Once hidden behind the veils of entrepreneurship, it is now clear that platforms are reshaping the world of work, and Amazon has been a forerunner in setting the trend. This book examines two key and contrasting Amazon platforms that differ in how they organize workers: its e-commerce platform and digital labor platform (Mechanical Turk). With access to the people who are working at the heart of these platforms, it explores how different working conditions alienate workers, and how, despite these conditions, workers organize within their political-economic contexts to express their agency in traditional and alternative ways. Written for social scientists studying and researching the platform economy, this is a timely and important analysis of work and workers on the (digital) shop floor.

Cultural factors, in both the narrow sense of different national, racial, and ethnic groups, and in the broader sense of different groups of any type, play major roles in individual and group decisions. Written by an international, interdisciplinary group of experts, Cultural Factors in Systems Design: Decision Making and Action explores innovations in the understanding of how cultural differences influence decision making and action. Reflecting the diverse interests and viewpoints that characterize the current state of decision making and cultural research, the chapter authors represent a variety of disciplines and specialize in areas ranging from basic decision processes of individuals, to decisions made in teams and large organizations, to cultural influences on behavior. Balancing theoretical and practical perspectives, the book explores why the best laid plans go awry, examining conditions that can yield unanticipated behaviors from complex, adaptive sociotechnical systems. It highlights the different ways in which East Asians and Westerners make decisions and explores how to model and investigate cultural influences in interpersonal interactions, social judgment, and decision making. The book also reviews decision field theory and examines its implications for cross cultural decision making. With increasing globalization of organizations and interactions among people from various cultures, a better understanding of how cultural factors influence decision making and action is a necessity. Much is known about decision processes, culture and cognition, design of products and interfaces for human interaction with machines and organizational processes, however this knowledge is dispersed across several disciplines and research areas. Presenting a range of current research and new ideas, this volume brings together previously scattered research and explores how to apply it when designing systems that will be used by individuals of varied backgrounds.

Digital media has exploded over the past quarter century, and in particular the past decade. As varieties of digital media multiply, scholars are beginning to examine its origins, organization, and preservation, which present new challenges compared to traditional media. To examine issues from multiple perspectives, experts were invited to an invitation-only workshop on digital media. The participants were carefully chosen to represent a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, ranging from humanities and fine arts to communication theory. The papers collected here are the results of that workshop. Digital Media: Technological and Social Challenges of the Interactive World is organized in four parts, each representing a different perspective on digital media: preservation, humanities, organizational, and historical. The section on preservation considers the problems of archiving digital media for long-term preservation; the humanities section offers a human-centered view of digital media, focusing on the interaction between technological changes and cultural practices; the section dealing with organization goes beyond the study of digital artifacts in isolation to consider the context, collection, and arrangement of objects; and the historical section examines how our perspectives on digital media have changed over time, looking at how issues such as the digital divide and digital production have changed as technology has changed. The wealth of varied perspectives in Digital Media provides new light on this topic, beyond the media studies viewpoint that is the most common way of engaging these topics. This collection will be a valuable addition for students and faculty in information studies, communication studies, rhetoric, new media, and more.

Internet of Things (IoT) has become a valuable tool for connection and information exchange between devices. This book provides a brief introduction to this new field, focuses on wearable medical devices, and covers the basic concepts by providing the reader with enough information to solve various practical problems. This book provides the latest applications, experiments, fundamentals concepts, and cutting-edge topics for the ehealth and wearable devices field. The book also offers topics related to Security in IoT and Wearable Devices, Wearable Devices and Internet of Medical Devices (IoMT), IoT for Medical Applications, and Tools and study cases. The book brings new and valuable information to PhD researchers, students, professors, and professionals working in IoT and related fields.

