Vaclav Smil
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195168754
- eISBN:
- 9780199783601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195168755.003.0007
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
While the accomplishments of (and the existing problems with) 20th century ingenuity are clear, their implications for the future are highly contested as techno-optimists clash with critics of ...
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While the accomplishments of (and the existing problems with) 20th century ingenuity are clear, their implications for the future are highly contested as techno-optimists clash with critics of technical advances. In this context, it is useful to remember that even the most destructive technical advances were not responsible for most of the man-made deaths during the 20th century. There is nothing inevitable about the long-term survival of civilization based on technical ingenuity and high energy consumption: openness and uncertainty best describe our prospects.Less
While the accomplishments of (and the existing problems with) 20th century ingenuity are clear, their implications for the future are highly contested as techno-optimists clash with critics of technical advances. In this context, it is useful to remember that even the most destructive technical advances were not responsible for most of the man-made deaths during the 20th century. There is nothing inevitable about the long-term survival of civilization based on technical ingenuity and high energy consumption: openness and uncertainty best describe our prospects.
Stefano Bartolini
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199286430
- eISBN:
- 9780191603242
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199286434.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
This chapter devotes attention to the specific features of the new centre at the European level, and focuses on the peculiarities of its institutional design. The typical centre-building features of ...
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This chapter devotes attention to the specific features of the new centre at the European level, and focuses on the peculiarities of its institutional design. The typical centre-building features of territorial expansion, legal centralization, integration of the national and supra-national techno-bureaucratic infrastructure, and competence accretion have developed together with a persisting weak territoriality, an unclear competence attribution in vertical and horizontal senses, a partial constitutional empowerment of the subjects qua economic agents, and uncertain legitimacy sources. This configuration points to an ‘elite consolidation’, resulting from an alliance between national rulers (the national governments, the MPs) and the supra-national techno-bureaucratic centre builders (in the Commission, the Court, the European Central Bank). It is argued that any attempt to separate the powers, distribute the competencies, and strengthen direct forms of legitimacy would upset the inter-elite form of control on which this consolidation has rested to date.Less
This chapter devotes attention to the specific features of the new centre at the European level, and focuses on the peculiarities of its institutional design. The typical centre-building features of territorial expansion, legal centralization, integration of the national and supra-national techno-bureaucratic infrastructure, and competence accretion have developed together with a persisting weak territoriality, an unclear competence attribution in vertical and horizontal senses, a partial constitutional empowerment of the subjects qua economic agents, and uncertain legitimacy sources. This configuration points to an ‘elite consolidation’, resulting from an alliance between national rulers (the national governments, the MPs) and the supra-national techno-bureaucratic centre builders (in the Commission, the Court, the European Central Bank). It is argued that any attempt to separate the powers, distribute the competencies, and strengthen direct forms of legitimacy would upset the inter-elite form of control on which this consolidation has rested to date.
Yuzo Murayama
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199297320
- eISBN:
- 9780191711237
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297320.003.0014
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
This chapter extends the discussion into the area of security, which was thrust onto the policy and innovation system debate agenda in the wake of 9/11. It compares key features of the US and ...
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This chapter extends the discussion into the area of security, which was thrust onto the policy and innovation system debate agenda in the wake of 9/11. It compares key features of the US and Japanese national innovation systems, and the respective roles of defence. Defence has played a relatively minor role in Japan's innovation system, but like civilian industry in the 1990s, Japan's defence industry failed to adapt to a dramatically changed (post Cold War) environment in the 1990s. In the new century, however, anzen-anshin (safety and security/peace of mind) concerns have the potential to influence both. The trajectory of influence is still fluid, but preference is given for a civilian-oriented security techno-system.Less
This chapter extends the discussion into the area of security, which was thrust onto the policy and innovation system debate agenda in the wake of 9/11. It compares key features of the US and Japanese national innovation systems, and the respective roles of defence. Defence has played a relatively minor role in Japan's innovation system, but like civilian industry in the 1990s, Japan's defence industry failed to adapt to a dramatically changed (post Cold War) environment in the 1990s. In the new century, however, anzen-anshin (safety and security/peace of mind) concerns have the potential to influence both. The trajectory of influence is still fluid, but preference is given for a civilian-oriented security techno-system.
Gerardo Patriotta
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199275243
- eISBN:
- 9780191719684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275243.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Strategy
This chapter reviews the four main perspectives on organizational knowledge: the cognitive approach, knowledge-based approach, situated approach, and ‘techno-science’ approach. The cognitive approach ...
