Although it is hardly publicized, something remarkable is happening to Organized Labor. Key players in the United States and abroad are busy modernizing their communications, and making creative and effective use of computers and other technology. Drawing on "infotech" devices (computer networks, the Internet, video conferencing, fax machines, wireless communication, and multi-media), Labor struggles to renew its "voice" and "ears", and, in the process, new hope has been stirred that this just might help it transform its organizational culture, refine its mission, and reinvent itself.

The road to creating a CyberUnion (the combination of four strategic reform aids -- futuristics, innovations, services, and traditions -- knitted together with infotech resources into a comprehensive industrial relations model) has already begun and unions already embracing this model are ensuring a position of strength in the 21st century. CyberUnion is a bold plan for Organized Labor to remain strong for many decades to come, and this work examines the components of the model, progress already made, and plans to ensure continued success.

The Gendered Cyborg explores the relationship between representation, technoscience and gender, through the metaphor of the cyborg. The contributors argue that the figure of the cyborg offers ways of thinking about the relationship between culture and technology, people and machines which disrupt the power of science to enfore the categories through which we think about being human: male and female. Taking inspiration from Donna Haraway's groundbreaking Manifesto for Cyborgs, the articles consider how the cyborg has been used in cultural representation from reproductive technology to sci-fi, and question whether the cyborg is as powerful a symbol as is often claimed. The different sections of the reader explore: * the construction of gender categories through science
* the interraction of technoscience and gender in contemporary science fiction film such as Bladerunner and the Alien series
* debates around modern reproductive technology such as ultrasound scans and IVF, assessing their benefits and constraints for women
* issues relating to artificial intelligence and the internet.

Virtual States analyses the role of the state in a globalising, wired society. Everard argues that while information technology poses fundamental challenges to the inclusionary/exclusionary processes of state-making, this will not mean the decline but rather the mutation of the state. Everard goes on to look at the different ways in which states react to the wired society in the developing and developed worlds and the impact of these reactions on those excluded from this society.

Virtual Geographies explores how new communication technologies are being used to produce new geographies and new types of space. Leading contributors from a wide range of disciplines including geography, sociology, philosophy and literature:
* investigate how visions of cyberspace have been constructed
* offer a critical assessment of the status of virtual environments and geographies
* explore how virtual environments reshape the way we think and write about the world. This book sets recent technological developments in a historical and geographical perspective to offer a clearer view of the new vistas ahead.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203169425

Marshall McLuhan died on the last day of 1980, on the doorstep of the personal computer revolution. Yet McLuhan's ideas anticipated a world of media in motion, and its impact on our lives on the dawn of the new millennium.
By exploring the technological influence in industries from publishing to politics, entertainment to business, McLuhan opened the doors for understanding the human relationship with technology. Levinson's own exploration of McLuhan's significance in the new electronic generation clarifies the prophetic insights, principles and constructs in McLuhan's work.
Paul Levinson examines why McLuhan's theories about media are more important to us today than when they were first written, and why the Wired generation is now turning to McLuhan's work to understand the global village in the digital age.

Related link: http://www.sfwa.org/members/Levinson

Times of the Technoculture explores the social and cultural impact of new technologies, tracing the origins of the information society from the coming of the machine with the industrial revolution to the development of mass production techniques in the early twentieth century.
The authors look at how the military has controlled the development of the information society, and consider the centrality of education in government attempts to create a knowledge society. Engaging in contemporary debates surrounding the internet, Robins and Webster question whether it can really offer us a new world of virtual communities, and suggest more radical alternatives to the corporate agenda of contemporary technologies.

Cyborgs@Cyberspace is a compelling and innovative analysis of technology from a cultural perspective. Arguing that humans have always been technological as well as cultural beings, David Hakken calls for a fundamental rethinking of the traditional separation of anthropology and technical studies.
Drawing on three decades of research on contemporary technological societies, this book outlines a fresh way of thinking about technology and offers an ethical and political response to the challenge of truly living as "cyborgs" in the age of cyberspace.

