The speed and cost effectiveness of new information technology has prompted many to view these innovations as a panacea for social and economic development. However, such a view flies in the face of continuing inequities in education, health, food, and infrastructure. This volume explores these issues - along with questions of access, privilege, literacy, training, and the environmental and health effects of information technologies in the developing world - arguing that a higher level of development does not always result from a higher level of technologization.
Life in the digital era offers an array of new and invigorating opportunities, as well as a new set of challenges when facing the dissemination of fresh innovations. While once reserved for personal use, online platforms are now being utilized for more critical purposes, such as ocial revolution, political influence, and governance at both the local and national levels. Promoting Social Changes and Democracy through Information Technology is a definitive reference source for the latest scholarly research on the use of the internet, mobile phones, and other digital platforms for political discourse between citizens and governments. Focusing on empirical case studies and pivotal theoretical applications of technology within political science and social activism, this comprehensive book is an essential reference source for advanced-level students, researchers, practitioners, and academicians interested in the changing landscape of democratic development and social welfare.
As modern technologies continue to develop and evolve, the ability of users to adapt with new systems becomes a paramount concern. Research into new ways for humans to make use of advanced computers and other such technologies through artificial intelligence and computer simulation is necessary to fully realize the potential of tools in the 21st century. Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Simulation, and Human-Computer Interaction provides emerging research in advanced trends in robotics, AI, simulation, and human-computer interaction. Readers will learn about the positive applications of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction in various disciples such as business and medicine. This book is a valuable resource for IT professionals, researchers, computer scientists, and researchers invested in assistive technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, and computer simulation.
Tension exists between technologists and social thinkers because of the impact technology and innovation have on social values and norms, which is often viewed as damaging to the cultural fabric of a nation or society. Since the global business environment is the context in which implementation of technology and innovation takes place, it is widely accepted as the major reason for such conflicts. In this backdrop, this edited book integrates independent research from across the globe. It deals with the nature and significance of technology, innovation and social change as well as the relationships between them, and discusses the significance of social entrepreneurship from social innovation and technology perspectives. Research areas covered are related to the development and deployment of technology, innovation and knowledge in social change, capabilities of institutions, models, role of government and corporate social responsibility and community involvement. Multiple aspects of social change are discussed in the context of India, Mexico, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Nigeria and other African countries. But society does not silently accept technologically enforced changes; sometimes technology is seen as an enemy of inclusive growth and for many, economic development is an anti-thesis of social change. Selected case studies on sector-specific technologies, such as the use of genetically modified seeds in agriculture, which has impacted the market and society, are critically analyzed to develop insights into the adoption of technology and its impact. At the same time it examines policy related issues, without any bias in favor of, or against, a specific technology.
Drawing on the culture-centered approach (CCA), this book re-imagines culture as a site for resisting the neocolonial framework of neoliberal governmentality. Culture emerged in the 20th Century as a conceptual tool for resisting the hegemony of West-centric interventions in development, disrupting the assumptions that form the basis of development. This turn to culture offered radical possibilities for decolonizing social change but in response, necolonial development institutions incorporated culture into their strategic framework while simultaneously deploying political and economic power to silence transformative threads. This rise of “culture as development” corresponded with the global rise of neo-liberal governmentality, incorporating culture as a tool for globally reproducing the logic of capital. Using examples of transformative social change interventions, this book emphasizes the role of culture as a site for resisting capitalism and imagining rights-based, sustainable and socialist futures. In particular, it attends to culture as the basis for socialist organizing in activist and party politics. In doing so, Culture, Participation and Social Change offers a framework of inter-linkage between Marxist analyses of capital and cultural analyses of colonialism. It concludes with an anti-colonial framework that re-imagines the academe as a site of activist interventions.
Diving into an original and unusually positive case study from India, Patching Development shows how development programs can be designed to work. How can development programs deliver benefits to marginalized citizens in ways that expand their rights and freedoms? Political will and good policy design are critical but often insufficient due to resistance from entrenched local power systems. In Patching Development, Rajesh Veeraraghavan presents an ethnography of one of the largest development programs in the world, the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and examines NREGA's implementation in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He finds that the local system of power is extremely difficult to transform, not because of inertia, but because of coercive counter strategy from actors at the last mile and their ability to exploit information asymmetries. Upper-level NREGA bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh do not possess the capacity to change the power axis through direct confrontation with local elites, but instead have relied on a continuous series of responses that react to local implementation and information, a process of patching development. Patching development is a top-down, fine-grained, iterative socio-technical process that makes local information about implementation visible through technology and enlists participation from marginalized citizens through social audits. These processes are neither neat nor orderly and have led to a contentious sphere where the exercise of power over documents, institutions and technology is intricate, fluid and highly situated. A highly original account with global significance, this book casts new light on the challenges and benefits of using information and technology in novel ways to implement development programs.
Communication Technology and Social Change is a distinctive collection that provides current theoretical, empirical, and legal analyses for a broader understanding of the dynamic influences of communication technology on social change. With a distinguished panel of contributors, the volume presents a systematic discussion of the role communication technology plays in shaping social, political, and economic influences in society within specific domains and settings. Its integrated focus expands and complements the scope of existing literature on this subject. Each chapter is organized around a specific structure, covering: *Background—offering an introduction of relevant communication technology that outlines its technical capabilities, diffusion, and uses; *Theory—featuring a discussion of relevant theories used to study the social impacts of the communication technology in question; *Empirical Findings—providing an analysis of recent academic and relevant practical work that explains the impact of the communication technology on social change; and *Social Change Implications—proposing a summary of the real world implications for social change that stems from synthesizing the relevant theories and empirical findings presented throughout the book. Communication Technology and Social Change will serve scholars, researchers, upper-division undergraduate students, and graduate students examining the relationship between communication and technology and its implications for society.
The emergence of the digital age has transformed the way society communicates as well as disseminates information. Information Systems and Modern Society: Social Change and Global Development is a comprehensive collection of research on the emergence of information technology and its effect on society. By providing a forum for practitioners and researchers, this book aims to bring to light the advancements made throughout social changes and the application of information systems. This research provides recent techniques useful for policy makers, practitioners and students.
Mobile phones are close to ubiquitous in developing countries; Internet and broadband access are becoming commonplace. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) thus represent the fastest, broadest and deepest technical change experienced in international development. They now affect every development sector – supporting the work of hundreds of millions of farmers and micro-entrepreneurs; creating millions of ICT-based jobs; assisting healthcare workers and teachers; facilitating political change; impacting climate change; but also linked with digital inequalities and harms – with the pace of change continuously accelerating. Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) provides the first dedicated textbook to examine and explain these emerging phenomena. It will help students, practitioners, researchers and other readers understand the place of ICTs within development; the ICT-enabled changes already underway; and the key issues and interventions that engage ICT4D practice and strategy. The book has a three-part structure. The first three chapters set out the foundations of ICT4D: the core relation between ICTs and development; the underlying components needed for ICT4D to work; and best practice in implementing ICT4D. Five chapters then analyse key development goals: economic growth, poverty eradication, social development, good governance and environmental sustainability. Each chapter assesses the goal-related impact associated with ICTs and key lessons from real-world cases. The final chapter looks ahead to emerging technologies and emerging models of ICT-enabled development. The book uses extensive in-text diagrams, tables and boxed examples with chapter-end discussion and assignment questions and further reading. Supported by online activities, video links, session outlines and slides, this textbook provides the basis for undergraduate, postgraduate and online learning modules on ICT4D.