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This chapter reviews the four main perspectives on organizational knowledge: the cognitive approach, knowledge-based approach, situated approach, and ‘techno-science’ approach. The cognitive approach stresses the linkages between action and cognition, and therefore offers the insight that knowledge is mobilized in the form of representations. The knowledge-based perspective probably offers the most consistent conceptualization of knowledge, which is reflected in the attempt to build a knowledge-based theory of the firm. The situated perspective's major strength lies in its relational focus; knowledge is conceptualized in a holistic fashion stressing the linkages between action, context, and processes. The techno-science approach highlights the controversial, socially constructed nature of scientific facts and technological artefacts.Less
This chapter reviews the four main perspectives on organizational knowledge: the cognitive approach, knowledge-based approach, situated approach, and ‘techno-science’ approach. The cognitive approach stresses the linkages between action and cognition, and therefore offers the insight that knowledge is mobilized in the form of representations. The knowledge-based perspective probably offers the most consistent conceptualization of knowledge, which is reflected in the attempt to build a knowledge-based theory of the firm. The situated perspective's major strength lies in its relational focus; knowledge is conceptualized in a holistic fashion stressing the linkages between action, context, and processes. The techno-science approach highlights the controversial, socially constructed nature of scientific facts and technological artefacts.
Charles T Mathewes and Christopher McKnight Nichols (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195342536
- eISBN:
- 9780199867042
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342536.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book explores the surprisingly similar expectations of religious and moral change voiced by major American thinkers from the time of the Puritans to modern times. These predictions of ...
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This book explores the surprisingly similar expectations of religious and moral change voiced by major American thinkers from the time of the Puritans to modern times. These predictions of “godlessness” in American society — sometimes by those favoring the foreseen future, sometimes by those fearing it — have a history as old as America, and indeed seem crucially intertwined with it. This book shows that there have been and continue to be patterns to these prophesies. They determine how some people perceive and analyze America's prospective moral and religious future, how they express themselves, and powerfully affect how others hear them. While these patterns have taken a sinuous and at times subterranean route to the present, when we think about the future of America we are thinking about that future largely with terms and expectations first laid out by past generations, some stemming back before the very foundations of the United States. Even contemporary atheists and those who predict optimistic techno-utopias rely on scripts that are deeply rooted in the American past. This book excavates the history of these prophesies. Each chapter attends to a particular era, and each is organized around a focal individual, a community of thought, and changing conceptions of secularization. Each chapter also discusses how such predictions are part of all thought about “the good society,” and how such thinking structures our apprehension of the present, forming a feedback loop of sorts.Less
This book explores the surprisingly similar expectations of religious and moral change voiced by major American thinkers from the time of the Puritans to modern times. These predictions of “godlessness” in American society — sometimes by those favoring the foreseen future, sometimes by those fearing it — have a history as old as America, and indeed seem crucially intertwined with it. This book shows that there have been and continue to be patterns to these prophesies. They determine how some people perceive and analyze America's prospective moral and religious future, how they express themselves, and powerfully affect how others hear them. While these patterns have taken a sinuous and at times subterranean route to the present, when we think about the future of America we are thinking about that future largely with terms and expectations first laid out by past generations, some stemming back before the very foundations of the United States. Even contemporary atheists and those who predict optimistic techno-utopias rely on scripts that are deeply rooted in the American past. This book excavates the history of these prophesies. Each chapter attends to a particular era, and each is organized around a focal individual, a community of thought, and changing conceptions of secularization. Each chapter also discusses how such predictions are part of all thought about “the good society,” and how such thinking structures our apprehension of the present, forming a feedback loop of sorts.
Caroline Bassett
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719073427
- eISBN:
- 9781781700907
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719073427.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book is a defence of narrative in an age of information. Stressing interpretation and experience alongside affect and sensation, it argues that narrative is key to contemporary forms of cultural ...
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This book is a defence of narrative in an age of information. Stressing interpretation and experience alongside affect and sensation, it argues that narrative is key to contemporary forms of cultural production and to the practice of contemporary life. Re-appraising the prospects for narrative in the digital age, the book insists on the centrality of narrative to informational culture and provokes a critical re-appraisal of how innovations in information technology as a material cultural form can be understood and assessed. It offers a careful exploration of narrative theory, a critique of techno-cultural writing, and a series of tightly focused case studies. All of which point the way to a restoration of a critical — rather than celebratory — approach to new media.Less
This book is a defence of narrative in an age of information. Stressing interpretation and experience alongside affect and sensation, it argues that narrative is key to contemporary forms of cultural production and to the practice of contemporary life. Re-appraising the prospects for narrative in the digital age, the book insists on the centrality of narrative to informational culture and provokes a critical re-appraisal of how innovations in information technology as a material cultural form can be understood and assessed. It offers a careful exploration of narrative theory, a critique of techno-cultural writing, and a series of tightly focused case studies. All of which point the way to a restoration of a critical — rather than celebratory — approach to new media.
