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Technology permeates our lives having significant effects on how we communicate, live, work and play. Information Communication Technologies have allowed individuals to stay connected to family, friends and work colleagues and has brought about broad societal benefits. But, technologies are not limited to having positive impacts and consequences; they have led to widespread job loss in particular industries with consequential negative social costs, others to the development of globally destructive weaponry and increased environmental harm. This paper has three aims. Overall, it is a call for stronger sociological (re)engagement in crucial digital technology debates and its significant and frequently disruptive nature upon society. Thus, it begins with a review of key literature with respect to traditional technology development processes. A theory is presented on the phenomenon of ‘fake news’ and how digital communications and the unrestrained ‘wild west culture of the Web 2.0 revolution’ have facilitated a state where fact and fiction wrestle for online attention and popularity. The paper concludes with a brief look at areas of particular concern with regards to contemporary technology development and a call for sociology to reposition itself centrally in debates about new digital technologies that are fundamentally changing societies, communities and lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effects of developments in communication technology on politics and journalism. Particular focus is given to the author's experiences as a foreign correspondent during the late 20th century. It is suggested that while the Internet and other developments have improved journalists' and diplomats' ability to transmit information, it has also reduced the resources available for their operations and changed the relationship between government and individuals.

The article discusses efforts to supply refugees with access to technology. Particular focus is given to projects organized by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) that focus on improving the implementation of technology assistance to refugees. Details on the Ideas Box, a package of computers, books, and audiovisual materials created by designer Philippe Starck, are presented. It is suggested that such projects could mitigate the intellectually stifling conditions of refugee camps.

Climate change and advances in urban technology propel forward the 'smart city'. As decision makers strive to find a technological fix, smart city strategies are often based on technological orthodoxies which are conceptually and empirically shallow. The motivation behind this paper is to address the conceptual adolescence which relates to the wholesale digitisation of the city by pursuing a twin argument about the democratic and environmental consequences. The authors draw on interdisciplinary theory and insights from urban studies, infrastructure, informatics, and the sociology of the Internet to critique the way the 'smart city' is taken forward. It is concluded that private firms market smart city services and solutions based on an ideological legacy of 'ubiquitous computing', 'universal infrastructure', and 'green technology'. Based on evidence from three UK cities--Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow--it is argued that the underlying principle of future city strategies is to expand the market for new technology products and services to support 'green growth' with disregard for their wider impacts. For citizens, becoming a consumer of the technologies is often presented as progressive 'participation' or 'empowerment' with unknown or hidden consequences both political and environmental. The city systems become a digital marketplace where citizen-consumers' participation is increasingly involuntary and the hegemony of global technology firms is infiated. What follows is that the city's 'intelligent systems' are defined through a digital consumer experience that has inherent biases and leaves parts of the city and its population unaccounted for. This renders the city less resilient in the face of future social and climatic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe changes in user’s trust on the Internet in Britain between 2003 and 2009, and show how the relationship between age and trust can be explained by a combination of experience with the Internet and general attitudes toward technology. The comparison uses 2003 results reported by Dutton and Shepherd (2006) versus similarly sampled 2009 data. The authors examine two sets of dependent variables—perceptions of trust and risk on the Internet and use of the Internet for e-commerce, an anticipated impact of trust. The authors find that indicators of trust are related to experience with the technology, although this relationship is less important in 2009 than it was in 2003. The authors also find that trust is influenced by general attitudes toward technology. When both experience on the Internet and technology attitudes are controlled, the relation between indicators of trust and age disappears. This finding is particularly interesting since age is usually an important predictor of many aspects of the Internet; it suggests that the role of age can be mitigated by addressing the degree to which older individuals tend to have less experience with the Internet and more scepticism about the role of technology in society. Interventions could address both of these determinants of distrust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the technologies of news production do not simply modify journalistic practices; they also introduce what might be considered technologically specific forms of work. These work forms are rooted in the affordances of novel technical capacities while also making claims about the journalistic nature of such work. How do journalists discuss the emergence of these technologically specific forms? When are new work forms seen as contributing to the practices of journalism and when are they seen as threatening it? Drawing on archival research of industry discussions, this article argues that such work is discussed in three distinct ways: (1) as exemplars of continuity; (2) as threats to be subordinated; and (3) as possibilities for journalistic reinvention. Each mode, it is argued, points to different understandings of the relationship between journalistic work and technology and carries different implications about the changing nature of journalistic work in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article looks at the role of disease classification in clinical and hospital work. It references the concept of Ways of Knowing (WoK) in the fields of science, technology and medicine (STM) developed by science historian John Pickstone. According to the author, a variety of factors including notions of specificity in diseases, new developments in paper technologies and administrative practices, and the use of statistics to determine medical norms came together in the 19th century to form disease classification systems (DCS). It is suggested that these systems can be seen as mediating work styles bring together different technologies and processes into new and efficient configurations. Topics discussed include the Paris Clinical School, medical labour, and cancer.

