Information Economy/Society Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Das vorliegende Memorandum zeigt ein Zwischenergebnis des GI-Arbeitskreises «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» (GIANI) und soll zur Diskussion anregen. Entwurf des Titelblatts: Wolf Göhring Graphische Gestaltung/Layout: Therese Bracher Diese und aktualisierte Versionen des Memorandums werden auch unter http://www.giani-memorandum.de veröffentlicht. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek: Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. Druck: Satz-und Druck-Center des Fraunhofer-Informationszentrums Raum und Bau IRB, Stuttgart. Fraunhofer-Informationszentrum Raum und Bau IRB Nobelstraße 12, D-70569 Stuttgart Telefon 07 11 / 970 -25 00 Telefax 07 11 / 970 -25 08 E-Mail irb@irb.fraunhofer.de www.irb.fraunhofer.de ISBN 3-8167-6446-0 Seite 5 Memorandum «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» Mit diesem Memorandum will der Arbeitskreis «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» der Gesellschaft für Informatik aufzeigen, welchen Beitrag Informations-und Kommunikationstechnologien (Information and Communication Technologies, ICT) zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung leisten können. Der immer breitere Einsatz von ICT begünstigt nicht automatisch eine nachhaltige, dauerhaft umweltgerechte Entwicklung. Vielmehr ist politischer Gestaltungswille erforderlich, wenn auf dem Weg in eine globale Informationsgesellschaft die Idee der nachhaltigen Entwicklung eine Chance bekommen soll. Damit sind zwei Themen von globaler Bedeutung angesprochen, die heute kontrovers diskutiert werden: • Nachhaltige Entwicklung (sustainable development), eine Leitidee, die mit dem «Brundtland-Report» von 1987 in die Diskussion globaler Umweltund Entwicklungsfragen eingeführt wurde und seit dem UNO-Weltgipfel von 1992 in Rio wachsenden Einfluss auf die politische Willensbildung ausübt. Der UNO-Weltgipfel 2002 in Johannesburg hat neue Meilensteine in dieser Diskussion gesetzt. • Informationsgesellschaft (information society) oder auch Wissensgesellschaft (knowledge society), eine Vision der Veränderungen, die durch den breiten Einsatz der ICT in der Wirtschaft und anderen Bereichen der Gesellschaft ermöglicht oder beschleunigt werden. Der UNO-Weltgipfel zur Informationsgesellschaft (2003 in Genf und 2005 in Tunis) zeigt das wachsende politische Interesse an diesem Thema. Auf dem Weg in eine globale Informationsgesellschaft bieten sich bedeutende, ja vielleicht einzigartige Chancen für eine Kurskorrektur in Richtung Nachhaltigkeit. Zugleich bringt die rasante Weiterentwicklung und Verbreitung von ICT aber auch neuartige Risiken für Natur, Gesellschaft und Individuum mit sich. Erstaunlich ist, dass trotz dieser Zusammenhänge die Themen Nachhaltigkeit und Informationsgesellschaft in Wissenschaft, Politik und Medien noch weitgehend getrennt behandelt werden. Allerdings nimmt die Zahl der Projekte und Publikationen rasch zu, die sich mit der Beziehung zwischen Nachhaltigkeit und Informationsgesellschaft befassen. (Ein Verzeichnis ist im Anhang zu finden.) Mit diesem Memorandum will der Arbeitskreis «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» der Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI): • die Chancen und Risiken aufzeigen, die sich auf dem Weg in eine globale Informationsgesellschaft für das Ziel einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung ergeben,

The aim of this paper is to highlight the main characteristics of what the authors call 'the economy of qualities'. The authors show that qualifying products and positioning goods are major concerns for agents evolving within the 'economy of qualities'. Competition in such an economy is structured through two basic mechanisms. The rst is what the authors propose to call the process of singularization of products. The second is the mechanism whereby consumers are attached to, and detached from, goods that are proposed to them. At the heart of these logics, one can nd multiple socio-technical devices that are designed by economic agents, which ensure the distribution of cognitive competencies, and which constantly and nely tune supply and demand. Relying upon Jean Gadrey's work, the authors claim that the economy of qualities is nowhere more effective than in services providing activities, and especially in those sectors that invest heavily in New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Finally, the authors suggest that, in the economy of qualities, the functioning and the organization of markets are issues that are shared by scholars and actors. In these highly re exive markets, a collaboration between them is needed.