Shehzad Nadeem
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691147871
- eISBN:
- 9781400836697
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691147871.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the normative visions that animate globalization: namely, the cosmopolitan ideologies of global capitalism and labor's internationalist challenges to them. Using the idea of an ...
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This chapter examines the normative visions that animate globalization: namely, the cosmopolitan ideologies of global capitalism and labor's internationalist challenges to them. Using the idea of an economy of utopia, it demonstrates how these universalizing ideals are transformed through their application in particular contexts. More specifically, it considers how capital and labor are adjusted to accommodate distinct political and economic realities. The chapter begins with a discussion of what it calls business cosmopolitanism and how the realities of uneven development, poor infrastructure, and a labor shortage in India lead executives and their political allies to espouse a vision of techno-populism that is more politically viable. It then explores the ideal of worker internationalism, along with the assertion that workers' individualism and indifference to unions are a species of false consciousness. Finally, it describes work sites as branded electronic sweatshops and workers as cybercoolies.Less
This chapter examines the normative visions that animate globalization: namely, the cosmopolitan ideologies of global capitalism and labor's internationalist challenges to them. Using the idea of an economy of utopia, it demonstrates how these universalizing ideals are transformed through their application in particular contexts. More specifically, it considers how capital and labor are adjusted to accommodate distinct political and economic realities. The chapter begins with a discussion of what it calls business cosmopolitanism and how the realities of uneven development, poor infrastructure, and a labor shortage in India lead executives and their political allies to espouse a vision of techno-populism that is more politically viable. It then explores the ideal of worker internationalism, along with the assertion that workers' individualism and indifference to unions are a species of false consciousness. Finally, it describes work sites as branded electronic sweatshops and workers as cybercoolies.
Denis J. Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199207145
- eISBN:
- 9780191708893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199207145.003.0017
- Subject:
- Biology, Plant Sciences and Forestry
This final chapter looks back at the impact of agriculture on human populations, and looks forward to a highly uncertain future for both farming and humanity. The relatively stable Holocene climate ...
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This final chapter looks back at the impact of agriculture on human populations, and looks forward to a highly uncertain future for both farming and humanity. The relatively stable Holocene climate enabled the development of farming and a forty-fold increase in human numbers by 2,000 BP. The recent dramatic increases in crop yields due to science-based agriculture have led to a further ten-fold population rise over the past two centuries. The world is now overwhelmingly dominated by complex techno-urban civilizations sustained by high-input farming regimes that rely on cheap and plentiful energy sources and a relatively stable climate. As energy becomes more expensive and the current period of climatic stability draws to a close, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain present levels of population and complex urban societies. As in previous eras, human populations may fall and undergo cultural simplification in response to such climatic uncertainties.Less
This final chapter looks back at the impact of agriculture on human populations, and looks forward to a highly uncertain future for both farming and humanity. The relatively stable Holocene climate enabled the development of farming and a forty-fold increase in human numbers by 2,000 BP. The recent dramatic increases in crop yields due to science-based agriculture have led to a further ten-fold population rise over the past two centuries. The world is now overwhelmingly dominated by complex techno-urban civilizations sustained by high-input farming regimes that rely on cheap and plentiful energy sources and a relatively stable climate. As energy becomes more expensive and the current period of climatic stability draws to a close, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain present levels of population and complex urban societies. As in previous eras, human populations may fall and undergo cultural simplification in response to such climatic uncertainties.
Joanna Demers
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387650
- eISBN:
- 9780199863594
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387650.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, History, American
Chapter 3 looked at microsound, a form of electronica often characterized as minimalist. Chapter 4 looks at music that can be described as “maximal” because it tests the physical limitations of ...
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Chapter 3 looked at microsound, a form of electronica often characterized as minimalist. Chapter 4 looks at music that can be described as “maximal” because it tests the physical limitations of listeners through excessive durations and volumes. These various manifestations of excess all purport to transcend meaning, to push sound beyond semiosis to a state in which it communicates directly to listeners’ bodies. The chapter focuses on maximal genres such as drone music, dub techno, and noise music, enlisting theories on excess and the sublime by Georges Bataille and Immanuel Kant. It also situates noise as a reaction to but also a confirmation of traditional notions of beauty in music.Less
Chapter 3 looked at microsound, a form of electronica often characterized as minimalist. Chapter 4 looks at music that can be described as “maximal” because it tests the physical limitations of listeners through excessive durations and volumes. These various manifestations of excess all purport to transcend meaning, to push sound beyond semiosis to a state in which it communicates directly to listeners’ bodies. The chapter focuses on maximal genres such as drone music, dub techno, and noise music, enlisting theories on excess and the sublime by Georges Bataille and Immanuel Kant. It also situates noise as a reaction to but also a confirmation of traditional notions of beauty in music.