While nature is often claimed to be a space of harmonized balance or an antidote to the chaos of the modern world, we need a more grounded assessment of nature as endlessly changing and much less predictable than we like to assume. In this essay, I explore Karen Traviss' provocative exploration of unbalanced nature and unbounded bodies in her wess'har series with the guidance of two ecocritics who reject the concept of balanced nature, Dana Phillips and Ursula Heise. Additionally, I turn to the environmental philosopher Val Plumwood for insights regarding Traviss' spurious yet rather standard vision of an unlimited technological panacea. Traviss' series portrays how the boundaries and limits that we perceive as solid are often much less so than we believe, yet she also reveals-inadvertently, it seems-how easily we blindly ignore other, more solid limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How one thinks about the relationship between individual autonomy (sometimes referred to as individual willpower or human agency) and technology can influence the way legal thinkers develop policy at the intersection of law and technology. Perspectives that fall toward the `machines control us' end of the spectrum may support more interventionist legal policies while those who identify more closely with the `we are in charge of machines' position may refuse to interfere with technological developments. The concept of soft determinism charts a middle-ground between these two positions and could assist in the formulation of a general theory of the relationship between law and technology. Soft determinism maintains that technological developments are embedded in social, political, economic and other processes, and serve to guide and, potentially, configure future actions and relationships with these technologies, their users, and their subjects: while past technology develops shape the present, individuals and groups can still exert control over these technological developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies Carey's contributions to the concept of technoculture and attempts to systematize his writings on communication, culture, and technology in order to craft a methodological strategy for the study of technoculture based on participant observation and contemporary ethnographic practices of representation. After introducing a definition of technoculture, we outline how technography—the study of technoculture in everyday life—builds upon two sensitizing metaphors: technoculture as ecology and as semiosis. The discussion of technography shows the potential of this research strategy for the study of the symbolic interaction among technics, technological practices, social agents, and the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the circuitous route taken in an attempt to identify an assessment mechanism for evaluating the impact of STS courses. After initially developing a survey that faculty felt only allowed for the measurement of student opinions about the impact of required STS general education courses, the faculty at Clemson University identified Aikenhead and Ryan's Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) as an instrument that, when used with the scoring guide created in this project, might be able to assess the sophistication of students views about science and technology in society. The results from administering the pre- and post-VOSTS surveys in one STS course revealed no significant differences when comparing the sophistication of students' views about STS before and after the course. These findings demonstrate that, among other considerations discussed in the manuscript, it will be difficult to find a way of assessing STS courses that can be used for the diverse courses meeting the requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent emergence of new media, or better, new communication technologies, has afforded substantial commentary regarding societal effects, the latest chapter in a decades-old trend that rises and falls with each new communication technology. Whereas this article does not deny that the current generation of communication technologies differs from predecessors, it argues against the need for wholesale changes in theory to understand the effects of these technologies. New communication technologies do not fundamentally alter the theoretical bounds of human interaction; such interaction continues to be governed by basic human tendencies. What is perhaps most interesting about these new technologies is their ability to provide new or previously rare contexts for information expression and engagement. This article reviews two sets of rival hypotheses investigated in light of new communication technologies: proposals regarding social isolation effects versus connection effects, and ideas about whether new technologies lead to group integration or group polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on the suggestion that modern technology is ‘autonomous’ in that our social control mechanisms are unable to control technology and instead merely adapt society to integrate new technologies. In this article, I suggest that common law judges tend systematically to support the integration of novel technologies into society. For example, courts sometimes require parties seeking compensation for serious injuries to submit to medical technologies to which the parties object for genuine reasons of fear or moral objection. Where a novel technology alters the environment in some way, courts sometimes legitimize that alteration by refusing to recognize harm and instead characterizing avoidance of the technology as self-imposed harm. The examples selected in this article were chosen to support the hypothesis in one way or another and future work will aim to look for counter examples and to conduct a more complete assessment of the hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the relationship between a deconstructivist method in science and technology studies (STS) and the more recent moves towards a reconstructivist engagement with science and science policy making. Drawing on examples from the author's own research, the article identifies three forms of engagement and their relative utility and limitations. The article argues that these are typical of STS work that seeks direct engagement with science policy making and which could form the basis for a more ‘serviceable STS’ that retains its critical and independent perspective on science. The paper concludes by arguing that the analysis has important implications for the ways in which STS expertise can articulate with science policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrew Webster proposes that science and technology studies (STS) align itself more thoroughly with practical policy contexts, actors and issues, so as to become more useful, and thus more a regular actor in such worlds. This commentary raises some questions about this approach. First, I note that manifest influence in science or policy or both should not become—by default, or deliberately—a criterion of intellectual quality for STS research work. I distinguish between (1) reflective historical work, which delineates the contingent ways in which existing policy and technoscientific cultures have become entrenched as such inscribed and perhaps dysfunctional institutional habit; and (2), work of the kind that Webster's three case studies exemplify, that is, geared to influence policy-decision outcomes. I suggest that many of the important issues facing STS—and ‘policy’—are not explicit ‘policy-decision issues’ as such, but implicit ‘policy syndromes’ that need naming, diagnosing and open, if enforced, institutional reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my response to Andrew Webster's examples I point to certain limitations, while fully supporting the thrust of his argument for a re-engagement of science and technology studies (STS) with policy making. When analyzing the policy implications of knowledge, the larger context must be considered. New criteria, like transparency, have arisen and the tendency for evidence-based policy making has become widespread. The managerial side of policy making emphasizes that ‘only what can be measured, can be managed.’ The crucial question is how well prepared—and how willing—the STS community is to tackle policy making in this new guise. In the end, what is needed are institutions that are capable of developing their own reflexivity—a task to which STS can certainly contribute, but the road to be taken may be less direct than Andrew Webster suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes narrative interviews with 12 first generation users of home or personal computers (PCs) in Poland and the UK. Insights are gained into how computers were perceived and interpreted on either side of the Cold War divide in the decade prior to the end of the socialist system and the period of transition in the early 1990s. The narratives are suggestive in their implications for contemporary social theory, much of which has tended to implicate widespread use of PCs in the idea of an aesthetic regime distinctive to a new, informational kind of capitalism. This aesthetic regime attaches importance to visual experience and to the idea that increasingly we operate in environments that are ‘virtual’. Although the sample in the study is very limited, its findings are suggestive for theorists who have tended to take the salience of this aesthetic for granted as if it were a necessary consequence of widespread computerisation, rather than viewing its construction and maintenance as themselves sociologically problematic. The interviews subvert this, as subjects remember different uses of computer technology, including some that are suggestive of possible alternative aesthetic regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors explore how technology has helped erode society's conceptions of justice. Law, via juridification, has replaced the concept of justice with one of efficiency. The authors argue that this has been largely a result of the destruction of society's common story or vision and the introduction of the computer and the Internet as tools enabling technique to replace that story. They offer a perspective on how justice operated in traditional societies, using the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Finally, the authors ask what might be done to recover the best features of what has been lost and create a new common story to help guide society's conception of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in nanotechnology has advanced rapidly in recent years. Several researchers, however, warn that there is a paucity of research on the ethical, legal, and social implications of nanotechnology, and they caution that ethical reflections on nanotechnology lag behind this fast developing science. In this article, the authors question this conclusion, pointing out that the predicted concrete ethical issues related to the area of nanotechnology are rather similar to those related to the area of biotechnology and biology that have been considered by ethicists since the 1970s. Hence, a knowledge base has already been acquired from ethical reflections on biotechnology and biology, which may be a good starting point and foundation for a discussion of ethical reflections on nanotechnology. The authors argue that a promising approach is the use of basic ethical principles as a method to analyze ethical issues of nanotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between automobiles, technology, and American politics, society, and values. Particular focus is given to technological developments seeking to integrate human emotions and bodily responses into the workings of automobiles. Details on the book "Crash" by science fiction author J. G. Ballard and the relationship between automobiles, death, and sexuality are also presented. Other topics include automobile advertising, vehicular suicide and homicide, the environmental effects of automobiles, and U.S. consumer culture.