Socioinformatics is a new scientific approach to study the interactions between humans and IT. These proceedings are a collection of the contributions during a workshop of the Gesellschaft fur Informatik (GI). Researchers in this emerging field discuss the main aspects of interactions between IT and humans with respect to; social connections, social changes, acceptance of IT and the social conditions affecting this acceptance, effects of IT on humans and in response changes of IT, structures of the society and the influence of IT on these structures, changes of metaphysics influenced by IT and the social context of a knowledge society.

This book presents cross-cultural research on gender as it is lexically and socially categorized in electronic media. For the purposes of the study, the authors have compiled a corpus of gender terms from online thesauruses to show how new technologies interact with gender categorizations in different languages, and how these are related to their respective culture and society. Each language is examined within the same theoretical framework, functional semantics, focusing on lexicon. This common empirical ground facilitates cross-language comparison. The contributors examine languages from around the world, including the Indo-European, Semitic, Uralic and Austro-Asiatic families. This cutting-edge research book will be of interest to academics working in the fields of corpus linguistics, and gender studies.

In this book, David Braund offers a significantly different perspective upon the history of Roman Britain. He concentrates upon the literary evidence, which has been studied to a lesser extent than archaeology in recent years. Close attention to the Greek and Roman sources enables the construction of a new approach to Roman Britain, its history and its archaeology. For the first time, monarchy is identified as a key issue in the history of Roman Britain.

Although computer-based tests (CBT) have been administered for many years, improvements in the speed and power of computers coupled with reductions in their cost have made large-scale computer delivery of tests increasingly feasible. CBT is now a common form of test delivery for licensure, certification, and admissions tests. Many large-scale, high-stakes testing programs have introduced CBT either as an option or as the sole means of test delivery. Although this movement to CBT has, to a great extent, been successful, it has not been without problems. Advances in psychometrics are required to ensure that those who rely on test results can have at least the same confidence in CBTs as they have in traditional forms of assessment.
This volume stems from an ETS-sponsored colloquium in which more than 200 measurement professionals from eight countries and 29 states convened to assess the current and future status of CBT. The formal agenda for the colloquium was divided into three major segments: Test Models, Test Administration, and Test Analysis and Scoring. Each segment consisted of several presentations followed by comments from noted psychometricians and a break-out session in which presenters and discussants identified important issues and established priorities for a CBT research agenda. This volume contains the papers presented at the colloquium, the discussant remarks based on those papers, and the research agenda that was generated from the break-out sessions.
"Computer-Based Testing: Building the Foundation for Future Assessments" is must reading for professionals, scholars, and advanced students working in the testing field, as well as people in the information technology field who have an interest in testing.

There have never been so many ways of producing news and news-like content. From podcasts, to YouTube, blogs and the phenomenal popularity of social media, seismic shifts are underway in global media.News 2.0 bridges the gap between theory and practice to present an integrated approach to journalism that redefines the profession. Key ideas in journalism theory, political economy and media studies are used to explore the changing cultures of journalism in an historical context.Hirst explains the fragmentation of the mass audience for news products, and how digital commerce has disconnected consumers from real democracy. He argues that journalism requires a restatement of the role of journalists as public intellectuals with a commitment to truth, trust and the public interest.'. a powerful reply to those whose utopian dreams cloud their thinking about the political, social, economic and cultural implications of digital convergence.' - Vincent Mosco, Canada Research Chair, Queen's University'. essential reading for students, journalists and everyone interested in the future of news and journalism.' - Bob Franklin, Professor of Journalism Studies, Cardiff University'. tackles the urgent questions that surround journalism from a pragmatic yet radical perspective. ' - Janet Wasko, Knight Chair in Communication Research, University of Oregon'Anyone interested in where journalism finds itself now, and where it may be headed any time soon, should start by reading this book.' - Michael Bromley, Professor of Journalism, University of Queensland