Thomas A. Carlson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195175325
- eISBN:
- 9780199784707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195175328.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This essay questions common assumptions about science as distinct from religion. Carlson starts by noting the intimate and practically inseparable connection between science and technology, arguing ...
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This essay questions common assumptions about science as distinct from religion. Carlson starts by noting the intimate and practically inseparable connection between science and technology, arguing how “techno-science” is involved not only in producing knowledge of the world, but also a sense of what it means to be human. This sense of humanness involves a connection of techno-science and modernity in general, with the mystical realm usually associated with religion. Techno-science is understood precisely in the opposite sense as eliminating ignorance, of knowing (and mastering) all. Building upon the work of Weber and Heidegger, Carlson argues that this “will to mastery” is framed in the positing of an objective reality, which the knowing subject masters, based on the certainty of the knowing subject as framed historically in Protestant theology and the philosophy of Descartes. Yet, given the inaccessibility of much of the actual process of techno-science to most people, there is an important component of faith, Carlson cites the argument of Derrida that any authority is hence grounded on a “mystical foundation.” Carlson emphasizes that this act of human self-creation is based on an essential un-knowing of oneself, in particular, one’s destiny. The result, via our participation in increasingly powerful networks of knowledge and power, is a type of omniscience without comprehension of where we are heading-a sense of the human experience as conveying not finitude but infinitude, instability.Less
This essay questions common assumptions about science as distinct from religion. Carlson starts by noting the intimate and practically inseparable connection between science and technology, arguing how “techno-science” is involved not only in producing knowledge of the world, but also a sense of what it means to be human. This sense of humanness involves a connection of techno-science and modernity in general, with the mystical realm usually associated with religion. Techno-science is understood precisely in the opposite sense as eliminating ignorance, of knowing (and mastering) all. Building upon the work of Weber and Heidegger, Carlson argues that this “will to mastery” is framed in the positing of an objective reality, which the knowing subject masters, based on the certainty of the knowing subject as framed historically in Protestant theology and the philosophy of Descartes. Yet, given the inaccessibility of much of the actual process of techno-science to most people, there is an important component of faith, Carlson cites the argument of Derrida that any authority is hence grounded on a “mystical foundation.” Carlson emphasizes that this act of human self-creation is based on an essential un-knowing of oneself, in particular, one’s destiny. The result, via our participation in increasingly powerful networks of knowledge and power, is a type of omniscience without comprehension of where we are heading-a sense of the human experience as conveying not finitude but infinitude, instability.
Elsa Davidson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814720875
- eISBN:
- 9780814785065
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814720875.001.0001
- Subject:
- Education, Educational Policy and Politics
During the tech boom, Silicon Valley became one of the most concentrated zones of wealth polarization and social inequality in the United States—a place with a fast-disappearing middle class, ...
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During the tech boom, Silicon Valley became one of the most concentrated zones of wealth polarization and social inequality in the United States—a place with a fast-disappearing middle class, persistent pockets of poverty, and striking gaps in educational and occupational achievement along class and racial lines. Low-wage workers and their families experienced a profound sense of exclusion from the techno-entrepreneurial culture, while middle-class residents negotiated both new and seemingly unattainable standards of personal success and the erosion of their own economic security. This book explores the imprint of the region's success-driven public culture, the realities of increasing social and economic insecurity, and models of success emphasized in contemporary public schools for the region's working- and middle-class youth. Focused on two disparate groups of students—low-income, “at-risk” Latino youth attending a specialized program exposing youth to high-tech industry within an “under-performing” public high school, and middle-income white and Asian students attending a “high-performing” public school with informal connections to the tech elite—the book offers an in-depth look at the process of forming aspirations across lines of race and class. By analyzing the successes and sometimes unanticipated effects of the schools' attempts to shape the aspirations and values of their students, the book considers the role schooling plays in social reproduction, and how dynamics of race and class inform ideas about responsible citizenship that are instilled in America's youth.Less
During the tech boom, Silicon Valley became one of the most concentrated zones of wealth polarization and social inequality in the United States—a place with a fast-disappearing middle class, persistent pockets of poverty, and striking gaps in educational and occupational achievement along class and racial lines. Low-wage workers and their families experienced a profound sense of exclusion from the techno-entrepreneurial culture, while middle-class residents negotiated both new and seemingly unattainable standards of personal success and the erosion of their own economic security. This book explores the imprint of the region's success-driven public culture, the realities of increasing social and economic insecurity, and models of success emphasized in contemporary public schools for the region's working- and middle-class youth. Focused on two disparate groups of students—low-income, “at-risk” Latino youth attending a specialized program exposing youth to high-tech industry within an “under-performing” public high school, and middle-income white and Asian students attending a “high-performing” public school with informal connections to the tech elite—the book offers an in-depth look at the process of forming aspirations across lines of race and class. By analyzing the successes and sometimes unanticipated effects of the schools' attempts to shape the aspirations and values of their students, the book considers the role schooling plays in social reproduction, and how dynamics of race and class inform ideas about responsible citizenship that are instilled in America's youth.
