? The book ends with a proposal for an “intelligent trial-and-error” approach to governing innovation so that any risks posed to thick community are reduced. Intelligent trial-and-error, however, is not merely a means for ensuring that technical innovations are properly assessed prior to adoption according to their effects on community life but also constitutes a set of strategies that can help assure the success of communitarian technologies. This book, as a result, contributes to the “reconstructivist” school of science and technology studies and extends the political philosophy of technology toward the good of community.Less
This book provides an account of community through the lens of the politics of technology. That is, how do the artifacts, infrastructures, sociotechnical systems and techniques that constitute everyday life influence the answer to “who gets what community, when and how?” This book responds with a conceptualization of community as a multidimensional phenomenon, which aids in the illustration of how different techniques, artifacts, organizational technologies and infrastructures encourage or constrain the enactment of the various dimensions of communality. Later chapters build upon this analysis, asking “How might everyday technologies better support a thicker practice of community life?” In order to describe how more community-supportive technological societies might be possible, the various social barriers to thick communitarian technologies are explored. In other words, what policies, subsidies, institutional arrangements and patterns of thought would need to change in order to enable more citizens to strive toward thicker local communities? The book ends with a proposal for an “intelligent trial-and-error” approach to governing innovation so that any risks posed to thick community are reduced. Intelligent trial-and-error, however, is not merely a means for ensuring that technical innovations are properly assessed prior to adoption according to their effects on community life but also constitutes a set of strategies that can help assure the success of communitarian technologies. This book, as a result, contributes to the “reconstructivist” school of science and technology studies and extends the political philosophy of technology toward the good of community.
Christina Dunbar-Hester
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262028127
- eISBN:
- 9780262320498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028127.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter follows radio activists’ assessments of emerging Internet-based technologies (primarily wi-fi networks). Particularly for urban areas where LPFM licenses were out of reach, the activists ...
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This chapter follows radio activists’ assessments of emerging Internet-based technologies (primarily wi-fi networks). Particularly for urban areas where LPFM licenses were out of reach, the activists considered other “appropriate technologies” to as platforms for community media. The chapter shows that radio activists were selective in their adoption of or resistance to various options, some of which they largely rejected (such as webcasting) and others of which they cautiously embraced (such as community wi-fi networks). Having identified radio as the artifact with which their politics best aligned, they were circumspect about the promotion of other technologies that were less obviously tied to the values they identified in radio.Less
This chapter follows radio activists’ assessments of emerging Internet-based technologies (primarily wi-fi networks). Particularly for urban areas where LPFM licenses were out of reach, the activists considered other “appropriate technologies” to as platforms for community media. The chapter shows that radio activists were selective in their adoption of or resistance to various options, some of which they largely rejected (such as webcasting) and others of which they cautiously embraced (such as community wi-fi networks). Having identified radio as the artifact with which their politics best aligned, they were circumspect about the promotion of other technologies that were less obviously tied to the values they identified in radio.
William Bogard
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633364
- eISBN:
- 9780748652600
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633364.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter focuses on Gilles Deleuze's thoughts about politics of technology and control societies, suggesting that there is no universal form of control, nor a universal form of resistance, and ...
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This chapter focuses on Gilles Deleuze's thoughts about politics of technology and control societies, suggesting that there is no universal form of control, nor a universal form of resistance, and that while the new abstract machines of control may be ruled by corporate capital, there is no necessary reason for that to be so. It highlights the relevance of Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of the body without organs for control societies.Less
This chapter focuses on Gilles Deleuze's thoughts about politics of technology and control societies, suggesting that there is no universal form of control, nor a universal form of resistance, and that while the new abstract machines of control may be ruled by corporate capital, there is no necessary reason for that to be so. It highlights the relevance of Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of the body without organs for control societies.
Christina Dunbar-Hester
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262028127
- eISBN:
- 9780262320498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028127.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines the discursive practices by which LPFM advocates attempted to redefine radio’s use and meaning. During the 1990s and 2000s, radio broadcasting (a familiar and decades-old ...
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This chapter examines the discursive practices by which LPFM advocates attempted to redefine radio’s use and meaning. During the 1990s and 2000s, radio broadcasting (a familiar and decades-old technology) remained the site of intense contestation (even in the wake of digital media and Internet-based technologies). Radio activists (and other advocates, with whom they were not always in accord) defined FM radio as noncommercial, well-suited to local or community-level use, and a medium for political expression and organizing.Less
This chapter examines the discursive practices by which LPFM advocates attempted to redefine radio’s use and meaning. During the 1990s and 2000s, radio broadcasting (a familiar and decades-old technology) remained the site of intense contestation (even in the wake of digital media and Internet-based technologies). Radio activists (and other advocates, with whom they were not always in accord) defined FM radio as noncommercial, well-suited to local or community-level use, and a medium for political expression and organizing.