Technology and magic both represent the human will to power--to dominate nature and ultimately humans. In a technological civilization, magic imitates technology. Modern management often entails psychological techniques (the human relations approach) and organizational techniques (the scientific approach). The heart of the latter is statistical measurement and prediction of the future. This article examines the magical use of statistical measurement and prediction of the future. Magic here operates according to the principle of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Because statistical information is perceived to be related to the success of an organization and is invariably collected in abundance, it is given credit for actual success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the arrival and the subsequent debates about the place of the tourist in sociology. The sociology of tourists first focused on their economic, and then their physical and sociocultural impacts, in the stereotypical case of mass tourists of the metropolis visiting historical and peripheral locations. More recently, Graburn and Smith differentiated tourists by class, gender and lifestyle, and then by national origin. Tourism has come to be seen as a form of expressive and perhaps therapeutic culture comparable to art, play and leisure. The tourist as sight-seer was first castigated by snobbish social commentators, and then valorized as a seeker of authenticity by MacCannell, and as a caster of gazes by Urry. Cohen usefully examined the range of tourists' experiences and authenticities. In this special issue Lengkeek and Harrison re-examine tourist differentiations, authenticities and subjective experiences. Thorns and Perkins conjoin the notion of the tourist as sight-seer with that of physical performer, while Liebman Parrinello looks at the tourist as both embodied and as technologized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Comments on the effect of the Internet on the growing disparities between advanced industrialized and developing societies. Indicators of Internet dispersion; Statistics on Internet users; Suggestions for minimizing Internet poverty.