Tarek El-Ariss
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691181936
- eISBN:
- 9780691184913
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691181936.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. Examining literature and social media, activism and politics, the book identified a techno-archaic portal, breaching ...
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This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. Examining literature and social media, activism and politics, the book identified a techno-archaic portal, breaching the narrative of modernity. The role of the Internet as “public sphere”—a utopian framework that promised an open and nonhierarchal encounter with the other—has given way to pre-Islamic raids and sophisticated hacks, trolling and attack that come from the present and a fantasized past, and jinn-like seers and narrators of akhbār. Both the Internet and the subject of modernity are leaking, unable to contain their enlightenment and liberal narratives, or to control the gushing from a dimension that lies beyond. This leaking is not a techno-salvation, but creates the possibility of change that also involves dangerous processes and openings that risk engulfing authors and activists.Less
This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. Examining literature and social media, activism and politics, the book identified a techno-archaic portal, breaching the narrative of modernity. The role of the Internet as “public sphere”—a utopian framework that promised an open and nonhierarchal encounter with the other—has given way to pre-Islamic raids and sophisticated hacks, trolling and attack that come from the present and a fantasized past, and jinn-like seers and narrators of akhbār. Both the Internet and the subject of modernity are leaking, unable to contain their enlightenment and liberal narratives, or to control the gushing from a dimension that lies beyond. This leaking is not a techno-salvation, but creates the possibility of change that also involves dangerous processes and openings that risk engulfing authors and activists.
Yu Hong
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040917
- eISBN:
- 9780252099434
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040917.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book examines the genesis, mechanisms, and dynamics of forging a network-based economy in China during the crisis and the restructuring act that followed. Through historical analysis of the ...
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This book examines the genesis, mechanisms, and dynamics of forging a network-based economy in China during the crisis and the restructuring act that followed. Through historical analysis of the entire range of communications, from telecommunications to broadband, from wireless networks to digital media, it explores how the state, entangled with market forces and class interests, constructs and realigns its digitalized sector. It argues that corporatization, networking, and investment within the state-dominated realm of communications intensified after the 2008 global economic crisis, to overcome the contradictions generated by the old investment-and-export dependent growth model, on the one hand, and to enhance China’s techno-economic capacities in the renewed global competition for command, on the other. Despite the qualitative changes it brought in communications, this strategy achieved limited results for economic restructuring, because the ensuing spending binges paid little attention to social needs. Ultimately, this book historicizes and theorizes China’s state-led model of digital capitalism, which contends, collaborates, and overlaps with the U.S.-dominated system of global digital capitalism. It reveals so-called cyber nationalism or networked nationalism as neither monolithic nor guaranteed but contingent upon specific political-economic relations. It also predicts the future: While China’s embrace of communications is likely to accelerate the country’s global rise, it is not going to be a simple rise to power but a continual effort to tamp down crises and manage contradictions.Less
This book examines the genesis, mechanisms, and dynamics of forging a network-based economy in China during the crisis and the restructuring act that followed. Through historical analysis of the entire range of communications, from telecommunications to broadband, from wireless networks to digital media, it explores how the state, entangled with market forces and class interests, constructs and realigns its digitalized sector. It argues that corporatization, networking, and investment within the state-dominated realm of communications intensified after the 2008 global economic crisis, to overcome the contradictions generated by the old investment-and-export dependent growth model, on the one hand, and to enhance China’s techno-economic capacities in the renewed global competition for command, on the other. Despite the qualitative changes it brought in communications, this strategy achieved limited results for economic restructuring, because the ensuing spending binges paid little attention to social needs. Ultimately, this book historicizes and theorizes China’s state-led model of digital capitalism, which contends, collaborates, and overlaps with the U.S.-dominated system of global digital capitalism. It reveals so-called cyber nationalism or networked nationalism as neither monolithic nor guaranteed but contingent upon specific political-economic relations. It also predicts the future: While China’s embrace of communications is likely to accelerate the country’s global rise, it is not going to be a simple rise to power but a continual effort to tamp down crises and manage contradictions.
