Academics and representatives of government and business have co-operated to produce this multi-layered exploration of the current state of the information and communication revolution and its effect on Arab states and societies. The book offers an analysis of a variety of technological themes. These themes include global telecommunications trends and policies and their implications for national development; the information superhighway and education, business, the media, and finance; cultural imperialism and the widening of the information gap; and the impact of satellite DBS TV on terrestrial television broadcasting in the GCC states.

Light is changing, dramatically. Our world is getting brighter - you can see it from space. But is brighter always better? Artificial light is voracious and spreading. Vanquishing precious darkness across the planet, when we are supposed to be using less energy. The quality of light has altered as well. Technology and legislation have crushed warm incandescent lighting in favour of harsher, often glaring alternatives. Light is fundamental - it really matters. It interacts with life in profound yet subtle ways: it tells plants which way to grow, birds where to fly and coral when to spawn. It tells each and every one of us when to sleep, wake, eat. We mess with the eternal rhythm of dawn-day-dusk-night at our peril. But mess with it we have, and we still don't truly understand the consequences. In Incandescent, journalist Anna Levin reveals her own fraught relationship with changes in lighting, and she explores its real impact on nature, our built environment, health and psychological well-being. We need to talk about light, urgently. And ask the critical question: just how bright is our future?

How should we understand the personal and social impacts of complex mobility systems? Can lifestyles based around intensive travel, transport and tourism be maintained in the 21st century? What possibility post-carbon lifestyles?

In this provocative study of "life on the move," Anthony Elliott and John Urry explore how complex mobility systems are transforming everyday, ordinary lives. The authors develop their arguments through an analysis of various sectors of mobile lives: networks, new digital technologies, consumerism, the lifestyles of ?globals?, and intimate relationships at-a-distance. Elliott and Urry introduce a range of new concepts ? miniaturized mobilities, affect storage, network capital, meetingness, neighbourhood lives, portable personhood, ambient place, globals ? to capture the specific ways in which mobility systems intersect with mobile lives.

This book represents a novel approach in "post-carbon" social theory. It will be essential reading for advanced undergraduate students, postgraduates and teachers in sociology, social theory, politics, geography, international relations, cultural studies, and economics and business studies.

The authors present a multi-level theory of "Information Worlds" to investigate the ways in which information creates the social worlds of people. Building upon the foundational works of Library and Information Studies (LIS) scholar and theorist Elfreda Chatman and philosopher Jurgen Habermas, as well as from theory and research from a wide range of other fields, the theory of information worlds can serve as a theoretical driver both in LIS studies and across other disciplines that study information issues, enriching and expanding our understanding of the multi-layered role of information in society.

Testing their theory through application to a variety of real-world issues, Burnett and Jaeger tackle the topics of libraries and information provision, the value assigned to information by differing social groups, information access and exchange, international information policies, the role of information in democracy, and technological change. Information Worlds provides a framework for empirical investigations into the fascinating and very real social dimensions of information.

A key question for China, which has for some time been a leading global manufacturing base, is whether China can progress from being a traditional centre of manufacturing to becoming a centre for innovation. In this book, Shang-Ling Jui focuses on China's software industry and examines the complete innovation value chain of software in its key phases of innovation, standards definition, development and marketing. He argues that, except for software development, these key phases are of high added-value and that without adopting the concept of independent innovation as a guiding ideology, China's software enterprises - like India's - would have an uncertain future. In other words, the lack of core competence in the development of China's software industry might restrain the industry from taking the leading position and drive it towards becoming no more than the software workshop of multinationals over the long term. Shang-Ling Jui contends that China's software industry should and can possess its own complete innovation value chain. Having worked in China's software industry for many years, the author provides an inside-out perspective - identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the industry and defining the challenges in China's transition from "Made in China" to "Innovated in China."