Research on communication and information technologies is of growing importance to sociology and the interdisciplinary examination of communication and (new) media. This volume includes eight chapters examining recent developments in the field, illustrating the maturation, vibrancy, and diversity of this field of study as well as pointing to rich new avenues for scholarly exploration. Contributions aptly chart three key developments that characterize current research on communication and digital media. First, chapters demonstrate the maturation of work on measurement, demonstrating the importance of refining measurements of online activities and their consequences. For instance, contributions evaluate: social network measures frequently used in online research; alternative measures for online activity; and alternative measures of Twitter activity. Second, the volume showcases continued work on understanding user behaviour, including research on the consequence of reward systems similar to badges and on the limitations of purely technological solutions to social dilemmas in emergency preparedness. Finally, chapters identify emerging questions for the field related to social media, such as research on potential privacy and identity implications of social media, different dispositions toward social media use, and variation in levels of social media usage. This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

Billions of dollars are being spent nationally and globally on providing computing access to digitally disadvantaged groups and cultures with an expectation that computers and the Internet can lead to higher socio-economic mobility. This ethnographic study of social computing in the Central Himalayas, India, investigates alternative social practices with new technologies and media amongst a population that is for the most part undocumented. In doing so, this book offers fresh and critical perspectives in areas of contemporary debate: informal learning with computers, cyberleisure, gender access and empowerment, digital intermediaries, and glocalization of information and media.

A Networked Self examines self presentation and social connection in the digital age. This collection brings together new work on online social networks by leading scholars from a variety of disciplines. The focus of the volume rests on the construction of the self, and what happens to self-identity when it is presented through networks of social connections in new media environments. The volume is structured around the core themes of identity, community, and culture - the central themes of social network sites. Contributors address theory, research, and practical implications of many aspects of online social networks including self-presentation, behavioral norms, patterns and routines, social impact, privacy, class/gender/race divides, taste cultures online, uses of social networking sites within organizations, activism, civic engagement and political impact.

A Networked Self examines self presentation and social connection in the digital age. This collection brings together new work on online social networks by leading scholars from a variety of disciplines. The focus of the volume rests on the construction of the self, and what happens to self-identity when it is presented through networks of social connections in new media environments. The volume is structured around the core themes of identity, community, and culture ? the central themes of social network sites. Contributors address theory, research, and practical implications of many aspects of online social networks including self-presentation, behavioral norms, patterns and routines, social impact, privacy, class/gender/race divides, taste cultures online, uses of social networking sites within organizations, activism, civic engagement and political impact.

Internet technology has arguably changed the rules by which individuals, social movements, and institutions compete for political and cultural influence in technologically advanced societies. The author considers this reality through reference to the concept of hegemony; looking to the ways in which diverse actors in American civil society compete with one another while simultaneously challenging dominant sources of authority. The Arab/Israeli conflict is drawn upon as a boundary object holding direct interest to a wide range of state-aligned lobbies, broadly-based social movements, and marginalized 'extremist' groups, each of which hopes to affect the course of U.S. Mid-East policy. While various dimensions of internet use and activism are explored, Stephen Marmura directs particular attention to the importance and limitations of the World Wide Web as a mass medium. Examining phenomena ranging from mainstream news dissemination to the propaganda warfare visible online amongst racist, religious fundamentalist, and ultra-nationalist organizations, he argues the Net's greatest advantages are ultimately accrued by those most vested in the political status quo. Marmura argues further that widespread use of the Web is likely contributing to processes of social fragmentation, even as it reinforces ideological discourses favorable to state power.