Christo Sims
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691163987
- eISBN:
- 9781400885299
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163987.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
In New York City in 2009, a new kind of public school opened its doors to its inaugural class of middle schoolers. Conceived by a team of game designers and progressive educational reformers and ...
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In New York City in 2009, a new kind of public school opened its doors to its inaugural class of middle schoolers. Conceived by a team of game designers and progressive educational reformers and backed by prominent philanthropic foundations, it promised to reinvent the classroom for the digital age. This book documents the life of the school from its planning stages to the graduation of its first eighth-grade class. It is the account of how this “school for digital kids,” heralded as a model of tech-driven educational reform, reverted to a more conventional type of schooling with rote learning, an emphasis on discipline, and traditional hierarchies of authority. Troubling gender and racialized class divisions also emerged. The book shows how the philanthropic possibilities of new media technologies are repeatedly idealized even though actual interventions routinely fall short of the desired outcomes. It traces the complex processes by which idealistic tech-reform perennially takes root, unsettles the worlds into which it intervenes, and eventually stabilizes in ways that remake and extend many of the social predicaments reformers hope to fix. It offers a nuanced look at the roles that powerful elites, experts, the media, and the intended beneficiaries of reform—in this case, the students and their parents—play in perpetuating the cycle. The book offers a timely examination of techno-philanthropism and the yearnings and dilemmas it seeks to address, revealing what failed interventions do manage to accomplish—and for whom.Less
In New York City in 2009, a new kind of public school opened its doors to its inaugural class of middle schoolers. Conceived by a team of game designers and progressive educational reformers and backed by prominent philanthropic foundations, it promised to reinvent the classroom for the digital age. This book documents the life of the school from its planning stages to the graduation of its first eighth-grade class. It is the account of how this “school for digital kids,” heralded as a model of tech-driven educational reform, reverted to a more conventional type of schooling with rote learning, an emphasis on discipline, and traditional hierarchies of authority. Troubling gender and racialized class divisions also emerged. The book shows how the philanthropic possibilities of new media technologies are repeatedly idealized even though actual interventions routinely fall short of the desired outcomes. It traces the complex processes by which idealistic tech-reform perennially takes root, unsettles the worlds into which it intervenes, and eventually stabilizes in ways that remake and extend many of the social predicaments reformers hope to fix. It offers a nuanced look at the roles that powerful elites, experts, the media, and the intended beneficiaries of reform—in this case, the students and their parents—play in perpetuating the cycle. The book offers a timely examination of techno-philanthropism and the yearnings and dilemmas it seeks to address, revealing what failed interventions do manage to accomplish—and for whom.
Isiah Lavender III (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496811523
- eISBN:
- 9781496811561
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496811523.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction continues where Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction (2014) left off. This anthology features ...
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Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction continues where Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction (2014) left off. This anthology features essays depicting Asia and Asians in science fiction literature, film, and fandom with particular attention paid to China, Japan, India, and Korea. The collection concentrates on political representations of Asian identity in science fiction’s imagination, from fear of the Yellow Peril and its host of stereotypes to techno-Orientalism and the remains of a post-colonial heritage. In fact, Dis-Orienting Planets engages the extremely negative and racist connotations of “orientalism” that obscure time, place, and identity perceptions of Asians, so-called yellow and brown peoples, in this historically white genre, provokes debate on the pervading imperialistic terminologies, and reconfigures the study of race in science fiction. In this respect, the title “disses” culturally inaccurate representations of the eastern hemisphere. In three parts, the seventeen collected essays consider the racial politics governing the renewed visibility of the Orient in science fiction. The first part emphasizes the interpretive challenges of science fictional meetings between the East and West by investigating entwined racial and political tensions. The second part concentrates on the tropes of Yellow Peril and techno-Orientalism, where fear of and desire for Orientalized futures generate racial anxiety and war. The third section explores technologized Asian subjectivities in the eco-critical spaces of mainland China, the Pacific Rim, the Korean peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. Clearly, our future visions must absolutely include all people of color.Less
Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction continues where Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction (2014) left off. This anthology features essays depicting Asia and Asians in science fiction literature, film, and fandom with particular attention paid to China, Japan, India, and Korea. The collection concentrates on political representations of Asian identity in science fiction’s imagination, from fear of the Yellow Peril and its host of stereotypes to techno-Orientalism and the remains of a post-colonial heritage. In fact, Dis-Orienting Planets engages the extremely negative and racist connotations of “orientalism” that obscure time, place, and identity perceptions of Asians, so-called yellow and brown peoples, in this historically white genre, provokes debate on the pervading imperialistic terminologies, and reconfigures the study of race in science fiction. In this respect, the title “disses” culturally inaccurate representations of the eastern hemisphere. In three parts, the seventeen collected essays consider the racial politics governing the renewed visibility of the Orient in science fiction. The first part emphasizes the interpretive challenges of science fictional meetings between the East and West by investigating entwined racial and political tensions. The second part concentrates on the tropes of Yellow Peril and techno-Orientalism, where fear of and desire for Orientalized futures generate racial anxiety and war. The third section explores technologized Asian subjectivities in the eco-critical spaces of mainland China, the Pacific Rim, the Korean peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. Clearly, our future visions must absolutely include all people of color.
