|
Showing 1 - 10 of
10 matches in All Departments
Ithiel de Sola Pool was a pioneering social scientist, a
distinguished scholar of the political process, and one of the most
original thinkers in the development of the social sciences.
Passionately engaged in politics, he continued his role of
leadership throughout his life, building the MIT Political Science
Department into an outstanding group. He organized international
teams of social scientists and collaborated widely to develop the
understanding of social change. He was a frequent adviser to
governments as consultant and in-house critic, and a successful
advocate of limits on government regulation. "Politics in Wired
Nations" presents his writings on the social and political impact
of different communication systems and new telecommunications
technology. Included in this volume is the first study of trends in
a global information society, and the first study of social
networks and the "small world" phenomenon that creates new
relationships and routes of informal influence and political power,
both domestic and international. Pool's essays on the politics of
foreign trade, the influence of American businessmen on Congress,
and changeable "unnatural" institutions of the modern world (e.g.,
bureaucracies, mega-cities, and nation-states) are herein
contained. Pool describes a nonviolent revolution in freedom and
political control that is possible as the world changes from the
era of one-way mass communications--targeted to national
audiences--to a new era of abundant, high-capacity, low-cost,
interactive, and user-controlled communications on a global scale.
He discusses policy choices for freedom, the battlegrounds ahead,
and the risks of government involvement in the regulation of new
telecommunication technologies.
Ithiel de Sola Pool was a distinguished scholar of the political
process, and one of the most original thinkers in the development
of an integrated social science. This volume focuses upon his
contributions to the development of research methods that deepen
our understanding of human behaviour. The book is divided into five
parts treating the analysis of communications, computer simulation,
forecasting, network theory, and the social sciences in political
contexts. The first part considers the problems and possibilities
of analysis raised by the unprecedented quantity of data made
available by widespread and improved communications technology;
what should be counted and how should inferences be made. Part two
explores computer simulation in the study of presidential election
patterns and how it can provide in-depth analyses of crisis
situations in history. Part three focuses on strategies for
predicting the future of international politics and methods to
forecast the impacts of new communications technologies, while part
four offers a rigorous analysis of domestic and global contact
networks and the so-called "small world" phenomenon. Part five is
concerned with external challenges to the use of social science to
create more humane politics, including the question of value
neutrality, ideology, "deconstructive" critical theory, and threats
by government to the health of universities. In a concluding essay
Lloyd Etheredge draws upon Pool's work to discuss several new ways
in which the methods treated in this volume can be applied to
contemporary social change.
This book applies the approach of technology assessment to the
telephone. The author's analysis forecasts the effect of the
telephone on society and compares it with the reality. This book
not only examines the social consequences of the telephone, but
provides a model for future efficient assessments of new
technologies. It documents a largely unknown piece of the history
of American technology and anlayzes the requirements for success in
technological forecasting.
In this study Mr. Pool has shown what is meant by the word
democracy on each side of the iron curtain. He has shown the
different connotations of democracy; where the emphasis is on
freedom and where it is on the power of the masses. He has devised
some new techniques involving a general theory of communication to
measure the ways by which people in the East and West use the
word.
Additional Contributors Are Mary Chapman, Barbara Conner, Barbara
Lamb, Barbara Marshall, Eva Meyer, Elena Schueller, And Marina S.
Tinkoff. Introduction By Bernard Berelson.
Ithiel de Sola Pool was a distinguished scholar of the political
process, and one of the most original thinkers in the development
of an integrated social science. This volume focuses upon his
contributions to the development of research methods that deepen
our understanding of human behavior.
The book is divided into five parts treating the analysis of
communications, computer simulation, forecasting, network theory,
and the social sciences in political contexts. The first part
considers the problems and possibilities of analysis raised by the
unprecedented quantity of data made available by widespread and
improved communications technology; what should be counted and how
should inferences be made. Part two explores computer simulation in
the study of presidential election patterns and how it can provide
in-depth analyses of crisis situations in history. Part three
focuses on strategies for predicting the future of international
politics and methods to forecast the impacts of new communications
technologies, while part four offers a rigorous analysis of
domestic and global contact networks and the so-called "small
world" phenomenon. Part five is concerned with external challenges
to the use of social science to create more humane politics,
including the question of value neutrality, ideology,
"deconstructive" critical theory, and threats by government to the
health of universities. In a concluding essay Lloyd Etheredge draws
upon Pool's work to discuss several new ways in which the methods
treated in this volume can be applied to contemporary social
change.
How can we preserve free speech in an electronic age? In a masterly
synthesis of history, law, and technology, Ithiel de Sola Pool
analyzes the confrontation between the regulators of the new
communications technology and the First Amendment.
|
|