ICT is playing an increasingly important role in both business and individual's private life. It has increased international interconnectedness and speed up the process of globalization. But on the other side the total energy consumption by the communication and networking devices and the relevant global CO emission is increasing exponentially. ICT has, in many ways, a vital role to play. It accounts for about two percent of global CO emissions. Telecommunications applications can have a direct, tangible impact on lowering greenhouse gas emissions, power consumption, and achieve efficient recycling of equipment waste. This book is the outcome of the special session on Green Communications at 'The 12th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications' (WPMC) held in September '09 in Sendai, Japan. To the best of the editors' knowledge this is the first book on the Green Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and can be considered a milestone and a key-tool aimed at driving the industrial, scientific and academic efforts of the international community to guarantee a greener future to the whole planet. Section I of the book Towards Green ICT provides the necessary background and technical content to understand the vision and the role of green communication packed with details of the technologies like Zigbee and RFID in turning the planet earth greener. Section II covers a number of paradigm-shifting technical approaches including energy-efficient deployment through optimizations in the planning of ICT networks, energy-efficient wireless transmission techniques, reduced transmission power & reduced radiation, cross-layer optimization methods, and opportunistic spectrum sharing without causing harmful interference pollution. Section III covers the application of Intelligent WiMAX (I-WiMAX), a green radio technique able to support new maritime communication services and ICT based Business models. The coverage of new and upcoming issues on Green ICT makes it a good choice for educators, industry practitioners, regulators, researchers and students.

The new Internet bar phenomenon in China reveals a contradictory time and a vital tug of war between the state and civil society. Small, private net bar operators are caught in the double roles of regulator and the regulated, struggling to survive; many Internet cafe visitors largely enjoy emailing and online entertainment, showing little interest in political or policy issues. And both bar operators and visitors skillfully play a cat-mouse game with the state. Internet Policy in China: A Field Study of Internet Cafes reports the results of a multi-layered study of this phenomenon. Helen Sun investigates how the Internet has been used by the state and individuals, as well as the implications of Chinese Internet policies and regulations. She conceptualizes media technology as a "dependent variable" that can be affected by other factors such as its availability, the user's uses and expectations, media policy, the market, and the nations-state. Internet Policy in China focuses on the Chinese telecommunications policy-making system, regulatory activities, and the governmental means of control over Internet access and use at both the macro and micro levels. Sun also discusses users' perceptions and uses of the Internet in net cafes, the dual role cafe owners play in the frantic digital arena, the mismatch between Internet regulations and net cafe owners and goers, their interaction with governmental policy and regulation, and the social implications of their interactions during China's transitional time.

In an age of email lists and discussion groups, e-zines and weblogs, bringing together users, consumers, workers and activists from around the globe, what kinds of political subjectivity are emerging? What kinds of politics become possible in a time of information overload and media saturation? What structures of power and control operate over a self-organising system like the internet?In this highly original new work, Tiziana Terranova investigates the political dimension of the network culture in which we now live, and explores what the new forms of communication and organisation might mean for our understanding of power and politics. Terranova engages with key concepts and debates in cultural theory and cultural politics, using examples from media culture, computing, network dynamics, and internet activism within the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements. Network Culture concludes that the nonlinear network dynamics that link different modes of communication at different levels (from local radio to satellite television, from the national press to the internet, from broadcasting to rumours and conspiracy theories) provide the conditions within which another politics can emerge. This other politics, the book suggests, does not entail the production of a new political discourse or ideology, but the invention of micropolitical tactics able to stand up to new forms of social control.

In this compelling book, Graeme Kirkpatrick argues that computer games have fundamentally altered the relation of self and society in the digital age. Tracing the origins of gaming to the revival of play in the 1960s counter culture, Computer Games and the Social Imaginary describes how the energies of that movement transformed computer technology from something ugly and machine-like into a world of colour and fun'. In the process, play with computers became computer gaming a new cultural practice with its own values. From the late 1980s gaming became a resource for people to draw upon as they faced the challenges of life in a new, globalizing digital economy. Gamer identity furnishes a revivified capitalism with compliant and streamlined' workers, but at times gaming culture also challenges the corporations that control game production. Analysing topics such as the links between technology and power, the formation of gaming culture and the subjective impact of play with computer games, this insightful text will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media, games studies and the information society.