Manuel Castells
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199255771
- eISBN:
- 9780191698279
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255771.003.0003
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Information Technology
This chapter deals with the culture of the producers and users at the source of the Internet’s creation and configuration. It notes that culture means a set of values and beliefs informing behaviour, ...
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This chapter deals with the culture of the producers and users at the source of the Internet’s creation and configuration. It notes that culture means a set of values and beliefs informing behaviour, thus, repetitive patterns of behaviour generate customs that are enforced by institutions, as well as by informal organizations. It discusses that the Internet culture is characterized by a four-layer structure — the techno-meritocratic culture, the hacker culture, the virtual communitarian culture, and the entrepreneurial culture. It highlights the direct link between the cultural expressions and the technological development of the Internet. It explains that open source software is the key technological feature in the development of the Internet, and this openness is culturally determined.Less
This chapter deals with the culture of the producers and users at the source of the Internet’s creation and configuration. It notes that culture means a set of values and beliefs informing behaviour, thus, repetitive patterns of behaviour generate customs that are enforced by institutions, as well as by informal organizations. It discusses that the Internet culture is characterized by a four-layer structure — the techno-meritocratic culture, the hacker culture, the virtual communitarian culture, and the entrepreneurial culture. It highlights the direct link between the cultural expressions and the technological development of the Internet. It explains that open source software is the key technological feature in the development of the Internet, and this openness is culturally determined.
Kimberly A. Scott
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252044083
- eISBN:
- 9780252053023
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252044083.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
A considerable amount of attention and money has been spent on programs aimed to improve the technical skills of girls of color. The impact of such efforts is not clearly understood. This book ...
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A considerable amount of attention and money has been spent on programs aimed to improve the technical skills of girls of color. The impact of such efforts is not clearly understood. This book illustrates how one of the first technology programs for girls of color, COMPUGIRLS, shaped and is shaped by its adolescent participants. As a series of narratives exemplifying how intersectionality is more than a theory of multiple identities and resilience, the African American, Latina, and Native American stars of this book challenge many of the taken-for-granted ideas of girlhoods in this digital age. Navigating a program that emphasizes both technical and “power skills,” the stories reveal how culturally responsive computing practices succeed and, in some instances, fail to prepare the next generation to become the techno-social agents our society requires. To this end, the book challenges broad audiences to recognize and embrace the uniqueness of girlhoods of color theoretically and programmatically.Less
A considerable amount of attention and money has been spent on programs aimed to improve the technical skills of girls of color. The impact of such efforts is not clearly understood. This book illustrates how one of the first technology programs for girls of color, COMPUGIRLS, shaped and is shaped by its adolescent participants. As a series of narratives exemplifying how intersectionality is more than a theory of multiple identities and resilience, the African American, Latina, and Native American stars of this book challenge many of the taken-for-granted ideas of girlhoods in this digital age. Navigating a program that emphasizes both technical and “power skills,” the stories reveal how culturally responsive computing practices succeed and, in some instances, fail to prepare the next generation to become the techno-social agents our society requires. To this end, the book challenges broad audiences to recognize and embrace the uniqueness of girlhoods of color theoretically and programmatically.
Roger Brownsword
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199276806
- eISBN:
- 9780191707605
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276806.003.0009
- Subject:
- Law, Intellectual Property, IT, and Media Law
This chapter draws a contrast between two ideal-typical forms of regulation: the East Coast and the West Coast. It sketches a particular type of West Coast approach, ‘techno-regulation’. The chapter ...