This wide-ranging volume presents in-depth research into the effect of new information technologies on organizational structure, assesses their progress towards transformation and describes the changes they are making to long-established business process roles, cultures and working practices. The book is based upon a series of rolling surveys carried out between 1989 and the present day, and funded by organizations such as IBM and KPMG. It provides a detailed picture of a sector in transition during a period of anxiety and doubt dominated by restructuring, downsizing and experimentation with re-engineering. As the "lean and mean" emerge, they must now ask themselves if their competencies will enable them to survive into the next decade as competitors, such as Sainsburys, Virgin, Microsoft and Ford position themselves to become major players in the sector. This book is a contribution to the debate on the growth of knowledge work, the need for core organizational competencies in the information age and the need for evolutionary, or radical, change.

Is the emerging digital multimedia culture of today transforming the textbook or forever displacing it? As new media of transmission enter the classroom, the traditional textbook is now caught up in a dialogue reshaping the textual boundaries of the book, and with it the traditional modes of cognition and learning, which are bound more to language than to visual form. Most of the important work in the past two decades in the field of curriculum has focused on the culture of the textbook. A rich literature has evolved around textbooks as the traditional object of instructional activity. This volume is an important contribution to this literature, which focuses on the actual making of a textbook. This design process serves as a metaphor that suggests new paradigms of learning and instruction, in which text content is but one component in a multidimensional information space."The Visual Turn" is an exploration along the border of this new learning space transforming the traditional center of instruction in the classroom.

This book provides an overview of key issues concerning the impact of the world wide web on the political process.

Contents:
1. Electronic Democracy and the Civic Networking Movement in Context 2. Virtually Going Places: Square Hopping in Amsterdam's Digital City 3. Back to the Future of Democracy? New Technologies, Civic Networks and Direct Democracy in Greece 4. Berlin in the Net: Prospects of Cyberdemocracy from above and from below 5. Civic Networking and Universal Rights to Connectivity: Bologna 6. An Internet Resource for Neighborhoods 7. The First Amendment On-Line: Santa Monica's Public Electronic Network 8. Manchester: Democratic Implications of an Economic Initiative? 9. 'Cybercities', Electronic Emocracy and the Public Sphere: Opportunities and Challenges

This book is about learning and ethnography in the context of technologies. Simultaneously, it portrays young people's "thinking attitudes" in computer-based learning environments, and it describes how the practice of ethnography is changing in a digital world. The author likens this form of interaction to "the double helix," where learning and ethnography are intertwined to tell an emergent story about partnerships with technology. Two school computer cultures were videotaped for this study. Separated not only by geography -- one school is on the east coast of New England and the other on the west coast of British Columbia on Vancouver Island -- they are also separated in other ways: ethnic make-up and inner-city vs. rural settings to name only two. Yet these two schools are joined by a strong thread: a change in their respective cultures with the advent of intensive computer-use on the part of the students. Both school communities have watched their young people gain literacy and competence, and their tools have changed from pen to computer, video camera, multimedia and the Internet. Perhaps most striking is that the way they think of themselves as learners has also changed: they see themselves as an active participant, in the pilot's seat or director's chair, as they chart new connections between diverse and often unpredictable worlds of knowledge.

In "Honest Numbers and Democracy," Walter Williams offers a revealing history of policy analysis in the federal government and a scorching critique of what's wrong with social policy analysis today. Williams, a policy insider who witnessed the birth of domestic policy analysis during the Johnson administration, contends that the increasingly partisan U.S. political environment is vitiating both "honest numbers" -- the data used to direct public policy -- and, more importantly, honest analysts, particularly in the White House.

Drawing heavily on candid off-the-record interviews with political executives, career civil servants, elected officials and Washington-based journalists, Williams documents the steady deformation of social policy analysis under the pressure of ideological politics waged by both the executive and legislative branches. Beginning with the Reagan era and continuing into Clinton's tenure, Williams focuses on the presidents' growing penchant to misuse and hide numbers provided by their own analysts to assist in major policy decisions.