This timely book offers a mapping of the Internet as it has developed and is used internationally, providing a lively and challenging examination of the Internet and Internet studies. There is much interest among scholars and researchers in understanding the place of the Internet in cultural, social, national, and regional settings. This is the first book-length account that not only provides a range of perspectives on the international Internet, but also explores the implications of such new knowledge and accounts for concepts, methods, and themes in Internet studies. Of special interest will be the book's fresh and up-to-date coverage of the Internet in perhaps the most dynamic region at present: Asia-Pacific.

It explore issues of diversity and inclusion in relation to artificial intelligence (AI). The author leads a research group on Digitalization and Robotization of Society at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Communication and collaboration via the Internet has risen to great prominence in recent years, especially with the rise of social networking, Web 2.0 and virtual worlds. Many interesting and worthwhile studies have been conducted on the technology involved and the way it is used and shaped by its user communities. From some of the more popular coverage of these interactions, it might be thought that these are new phenomena. However, they draw on a rich heritage of technologies and interactions.

Online communication and collaboration presents a very timely set of articles that cover a range of different perspectives upon these themes, both classic and contemporary. It is unusually broad in the range of technologies it considers - many books on these topics cover only a few forms of collaboration technology - and in considering well-established technologies as well as recent ones. It blends academic and popular articles to combine scholarly rigour with readability.

The book is divided into eight sections, covering the foundations of online communication and collaboration, together with current collaboration technologies such as wikis, instant messaging, virtual worlds and social network sites. These modern communication tools are considered in terms of their interactions but also looking back at lessons to be learnt from their technological 'ancestors'. The book also contains an extended case study of online collaboration, taking open-source software as its example.

Online communication and collaboration will be of relevance in a wide range of higher education courses in fields related to soft computing, information systems, cultural and media studies, and communications theory.

The internet opens up new opportunities for citizens to organize and mobilize for action but it also provides new channels that established political, social and economic interests can use to extend their powers. Will the internet revolutionize politics? The Prospect of Internet Democracy is a rich and detailed exploration of the theoretical implications of the internet and related information and communication technologies (ICTs) for democratic theory. Focusing in particular on how political uses of the internet have affected or seem likely to affect patterns of influence among citizens, interest groups and political institutions, the authors examine whether the internet's impact on democratic politics is destined to repeat the history of other innovative ICTs. The volume explores the likely long-term effects of such uses on the conduct of politics in the USA and other nations that declare themselves modern democracies and assesses the extent to which they help or hinder viable democratic governance.

What does it mean to live and work inside the information and communication technology revolution? The nature and significance of newly emerging patterns of social and technical interaction as digital technologies become more pervasive in the knowledge economy are the focus of this book. The places and spaces where digital technolgoies are in use are examined to show why such use may or may not be associated with improvements in society. Studies of on- and off-line interactions between individuals and of collective attempts to govern and manage the new technologies show that the communication revolution is essentially about people, social organization, adaptation, and control, not just technologies This book contains original empirical studies conducted within a programme of research in the Information, Networks and Knowledge (INK) research centre at SPRU, University of Sussex.

In this collection of essays, leaders in the emerging field of information ethics (Daniel Dennett, Senator Patrick Leahy, Kirkpatrick Sale, ACLU president Nadine Strossen, and 15 others) discuss the challenges associated with advances in technology. The essays are divided into five subject areas: freedom if information and the pursuit of knowledge; information, technology and education; information, rights and social justice; ethics and the Internet; and professional ethics. The writers come from many backgrounds (e.g., libraries, law, and academy) and provide a variety of views on the value of information and its ethical dimension in an increasingly technological age. The essays have been drawn from many periodicals, including ""Library Journal"", ""Daedalus"", ""The Nation"", ""Journal of Information Ethics"" and ""Wired"".

The United States is currently grappling with how to prepare our students to be computer literate citizens in the competitive technological world we live in. Understanding how children develop computer knowledge, and the ways that adults are able to guide their computer learning experiences, is a vital task facing parents and educators. This groundbreaking book is an attempt to fill a gap in current understanding of how we become computer literate and proposes a theory of how computer literacy skills emerge in computer users.