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This chapter draws a contrast between two ideal-typical forms of regulation: the East Coast and the West Coast. It sketches a particular type of West Coast approach, ‘techno-regulation’. The chapter begins by discussing the nature of techno-regulation. It considers the objection that techno-regulation, even if it makes for safer societies, fails to respect the values of good governance, especially the values of transparency and accountability. It then turns to the deep objection that techno-regulation — by undermining notions of respect and responsibility — is corrosive of the conditions of moral community.Less
This chapter draws a contrast between two ideal-typical forms of regulation: the East Coast and the West Coast. It sketches a particular type of West Coast approach, ‘techno-regulation’. The chapter begins by discussing the nature of techno-regulation. It considers the objection that techno-regulation, even if it makes for safer societies, fails to respect the values of good governance, especially the values of transparency and accountability. It then turns to the deep objection that techno-regulation — by undermining notions of respect and responsibility — is corrosive of the conditions of moral community.
FrÉdÉrique Apffel Marglin
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198286943
- eISBN:
- 9780191684531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198286943.003.0004
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental, Economic Systems
This chapter explores the themes of freedom and force in the context of one of the great success stories of modernization in India, which is the smallpox vaccination. The findings reveal that ...
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This chapter explores the themes of freedom and force in the context of one of the great success stories of modernization in India, which is the smallpox vaccination. The findings reveal that coercion was used to impose vaccination despite the availability of variolation as a good indigenous alternative. This chapter explains that though variolation involved a higher morbidity than vaccination, it was superior in techno-economic dimensions such as the cost of delivery and its availability in rural areas.Less
This chapter explores the themes of freedom and force in the context of one of the great success stories of modernization in India, which is the smallpox vaccination. The findings reveal that coercion was used to impose vaccination despite the availability of variolation as a good indigenous alternative. This chapter explains that though variolation involved a higher morbidity than vaccination, it was superior in techno-economic dimensions such as the cost of delivery and its availability in rural areas.
Derek W. Vaillant
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041419
- eISBN:
- 9780252050015
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041419.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book is a history of U.S.–French radio broadcasting in the twentieth century. Decades before satellite TV and the Internet, America and France interconnected regularly and instantaneously on a ...
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This book is a history of U.S.–French radio broadcasting in the twentieth century. Decades before satellite TV and the Internet, America and France interconnected regularly and instantaneously on a mass scale across the Atlantic. The book investigates how transatlantic radio developed into a dynamic field of cross-border circulation, cultural exchange, and geopolitics. Between 1931, when live broadcasts first linked U.S.–French listeners, and 1974, when France dissolved its public media monopoly, international broadcasting developed into a critical communication space that embodied turbulent interwar politics and the expansive tendencies of U.S. commercial networks; the cataclysmic events of World War II, including the German Occupation of France; contentious U.S.–French relations during the Cold War; French postwar international media expansion; and the effects of the 1960s on U.S.–French ties and media systems. The book examines the techno-aesthetics of radio as a technological medium linking two allied, but starkly different societies and cultures in new ways. The book complicates the paradigm of self-contained "radio nations" to demonstrate that throughout broadcast history, the challenges of developing and managing international interconnectivity required necessary partnerships that blurred lines of sovereignty, state control, and national cultural production. Radio’s development and usage prefigured the global, cross-border digital communication technologies, tools, infrastructure, and mediated geopolitics of today.Less
This book is a history of U.S.–French radio broadcasting in the twentieth century. Decades before satellite TV and the Internet, America and France interconnected regularly and instantaneously on a mass scale across the Atlantic. The book investigates how transatlantic radio developed into a dynamic field of cross-border circulation, cultural exchange, and geopolitics. Between 1931, when live broadcasts first linked U.S.–French listeners, and 1974, when France dissolved its public media monopoly, international broadcasting developed into a critical communication space that embodied turbulent interwar politics and the expansive tendencies of U.S. commercial networks; the cataclysmic events of World War II, including the German Occupation of France; contentious U.S.–French relations during the Cold War; French postwar international media expansion; and the effects of the 1960s on U.S.–French ties and media systems. The book examines the techno-aesthetics of radio as a technological medium linking two allied, but starkly different societies and cultures in new ways. The book complicates the paradigm of self-contained "radio nations" to demonstrate that throughout broadcast history, the challenges of developing and managing international interconnectivity required necessary partnerships that blurred lines of sovereignty, state control, and national cultural production. Radio’s development and usage prefigured the global, cross-border digital communication technologies, tools, infrastructure, and mediated geopolitics of today.