In social theory and sociology, time and travel in technological cultures is one of the new and challenging research topics in the 'mobilities turn'. Yet surprisingly, contemporary practices of mobility have till now, seen only limited theorization within these disciplines. By analyzing historic and contextualized transit practices, this revealing book argues that travel cannot now simply be reduced to getting from A to B; it is an integrated part of everyday life. In this area, researching how problems can be identified as dilemmas and reformulated as design problems helps create a new vocabulary; one which will not only change the agenda in the debate on mobility problems in the public domain, but will also suggest new ways of theorizing mobility innovations. In this fascinating book, author Peters: develops a conceptual framework to study contemporary transit practices and evaluate innovation strategies gives new insights regarding historic and contemporary design strategies and regarding innovations related to travel in technological cultures gives special attention to electronic timespaces and ICT based mobility innovations investigates cases of travel in technological cultures, car travel, air travel, and cycling in Dutch towns. An original and provocative contribution to the emerging field of mobilities, this book will become an essential resource for advanced undergraduate, post-graduate, researchers and practitioners in the fields of sociology, geography, spatial planning, policy and transportation studies.

Ideal for use as a core or secondary text in lower division social inequalities or social problems courses, this book explains how the changing nature and uses of the Internet not only mirror todaya (TM)s social inequalities, but also are at the heart of how stratification is now taking place.a A pioneering work, both intellectually, and pedagogically.

Spanning many different epochs and varieties of religious experience, this book develops a new approach to religion and its role in human history. The authors look across a range of religious phenomena-from ancestor worship to totemism, shamanism, and worldwide modern religions-to offer a new explanation of the evolutionary success of religious behaviors. Their book is more empirical and verifiable than most previous books on evolution and religion because they develop an approach that removes guesswork about beliefs in the supernatural, focusing instead on the behaviors of individuals. The result is a pioneering look at how and why natural selection has favored religious behaviors throughout history.

From Edward R. Murrow to "Sixty Minutes" and CNN, the television news correspondent has become a fixture of American journalism in the latter half of the twentieth century. The correspondent's role has changed, however, as centralized control, changing technology, "infotainment," and profit margin have influenced the way that television networks operate and television news is reported.

In spite of the flood of literature dealing with the American television networks, the evening anchors, and prime-time personalities, little has been written about the "the foot soldier of network news." "Live from the Trenches" fills that gap, providing the first examination of television news correspondents and their work, with much of the analysis coming from the correspondents themselves.

The correspondents:
Jim Bittermann, a former ABC Paris correspondent, has been the CNN Paris correspondent since 1996. He received a National News Emmy for his coverage of the 1988 Sudan famine.
Chris Bury, correspondent for "Nightline" since 1993, has covered foreign and domestic stories from Waco to Whitewater.
Michael Murrie, after a dozen years in television news at KSDK in St. Louis, is an associate professor and director of the Telecommunications Master's Program for the Department of Radio-Television at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Roger O'Neil, NBC News Denver bureau chief and correspondent since 1983, was the lead reporter for NBC during the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh.
Walter C. Rodgers, bureau chief and correspondent in Jerusalem, joined CNN in 1993 as the Berlin correspondent. Prior to joining CNN, he worked for ABC for twelve years.
Marlene Sanders broke barriers for women throughout her career and has won three Emmies. As a correspondent at ABC News in 1964, she was the first woman to anchor a prime-time network newscast.
George Strait is the primary ABC News correspondent for medical and health news. Among his many awards are the Alfred I. duPont Award and Gold Medal Award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
Ed Turner is CNN's first editor-at-large. Based in Washington, he represents the CNN News Group globally.
Garrick Utley joined CNN in 1997 after thirty years covering more than seventy countries for ABC.