"Honest Numbers and Democracy" is the first book to examine in-depth the impact of the electronic revolution, its information overload, and rampant public distrust of the federal government's data on the practice of policy analysis.

A hard-hitting account of the factors threatening the credibility of the policymaking process, this book will be required reading for policy professionals, presidential watchers, and anyone interested in the future of U.S. democracy.

Providing a comprehensive introduction into an overview of the field of pervasive healthcare applications, this volume incorporates a variety of timely topics ranging from medical sensors and hardware infrastructures, to software platforms and applications and addresses issues of user experience and technology acceptance. The recent developments in the area of information and communication technologies have laid the groundwork for new patient-centred healthcare solutions. While the majority of computer-supported healthcare tools designed in the last decades focused mainly on supporting care-givers and medical personnel, this trend changed with the introduction of pervasive healthcare technologies, which provide supportive and adaptive services for a broad variety and diverse set of end users. With contributions from key researchers the book integrates the various aspects of pervasive healthcare systems including application design, hardware development, system implementation, hardware and software infrastructures as well as end-user aspects providing an excellent overview of this important and evolving field.

The internet has grown in recent years from a fringe cultural phenomenon to a significant site of cultural production and transformation. Internet Culture maps the contours of this new domain of language, politics and identity, locating it within the interconnected histories of technologies of communication and the public sphere. Neither a user's guide to the Net nor a futuristic manifesto, Internet Culture offers instead a critical interrogation of the sustaining myths of the virtual world and of the implications of the current mass migration onto the electronic frontier.
Among the topics discussed in Internet Culture are the virtual spaces and places created by the citizens of the Net, and crucially, their claims to the hotly contested notion of "virtual community". The contributors also examine the communication medium behind the worlds of the Net.

The deployment of digital technologies by enterprises affects not just their functioning in economic terms, but also mobilizes broader social, institutional and organizational effects. This book explores these issues, and looks at the way in which management accounting systems structures, thinking, and practices are being altered as a result.

The first volume in a major series, "Technology, Culture and Competitiveness" will be an essential read for all those who need to deal with the causes and consequences of rapid technological change in an increasingly globalized world, whether they be government policy-makers, managers of multi-national corporations, commentators on the international scene or specialists in and students of international politics, economics and business studies. The authors discuss three related areas: how we think about technology and international relations/international political economy; in what sense technology is a fundamental component of national competitive advantage and what national, local and corporate policy should be in light of this; and what the relationship is between technological innovation and global and political economics change.
Technology is discussed not just in an instrumental sense-- as a tool of power and an object of policy--but equally in a transcendental sense--as a key to shaping and structuring how we understand and interpret reality. The final section of the book presents case studies of three core sectors of the world--political economy, finance, aviation and automobiles.

As we begin a new century, the astonishing spread of nationally and internationally accessible computer-based communication networks has touched the imagination of people everywhere. Suddenly, the Internet is in everyday parlance, featured in talk shows, in special business "technology" sections of major newspapers, and on the covers of national magazines. If the Internet is a new world of social behavior it is also a new world for those who study social behavior. This volume is a compendium of essays and research reports representing how researchers are thinking about the social processes of electronic communication and its effects in society. Taken together, the chapters comprise a first gathering of social psychological research on electronic communication and the Internet. The authors of these chapters work in different disciplines and have different goals, research methods, and styles. For some, the emergence and use of new technologies represent a new perspective on social and behavioral processes of longstanding interest in their disciplines. Others want to draw on social science theories to understand technology. A third group holds to a more activist program, seeking guidance through research to improve social interventions using technology in domains such as education, mental health, and work productivity. Each of these goals has influenced the research questions, methods, and inferences of the authors and the "look and feel" of the chapters in this book. Intended primarily for researchers who seek exposure to diverse approaches to studying the human side of electronic communication and the Internet, this volume has three purposes: * to illustrate how scientists are thinking about the social processes and effects of electronic communication; * to encourage research-based contributions to current debates on electronic communication design, applications, and policies; and * to suggest, by example, how studies of electronic communication can contribute to social science itself.