Concerning electronic WOM, three major underlying motives can be differentiated: opinion seeking, opinion giving and opinion passing (Flynn et al. 1996, Sun et al. 2006). The main aim of the research is to analyse the relationship between these three dimensions and the level of customer satisfaction. The research is based on a representative sample of 1000 respondents living in Hungary. According to the hypothesized Structural Equation Model (SEM), we can conclude that online opinion seeking behaviour has a significant positive impact on levels of customer satisfaction, as well as on opinion giving and opinion passing. This implies that opinion leaders not just share, but also collect enormous amounts of information about products and services and raise their expectations according to feedback. By doing so, their prior expectations are in relation to the true customer value of online stores and products. This means that customer satisfactionmeasured using the disconfirmation paradigmwill reach a higher level, so it is advisory for online retailers to encourage customers to give feedback, write reviews, because it will affect the customer satisfaction level in a positive manner.

- by Judit Simon
- •
- Information Economy/Society, Applied Economics
- by William Lazonick
- •
- Sociology, Corporate Governance, Information Economy/Society, Stock Market

The search in philosophy for a meaningful wholeness, an allembracing principle, which relates the reason of human endeavor with the universal basis and the order of things and meanings, was a common trait of several metaphysical conceptions and also a matter of (Brinker Dozier et al. 1998: 113), so even in everyday situations of truth-telling and promise-keeping must be understood in terms of the level of contexting in a given culture. But the authors also emphasize that the challenges of cross-cultural ethics can be ameliorated by realizing that some differences are due to differences in communication dynamics, rather than to differences in ethical standards. So differences in communication styles must be separated from true differences in ethical attitudes. Such difference of communication styles and dynamics were described by Edward T. Hall as "low context" and "high context" cultures. There are three major outcomes of communication that are closely related to the cultural level of contexting: (1) facts, face saving and harmonious interpersonal relationships. Low context cultures value facts and "hard data", that is, statistics, quantitative information and absolute, objective truths. In a high-context culture there is a "public truth" which preserves everyone's face, and the "real truth" which is understood by all, but not verbalized. Communicators from low-context cultures value facts, even if this undermines personal face and harmonious interpersonal relations for their more highly-contexted counterparts. Conversely, people in high-context cultures will sacrifice facts in order to save face and promote harmony (Brinker Dozier et al. 1998: 114, 115).

- by Imre Ungvari Zrinyi
- •
- Information Economy/Society, Applied Economics

Hungarian small- and medium-sized enterprises are facing the challenges of digitalisation and innovation to survive fierce competition in the era of Industry 4.0, and particularly of COVID-19. Survival in the heavily hit sectors depends on the degree of digitalisation and involvement in e-commerce. This paper aims to examine Hungarian SMEs’ current scale of digitalisation and adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies. It also analyses the role of the Hungarian government’s support for SMEs’ digital transformation. To this end, secondary data were collected from Eurostat, the European Commission and the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, including the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), indices of skills and innovation from SME performance reviews and sectoral business statistics. In processing the data, the study strictly followed the European Commission’ classification protocol, complemented by a qualitative analysis of reports and programmes related to digitalisation and Indu...

During recent decades, the varieties of capitalism approach has provided one of the
most important contributions on the analysis of advanced capitalism. However, there
are national experiences that seem to be hard to explain from this theoretical
perspective. In this article we underline that this is particularly true for countries
that are characterized by a high degree of internal diversity, such as the Italian case.
For this reason we propose to combine the national and regional dimensions,
studying what can be defined as a ‘regionalized capitalism’: a complex and
heterogeneous system that entails both remarkable dysfunctions and elements of
strength. Analysing the Italian case, we show the importance of centre-periphery
relations, which produce a mix of local economic dynamism and national public
disorder (public deficit and debt, inefficient policies). At a local level, SMEs and
their networks cooperate in a flexible and neo-voluntaristic way to produce
territorial competitive advantages: a networked economy based on relational
capacities. However, the success of local economies has delayed the adjustment of
public policies at a central level. In the last decade, this process has endangered
economic development, while Italian firms were challenged by increasing globalization.
Drawing attention to the regional dimension, this research approach offers not
only useful insights for understanding a single national case study, but also holds
broad theoretical implications for the analysis of change and restructuring of
advanced economies.
Keywords: Italy; local development; varieties of capitalism.