A leading philosopher seeks to recover “common sense” as a meeting place to reconcile science and philosophy With her previous books on Alfred North Whitehead, Isabelle Stengers not only secured a reputation as one of the premier philosophers of our times but also inspired a rethinking of critical theory, political thought, and radical philosophy across a range of disciplines. Here, Stengers unveils what might well be seen as her definitive reading of Whitehead. Making Sense in Common will be greeted eagerly by the growing group of scholars who use Stengers’s work on Whitehead as a model for how to think with conceptual precision through diverse domains of inquiry: environmentalism and ecology, animal studies, media and technology studies, the history and philosophy of science, feminism, and capitalism. On the other hand, the significance of this new book extends beyond Whitehead. Instead, it lies in Stengers’s recovery of the idea of “common sense” as a meeting place—a commons—where opposed ideas of science and humanistic inquiry can engage one another and help to move society forward. Her reconciliation of science and philosophy is especially urgent today—when climate disaster looms all around us, when the values of what we thought of as civilization and modernity are discredited, and when expertise of any kind is under attack.

Science and Religious Anthropology explores the convergence of the biological sciences, human sciences, and humanities around a spiritually evocative, naturalistic vision of human life. The disciplinary contributions are at different levels of complexity, from evolution of brains to existential longings, and from embodied sociality to ecosystem habitat. The resulting interpretation of the human condition supports some aspects of traditional theological thinking in the world's religious traditions while seriously challenging other aspects. Wesley Wildman draws out these implications for philosophical and religious anthropology and argues that the modern secular interpretation of humanity is most compatible with a religious form of naturalistic humanism. This book resists the reduction of meaning and value questions while taking scientific theories about human life with full seriousness. It argues for a religious interpretation of human beings as bodily creatures emerging within a natural environment that permits engagement with the valuational potentials of reality. This engagement promotes socially borne spiritual quests to realize and harmonize values in everything human beings do, from the forging of cultures to the crafting of personal convictions.

Drawing on social science perspectives, Contested Categories presents a series of empirical studies that engage with the often shifting and day-to-day realities of life sciences categories. In doing so, it shows how such categories remain contested and dynamic, and that the boundaries they create are subject to negotiation as well as re-configuration and re-stabilization processes. Organized around the themes of biological substances and objects, personhood and the genomic body and the creation and dispersion of knowledge, each of the volume's chapters reveals the elusive nature of fixity with regard to life science categories. With contributions from an international team of scholars, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the social, legal, policy and ethical implications of science and technology and the life sciences.

This book uniquely explores how the notion of vision is presented in modern science and the Bible, and how it can be applied to contemporary Christian contexts. The word "vision", our ability to see, has been described by an increasing body of scholarship in the social sciences as our capacity for mental imagery and imagination. As such, this unique cognitive capability has been utilised in many fields for a variety of purposes, from arts and psychotherapy to politics and business management, and even for performance enhancement in sports. The current book argues that a better understanding of vision can have far-reaching practical implications for Christian life and ministry by helping people to align themselves with God's specific purposes. After a theoretical overview that integrates scientific and theological insights, the final chapters present a variety of strategies that can help believers to discern God's call through the use of mental imagery and then to develop and cultivate the perceived vision. The book examines the scientific and biblical principles of vision in a comprehensive manner, with a special emphasis on the practical implications of the issue. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Theology, Biblical Studies and Church Growth/Leadership, as well as Organisational Behaviour, Business Management and Psychology.

According to many observers, the global digital divide - the extent to which information technology is benefiting developed as opposed to developing countries - has already established itself as the single most pervasive theme of the twenty-first century. The purpose of this book is to explore some of the ways in which this divide can be overcome both within and between nations. Employing a rigorous analytical framework, the author bases his analysis on the concept of international technological dualism. He argues that one possible solution to the problem is the availability of affordable technologies, such as low-cost computers, which are specifically designed for the income levels and socio-economic conditions of developing countries. He also emphasises that the most important aim of any policy measure should be to provide universal access to information technologies, rather than individual ownership. Depending on whether or not this divide can be bridged will, to a large degree, determine whether developing countries are able to attain higher levels of productivity, prosperity and global integration. Development economists, international policymakers and NGOs will all welcome the book's emphasis on various low cost technologies and their application in communal settings in the developing world. The non-technical nature of this volume will also make it accessible to a broader audience who wish to understand ways of alleviating this critical problem which has the potential to become even more acute as new and ever more complex technologies emerge.