That information and communications technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet, are challenging the very fabric of our political systems can no longer be doubted. Yet the nature of such technologically driven changes and their desirability is hotly contested. This text critically focuses upon the alleged transformations in power relationships between individuals, government and social institutions as they are emerging in what is becoming known as cyberspace: a computer generated public domain which has no territorial boundaries, is controlled by no single authority, enables millions of people to communicate around the world and maybe encourages post-hierarchical control of populations. The ability of computer networks to transcend modern conceptions of time and space has considerable consequences for governance based upon the nation-state. Thus traditional forms of government are said to be weakened by an increasing link to control over global communications in Cyberspace. Hence issues of surveillance, control and privacy in relation to the Internet are coming to the fore as a result of state concern with security, crime and economic advantage. This text explores the issues of surve

In this book, David Braund offers a significantly different perspective upon the history of Roman Britain. Rather than relying on archaeology, the author concentrates on the literary evidence, drawing a colorful picture of the social and political context of Roman imperialism. The study discusses Roman theories of imperialism as well as the intellectual and political atmosphere within which Caesar mounted his invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 B.C. Braund shows how the ideologies and power structures at work in Rome fundamentally shaped politics and society in Roman Britain. Thus he develops an understanding of the literary sources which goes beyond mere translation and allows the reader insights into this remote corner of the Roman world.

Debate ranges over the effects of the growing utilization by the young of interactive screen-based technologies and the effects of these on vulnerable young chldren. This text is based on two years' research on 100 children, with entertainment screen technology in their homes, following them from home to school and examining the difference in culture in the two environments. The question is asked whether children are developing the necessary IT and other skills required from the maturing learner as we approach the 21st century. Issues such as gender, parenting, violence, censorship and the educational consequences of their screen-based experiences are at the forefront of the text's coverage.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415147239

Computers have changed the landscape of both gathering and disseminating information throughout the world. As journalists quickly move toward the 21st century and perhaps, a new era of electronic journalism, resources are needed to understand the newest and most successful computer-based news reporting strategies. Written to serve that purpose, this book is designed to show both professional journalists and students which of the newest personal computing tools are being used by the nation's leading news organizations and top individual journalists. It further describes how these resources are being used on a daily basis and for special projects.
In recent years, computers have taken on new and dominating roles in the process of news analysis, newsgathering, and news processing. Today's forward-thinking journalists often seek guidance over what they can do to strengthen their ability to be society's information processors and managers. This volume focuses upon how successful journalists are using computers through a major national computer-assisted reporting (CAR) study of daily newspapers. The study included two national surveys and a series of personal interviews with many of the nation's leading CAR specialists. Several current examples of stories used for successful database- and online-oriented news assignments are provided as part of a series of case studies incorporated throughout the book. The additional depth of description and the presentation of portions of stories themselves should help readers to understand the complete process involving CAR-oriented journalism.
Substantial analytical detail is used to discuss the extent of computer use in newsrooms, computer training, CAR projects, CAR in daily reporting, hardware and software most commonly used, levels and types of online services used in news research, and portable hardware and software. The book concludes with the author's assessment of the effects and impact of personal computing in the newsroom and the future of personal computer applications in newsgathering. Explaining and defining advanced applications or terminology for readers, the approach to the book assumes a minimal familiarity with computers, but no advanced knowledge of computer operation.

We are constantly being told that we are living through an image revolution. In this sceptical exploration of the politics of visual culture, Kevin Robins assesses the nature of our emotional and imaginary investment in the visual media from photography to virtual reality. He looks at how modern image technologies allow us to monitor and survey the "real" world while maintaining a distance which somehow denies its reality. He asks what pressures lie behind the utopian fantasies of cyberspace with its alternative realities and virtual communities. Rather than accepting the fashionable idea that the new visual technologies are displacing the real, "Into the Image" examines them sociologically, as shaped by forces and events in the real world, and demonstrates that what continues to matter is the relation of image and screen culture to the way we interact with that world.