- by Luigi Burroni
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has not only opened up new opportunities for economic growth and social development but has also posed problems and challenges. It can shape and enhance a wide range of developmental applications in agriculture, industry and social sectors and is influencing all sections of the society. ICT provides unique opportunities for human development. At the same time, ICT has been widening the gaps between and within countries, regions, gender while increasing disparities divide between the rural-urban, rich-poor, elite neglected and also within the different categories of women in various spheres of activity. It is necessary to build up women capacities to involve them in productive activities, institutional building, family and social transformation, decision-making process, political representation, trade and commerce, entrepreneurial development and social leadership. There is a need to enhance opportunities to women to enable them to own, manage and control industries and service enterprises including IT-based units. There is also need to provide more opportunities in e-related sectors to them in higher managerial, technical positions in government and non-government agencies, research, educational institutions in private and public sectors, without confining their role to only call centres, telecentres, data-entry level and lower levels in the organizations. ICT has to address all these problems of women as a whole and has to be used to facilitate to build women empowered society.

- by B Suresh Lal, PhD
- •
- Women's Rights, Women, ICT for Development, Information Economy/Society
- by Oksana Mont
- •
- Engineering, Industrial Ecology, Sustainable Development, Information Economy/Society

This paper considers the phenomenon of e-commerce as an achievement of serial acts of representation and re-representation. Drawing upon the concepts of virtualism and the cultural circuit of capital, we attempt to demonstrate the material consequences of economic abstractions. The paper looks at the constitutive role of virtualism within the development of a domain called e-commerce. Mobilized by a heterodox group of actors, including academics, consultants, journalists and practitioners, abstractions demonstrated considerable agency in the construction of e-commerce, and were used in an attempt to demonstrate that a new, and potentially hyper-profitable, form of capitalism was being born. This paper undertakes a critical evaluation of these processes and draws attention to the neglected role of the cultural circuit of capital and a range of practical knowledges that are continually being revised and which we argue are equally constitutive of e-commerce. While it is easy to dismiss the promises of e-commerce as so much hyperbole, particularly in the wake of the dot.com crash, we argue that the success of e-commerce is signaled by the fact that it has lost much of its rhetorical power and has faded into the business background. E-commerce now constitutes an increasingly ambient set of technologies and practices.

- by shaun french
- •
- Business, Sociology, Information Economy/Society, Knowledge

Bu çalışma Japonya'nın bilgi toplumuna dönüşüm sürecini inceleyerek ülkenin kalkınma fonksiyonunun farklı değişkenlerini ortaya çıkarmak gayesindedir. Japonya günümüzde teknoloji ve kalkınma açısından en üst sıralarda bulunan ülkelerden biridir. Ülkeyi bugünkü konumuna getiren süreç iktisat yazınında genelde İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasından başlatılmaktadır. Ancak Japonya, 20. yüzyılın başından itibaren sanayileşmiş bir ekonomidir ve kalkınmışlık sürecini ancak daha bütüncül ve tarihsel bir bakış açısıyla kavramak mümkündür. Bu çalışma temelde iki bölümden oluşmaktadır. "Japon Gelişmesinin Kökleri" isimli ilk bölüm 17. yüzyıldan başlayarak 1950'lere kadar uzanan geniş bir dönemin iktisadi gelişimini, iç ve dış siyasetini, eğitim politikalarını değerlendirmektedir. "Japon Gelişmesinin Etkenleri" ise ülkenin gelişim tecrübesini politikalar ve diğer dış ve iç etkenler açısından değerlendirmektedir ki bu etkenler sanayi ve teknoloji politikaları başta olmak üzere, Japon işletme yönetim sistemi ve şirket ağları (Keiretsu'lar), eğitimin rolü, Japon kültürü ve kendine has (sui generis) kapitalizmidir.