How should we think about religion, science, and their relationship in modern society? Some religious groups oppose evolution; some atheists claim science is on their side. Others reconcile their beliefs with science, or consider science and faith to deal with fundamentally different aspects of human life. What indeed is religion: belief or trust in God's existence? How do we distinguish sense from superstition? What does science have to say on such issues?

Willem B. Drees considers contemporary discussions of these issues in Europe and North America, using examples from Christianity and religious naturalism, and reflections on Islam and Tibetan Buddhism. He argues that the scientific understanding leaves open certain ultimate questions, and thus allows for belief in a creator, but also for religious naturalism or serious agnosticism. By analysing the place of values in a world of facts, and the quest for meaningful stories in a material world, Religion and Science in Context offers an original and self-critical analysis of the field, its assumptions and functions, and ends with a vision of its possible future.

Nature, Space and the Sacred offers the first investigative mapping of a new and highly significant agenda: the spatial interactions between religion, nature and culture. In this ground-breaking work, different concepts of religion, theology, space and place and their internal relations are discussed in an impressive range of approaches. Weaving together a diversity of perspectives, this book presents an innovative and truly transdisciplinary environmental science. Its broad range offers a rich exchange of insights, methods and theoretical engagements.

How should we think about religion, science, and their relationship in modern society? Some religious groups oppose evolution; some atheists claim science is on their side. Others reconcile their beliefs with science, or consider science and faith to deal with fundamentally different aspects of human life. What indeed is religion: belief or trust in God s existence? How do we distinguish sense from superstition? What does science have to say on such issues?

Willem B. Drees considers contemporary discussions of these issues in Europe and North America, using examples from Christianity and religious naturalism, and reflections on Islam and Tibetan Buddhism. He argues that the scientific understanding leaves open certain ultimate questions, and thus allows for belief in a creator, but also for religious naturalism or serious agnosticism. By analysing the place of values in a world of facts, and the quest for meaningful stories in a material world, Religion and Science in Context offers an original and self-critical analysis of the field, its assumptions and functions, and ends with a vision of its possible future.

This book develops the concept of feminist technoecologies as a theoretical and methodological tool for examining the co-constitutive relation between technology and ecology, which have typically been considered as distinct objects of studies. In underscoring how their dynamic relationality troubles the location of agency, this book challenges the idea that technology, as the marker of the innovative capacity of the human, either corrupts or saves ecology. The contributions to the volume present feminist approaches that contextualise and historicize such issues as multi-species survival, border control regimes, solar power, bioart, artificial intelligence and air pollution. They insist on the centrality of corporeality, affects, ethics and vulnerability in the materialisation of technoecological relations, and call into question the exceptional status of the figure of (hu)Man. Together they offer critical and creative tools or modes of inquiry for imagining alternative modalities of practicing care and thinking environmental sustainability. As a creative contribution to the growing literature on new configurations of bodies, technologies and environments against the backdrop of ecological degradation, digital technologization, and precarity in late capitalism, Feminist Technoecologies extends the interchanges between feminist materialisms, environmental humanities and feminist technosciences studies, and will be a resource for all those interested in these fields. This book was originally published as a special issue of Australian Feminist Studies.

Do new innovations and products improve our lives? Has our relentless pursuit of technological progress eliminated the blight of poverty, of inequality, of discrimination, of crime, of war? Has the advance of technology increased our happiness and led us to fulfillment and social harmony? The ads would have us think so. But not all technological innovation is desirable, and the fastest rate of change is not necessarily the best. Futile Progress explores the multiple and far-reaching ways in which our society and our environment have been affected by technological change. It reveals how far unfettered 'advances' can be blamed for environmental damage, and analyses to what extent our unquestioning acceptance of new technologies has contributed to the social insecurity, inequality and dislocation evident today. In this original and thought provoking book, Ernest Braun argues for effective safeguards against these adverse effects of technologies beneficial to society receive public support. Only if the consequences of technological change are anticipated can technology be harnessed to work for common good.