Discusses the impact of technology on education. Technologies and the primary program pilot project; Culture of elementary schools and the politics of innovation.

The political culture of classical Greek civilization, with its distinctive twin ideals of citizenship and mass participatory democracy, represents a revolutionary development in the history of human society. The social origins of that momentous cultural breakthrough are examined in this essay, with specific attention being given to those forces - destructive as well as reorganizing - which undermined the bases of traditional aristocratic domination and which prepared the ground for the emergence of new institutional patterns. Pressures for structural and normative 'democratization' are shown to have been exerted primarily by changes in the military domain, the central axis of political and economic power within the ancient city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A focus on ‘modern’ industrialized societies obscures both the great antiquity of the state and the powerful selective pressures that have led to the dominance of interstate competition, especially warfare. In pursuit of power, elites encouraged population growth and intensified the exploitation of the natural resource base, with progressively more severe ecological impacts. Modern technology has vastly amplified the problem. Though it makes possible sophisticated environmental management, that has been neglected for the demands of the military-industrial system. These ill-effects are reinforced by ignorance of ecology and inadequacy of traditional political thought. A major adaptive challenge faces modern states; to use their knowledge and resources for more humane, environmentally sensitive management and perhaps achieve a novel kind of steady state, or to renew emphasis on short-term competitive considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an interview with author James W. Carey concerning the relationships among communication, culture and technology. Includes a discussion on criticisms against technology; Relation between culture and technology; Need for a sophisticates theory of mediation; Spatial and temporal ecology of media.

States that after eighty years of efforts to apply technology in the classroom in ways that would `revolutionize' education, most teaching practice still looks the way it did at the beginning of this century. Lack of proof that using technology increases achievement; Government subsidies on research into how technology might help solve some of the problems in education; Apple Computer's Apple Classroom of Tomorrow; IBM's Teacher Preparation and K-12 Improvement programs; More.

Discusses the use of technology in adult education programs. Measuring the effectiveness of technology in adult education and literacy classrooms; Ways which technology can offer resources, opportunities, and productivity of learning for adult learners; Coordination among program administrators; Role of federal legislation.

Emphasizes the need to understand the effects of technological education applications to learning and the diverse learning possibilities that are being engendered. Technological knowledge as a preparation for participation in the work force; Use of technology within educational settings to improve delivery of services; Benefits to adult learners of the use of computers; Amount of control the learner gains over the education process when computers are used.

An introduction to a series of book reviews is presented which focuses on books about the effect of technology and mass media on society.

An introduction to a section of two book reviews is presented which focuses on books about technology and society by Aldous Huxley and Nicholas Carr.

Stresses the need for adult educators to change their approach to introducing technology to adult learners. Importance of technology in work force literacy; Necessity of technological skills; Educators' use of software; Educators' use of software programs and other computer applications to motivate students to do the same.

Examines how technology is used to enhance learning and transfer information. Reasons for lack of technology use in adult education programs; Lack of resources of state or local agencies to assess instructional technology; Difficulties of universities to allot portion of their faculty and staff time to evaluate instructional technology; Transforming and revolutionizing adult education through technology; Educational possibilities with technological education.

States that it has only been in the last few years that educators have realized the advantages of using computers in the classroom. Criticism of instructional software by adult educators; Discussion of integrated computer systems; How to find a program that works well in the classroom.