This stand-out book appreciably contributes to growing debates within Science and Technology Studies concerned with cultural politics, the emergence of citizen science and civil society interventions in shaping technology. By drawing on fieldwork data, Savvides examines the bourgeoning 3D printing
culture outside the professional lab in Hackerspaces, Makerspaces and Fab Labs.
This engaging ethnography not only builds arguments on tracing the historical roots of makers and Hackerspaces, 3D printing technology and political narratives surrounding these new technological environments; it also illustrates how 3D printing has configured parallel grassroots innovation in
experimental spaces in the UK, Germany and Cyprus and brought together hobbyist maker communities, activists and entrepreneurs alike.
The study also addresses the convergence of activism and the maker culture with prevalent cultural imaginaries - such as the visionary creator within decentralized and distributive manufacturing, the idea of autopoietic social systems, or the imaginative leap to space colonization - and touches upon
challenges and motivations in the field of grassroots innovation by examining how it';s organized and conducted in semi-informal contexts.
AI and Popular Culture explores the development and social significance of artificial intelligence by looking at representations in fiction, film and television, as well as examining the effect of AI technologies on the way we consume culture.
Lee Barron traces the evolution of AI – from the Turing Machine to deep learning, to interrogate the key issues and debates. He uses examples of AI from pop culture to help us understand how the technology is changing aspects of society from surveillance and work to human relationships with
technology.
AI and Popular Culture sheds light on how artificial intelligence has changed our world and helps you to understand where it might take us next. It also makes significant contributions to Media and Cultural Studies, Humanities, and Social Sciences, as well as to subjects such as AI Ethics and
Society and Computing.
Over the past two decades, corporations and venture capitalists have adjusted business models to change the digital world. As a result, the global economy has undergone a massive shift, changing the way we work, consume and pay for things. Under this new ‘digital feudalism’, we find
precarious employment via digital platforms, we buy goods and services in perpetuity through subscriptions, and we pay for it all with debt.
Digital Feudalism explores this new moment in capitalism, and how reliant global economies have become on these processes of consumption, work, and debt.
Stefano Bresciani, Alberto Ferraris, Marco Romano, Gabriele Santoro
£87.50
Book + eBook
Digital Transformation Management for Agile Organizations highlights and explores new dynamics regarding current digital developments globally scale, by examining the threats, as well as the opportunities these innovations offer to organizations of all kinds. Digital transformation is addressed from
an organizational standpoint and is examined in relation to differing management theories in the work.
This ground-breaking study discusses how digital transformation can and is being embraced by a range of companies, as well as demonstrating how digital expansion is resulting in specific economic and social consequences. The authors present chapters providing wide-ranging coverage of digital
transformation, with exploration of digital transformation as a process for business model innovation, digital marketing, leadership and establishing new business ecosystems.
Digital Transformation Management for Agile Organizations is essential reading for all academic researchers with a focus on innovation management, technology management, human resource management, and strategy and leadership.
While the metaverse is often marketed as a future utopia, the vision of the metaverse represents an attempt for private corporations to control the code of the real. In the hands of companies that established and maintain the surveillance capitalism model, the ability to build a persistent,
all-compassing environment means all activity in that world can be metricized and commodified, making the metaverse worthy of critical examination.
Significant parts of life are already conducted in a digital place that combines various aspects of digital culture. Likewise, digital worlds for socializing already exist, and in a form akin to the VR metaverse, just as VR worlds based on play now coexist with online worlds of user generated
content. These discreet private “microverses”, as we refer to them, are spaces which can model the tensions that would be inherent in the metaverse.
From Microverse to Metaverse: Modelling the Future through Today's Virtual Worlds examines the place attachments, world-feeling and dwelling of several “microverses” to assess the possibilities of the metaverse as a realistic proposition. Critically analyzing the phenomenological feeling
of place, the political economy of emerging tech, the mechanisms of identity and self along with the behavioral constraints involved, the authors map what a metaverse might be like, whether it can happen, and just why some companies seem so determined to make it happen.
This unique work of evidence scholarship details the development of marketised forensic science provision in the UK. Exploring the impact that public policy developments have had upon the sector, it delves into the re-structuring of both the governance and delivery of expert scientific evidence.
Using first-hand accounts drawn from empirical research, this study analyses the practices and perspectives of forensic experts and criminal justice personnel, with a particular focus on the influence of standardisation, expertise, and regulation on scientific method. Expanding our understanding of
the ways in which forensic scientists have responded to policy-driven structural changes, the author highlights the effects of resulting adaptations.
Challenging subsisting accounts of law’s deference to expert knowledge, this work uncovers the normative and conceptual underpinnings of law and science, to provide an innovative account of the practice of case construction. Using comparative case-study methods, the study highlights the need
for a genuine theoretical engagement between the two domains and supports this endeavour with a range of empirically informed discussions, and detailed theoretical analyses. Revisiting the landmark cases, relevant legislative provisions, and government reports, the study offers a trenchant analysis
of law’s mutable understandings of expertise and scientific method. Marketisation and Forensic Science Provision in England and Wales thus lays the foundations for a more rational and systematic approach to the consumption of expert evidence.
This interdisciplinary collection of essays explores the impact of media, emerging technologies, and education on the resilience of the so-called post-truth society. This book explores if a return to civic participation, enhanced critical media literacy, journalism for the public good,
techno-interventions and lifelong learning systems can collectively foster a more engaged global citizenry.
The post-truth society is associated with a raft of terms that challenge the very notion of what should constitute a democratic and inclusive society: the decline and fall of reason; the disruption of the public sphere; the spread of misleading information; fake news; culture wars; the rise of
subjectivity; the co-opting of language; filters, silos and tribes; attention deficits; trolls, polarisation and hyper-partisanship; the conversion of popularity into legitimacy; manipulation by "populist"; leaders, governments, and fringe actors; algorithmic control, targeted messaging and native
advertising; surveillance and platform capitalism.
The contributions from scholars, technologists, policy-makers and activists raise critical questions about the nature and power of knowledge in the 21st century. Readers are challenged to question their own role in perpetuating certain narratives and to also understand the lived context of people on
all sides of a given debate. The diverse perspectives by geography, sector, gender and world-views will widen the appeal of this work to an international audience trying to understand the resilience of the post-truth society.
Dubai’s audacious architecture and photographic locations attract social media ‘influencers’ from around the world. How has Dubai, once a small fishing village on the edge of a desert, morphed into a hyper-modern backdrop for this global phenomenon? How can we understand these
interactions as our relationships with digital technologies undergo radical change?
This timely research-based study reveals how micro-celebrities and Dubai’s visible economies influence the evolution of the Emirate. Taking a cutting edge post-digital approach, underpinned by cultural studies and social media theory, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes presents a
series of unique case studies and demonstrates how Dubai is considered not only an illusion of unlimited indulgence but also a city dependent on the emerging infrastructure of visible economies, visual attractions, and ‘Instagrammable’ locations. Evaluating the cases of multiple
influencers, from local to transnational content creators, Hurley reveals how residents, non-citizens and migrant workers surviving as influencers in the city of ‘likes.’
Providing a much-needed de-Westernising perspectives of Dubai’s social media influencing industry within the broader context of global platform capitalism, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes offers an important contribution to the field of social media through illustrating visible
economies in a city circuited by social media influencing.