Recent work in science and technological studies has provided a clearer understanding of the way in which science functions in society and the interconnectedness among different strands of science, policy, economy and environment. It is well acknowledged that a different way of thinking is required in order to address problems facing the global community, particularly in relation to issues of risk and uncertainty, which affect humanity as a whole. However, approaches to education in science tend to perpetuate an outmoded way of thinking that is incommensurable with preparing individuals for participation and decision-making in an uncertain, complex world. Drawing on experiences of interdisciplinary dialogue and practice in a higher education context, this book illustrates how reformulating the agenda in science and technology can have a revolutionary impact on learning and teaching in the classroom at all levels. This exceptional study will interest scholars in Education, Science, Technology, and Society, and those looking to further deliberative democracy and civic participation in their students.

Published in 1998. This text is concerned with research issues within the context of the emerging information age. The book draws together research which is devoted to key questions examining the relationship between the various and widely discussed developments of technological systems and their societal impacts. Increasing interest and research into the information society and their euphorical assumptions is creating a wide spectrum of societal criticism. Computer supported work for instance has led to the development of innovative organizational processes based on technological developments and communications paradigms. In particular the focus is centred on the perspectives of such Networking Entities and their many varied implications. The book links sociology with technology and aims to lead it to wider discussions of the above issues.

This book was originally published in 1999. When one or more essential organs failed, the consequence used to be death. However, conventional medicine has developed artificial means of extending life, the most successful of which is transplantation. The most common form of organ to be transplanted is a kidney which will, on average, function for about a decade in its recipient. Organ transplantation as a whole is widely practiced in most countries. However, few can procure enough organs to meet demand. Many people who are suitable for a transplant die without getting one. Many kidney patients can access and stay alive on dialysis until a suitable organ becomes available. However, even here, sufficiency of organs would be beneficial because lesser reliance on dialysis would reduce healthcare costs and be better for patient quality of life. This invaluable book shows that in the light of current practice and attitudes, increasing living donor transplantation (LDT) levels is feasible. It is one of the few works to systematically analyse the ethical and legal issues involved in LDT use in the light of empirical evidence, including new data derived from a unique programme of interviews and questionnaires with transplant professionals, living donors and recipients. Readers are led to an understanding of when LDT is ethically and legally acceptable and to the strong case for using it much more extensively.

In this moment of climate precarity, Victorian studies scholar Barbara Leckie considers the climate crisis as a problem of time. Spanning the long nineteenth century through our current moment, her interdisciplinary treatment of climate change at once rethinks time and illustrates that the time for climate action is now. Climate Change, Interrupted argues that linear, progress-inflected temporalities are not adequate to a crisis that defies their terms. Instead, this book advances a theory and practice of interruption to rethink prevailing temporal frameworks. At the same time, it models the anachronistic, time-blending, and time-layering temporality it advances. In a series of experimental chapters informed by the unlikely trio of Walter Benjamin, Donna Haraway, and Virginia Woolf, Leckie reinflects and cowrites the traditions and knowledges of the long nineteenth century and the current period in the spirit of climate action collaboration. The current moment demands as many approaches as possible, invites us to take risks, and asks scholars and activists adept at storytelling to participate in the conversation. Climate Change, Interrupted, accordingly, invests in interruption to tell a different story of the climate crisis.

This book opens up the debate on the interrelations between space and mobilities with regard to different dimensions of social inequality. Based on the premise that the dynamics caused by modernization, globalization, migration and social change affect the structuring of the social fabric, the focus of the book is to illuminate these processes of social and spatial re-structurings. A leading team of contributors from the Cosmobilities network highlight different aspects of inequality in relation to mobilities, such as gender, supplying transport infrastructure, job-related relocations, multi-locality, social network geography, and socio-spatial development.