This article analyses information asymmetry in conceptual terms. It presents one characterization of the asymmetric information concept, described more by a socio-economic vision of it and its relationship with the digital economy. It also frames asymmetry of information as a public good versus private good versus common good, and checks how it creates externalities.

- by Paulo Resende da Silva and +1
- •
- Information Society, Information Economy/Society

The following paper will trace the recently established field of Information Ethics through it’s various evolutions, from it’s origins in Librarianship to it’s role as a global player in areas as diverse as technology, media, global humanitarianism, and the philosophy of information. The praxis of the field will be outlined for the uninitiated reader, followed by an intimate history of the founding players and their continued contribution to this ever-evolving field. The current evolutions of Information Ethics will then be explored in the context of their application to the viral global phenomena of Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE), and finally, the paper will conclude with projections towards future evolutions in Information Ethics, as well as an exploration of potential definitions for the field.

- by Jared Bielby
- •
- Business Ethics, Philosophy, Ethics, Information Philosophy

are having an increasing impact on societies and in the globalization process that is integrating them. Societies are trying to regulate this impact, and adapt it to their respective cultural infra-structures. Societies and cultures are in reciprocal co-adaptations with Information and Communication Technologies. Synergic relationships might emerge in this co-adaptation process by means of positive and negative feedback loops, as well as feedforward ones. This would make the whole larger than the sum of its parts, generating emergent properties in the parts involved as well as in the whole coming forth. The academic, private, and public sectors are integrating their activities; multi-disciplinary groups and inter-disciplinary teams are being formed, and collaborative research and development projects are being organized in order to facilitate and adequately orient the design and implementation of the feedback and the feedforward loops, so the synergic relationships are socially positive and personally human. One of the main purposes of the 4 th International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics (IMSCI 2010) is to bring together academics, professionals, and managers from the private and the public sectors, so they can share ideas, results of research, and innovative services or products, in a multi-disciplinary and multi-sector forum. Educational technologies, socio-economic organizations, and socio-political processes are essential domains among those involved in the evolving co-adaptation and cotransformation between societies and cultures on the one hand, and between informatics and cybernetics (communication and control) on the other hand. Consequently, the main conferences in the context of the IMSCI 2010 Multi-Conference are the following: • These three conferences are related to each other and, as a whole, are producing or might produce synergic relationships with Information and Communication Technologies. This is why the Organizing Committees of the three of them have the purpose of combining their efforts in a way that would lead to the organization of an adequate joint event, where academics, researchers, consultants, professionals, innovators, and practitioners from the three areas might relate and interact with each other in the same event. These types of interaction might generate possibilities of cross-fertilization and analogical thinking, as well as possibilities of new working hypothesis, ideas, and reflections on the impact, significance, and usefulness of Informatics and Cybernetics in important • What ethical and legal issues will be a part of the social transformation produced by the ICTs? On behalf of the Organizing Committees, I extend our heartfelt thanks to: WMSCI 2010 711 1841 3586 1.95 5.04 242 34.04% IMETI 2010 425 1124 2480 2.21 5.84 134 31.53% IMSCI 2010 321 720 1751 2.43 5.45 131 40.81% CISCI 2010 622 1174 3321 2.83 5.34 224 36.01% TOTAL 2079 4859 11138 2.29 5.36 731 35.16% We also extend our gratitude to the co-editors of these proceedings, for the hard work, energy and eagerness they shown preparing their respective sessions. We express our intense gratitude to Professor William Lesso for his wise and opportune tutoring, for his eternal energy, integrity, and continuous support and advice, as the Program Committee Chair of past conferences, and as Honorary President of WMSCI 2010, as well as for being a very caring old friend and intellectual father to many of us. We also extend our gratitude to Professor Belkis Sanchez, who brilliantly managed the organizing process. We also express our immense gratitude to Professor Freddy Malpica for distinguishing this conference by accepting the position of Honorary Chair of EISTA 2010 and the past conferences of PISTA and SOIC; to Professors Friedrich Welsch for serving as the Program Co-Chair of EISTA

- by Nagib C Callaos
- •
- Business Ethics, Computer And Society, Education, Science Education
- by Nagib C Callaos
- •
- Computer And Society, Education, Web 2.0, E-learning

Information has come to be perceived, on the whole, as something ordinary and seems to be slowly losing its value. In this article, this is explored in four respects. It is no longer possible to have an overview with respect to the information at one’s disposal. Furthermore, there is a relatively great supply of information, provided by a greater number of contributors than before. Some recent developments in education are also relevant in evaluating the situation. The impact of technical developments, in particular the Internet, on present society, is important from several points of view. This is given attention accordingly.

- by Jasper Doomen
- •
- Information Systems, Sociology, Information Science, Information Retrieval
- by Nagib C Callaos
- •
- Business Ethics, Computer And Society, E-learning, Information Society

The question of how and why people adopt technologies is an area that has received great scrutiny, but less attention is given to those who willingly choose to avoid particular technologies. This article considers current models of technology adoption and explores how technology influences us as a society and individually, paying special attention to how large-scale shifts in technological change come to bear on individuals who choose not to adopt specific technologies. By combining scholarship in the information sciences with observations from media ecology theorists, this article proposes a more nuanced view of technology adoption and resistance.

- by Brett Lunceford
- •
- Information Systems, Management, History of Science and Technology, Sociology

... The abandoning of the materialist basis leads inexorably from revolutionary socialism to reformism (Grossmann, 1970, p ... rise in the organic composi-tion of capital would lead to a falling rate of proJit ... only the variable part... more

- by David Yaffe
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society, Karl Marx, Crisis theory

This article investigates how the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007) gets inscribed in the fabric of search algorithms by way of social practices. Drawing on the tradition of the social construction of technology (SCOT) and 17 qualitative expert interviews I discuss how search engines and their “capital accumulation cycle” (Fuchs, forthcoming) are negotiated and stabilized in a network of actors and interests, website providers and users first and foremost. I further show how corporate search engines and their capitalist ideology are solidified in a socio-political context characterized by a techno-euphoric climate of innovation and a politics of privatization. This analysis provides a valuable contribution to contemporary search engine critique mainly focusing on search engines’ business models and societal implications. It shows that a shift of perspective is needed from impacts search engines have on society towards social practices and power relations involved in the construction of search engines to reconsider and renegotiate search engines and their algorithmic ideology in the future.

- by Astrid Mager
- •
- Algorithms, Qualitative methodology, Ideology, Social Construction of Technology

Business ethics as an academic discipline and a management practice related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerged in the late 1970s and the 1980s. It was a promising movement in the shadow of the globalization process. It started in the United States and followed five to ten years later in all industrialized countries, including those in Europe. Some companies developed their first codes of ethics, mission statements and charters of values at that time. Seminars were held for managers in order to look at ethical dilemmas and analyze ethical case studies. The Body Shop, the well-known cosmetics company, went a step further in the 1990s by launching a major social and ethical audit of its operations. In its famous report "People, Planet and Profits," Shell applied the notion of sustainable entrepreneurship to a new sort of reporting, which measured and analyzed not only the company's financial goals and results, but also its ecological and social goals.

- by Laszlo Zsolnai
- •
- Business Ethics, Information Economy/Society, Applied Economics
- by Colin Gordon
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society

This note is a rejoinder to Hodgson's second attempt at a critique of our model of participatory planning through negotiated coordination. The rejoinder is organized under four headings: market exchange and market forces/negotiated coordination; subsidiarity and pluralism; innovation, entrepreneurship, and tacit knowledge; and autonomy and self-government. We consider Hodgson's characterization of our position to be a travesty and rebut his assertions under each heading. The note concludes with a restatement of the promise of participatory planning – a self-governing society in which people have both the right to autonomy and privacy and also the right and responsibility to participate in the running of their society's economy, rather than leaving economic activity to be shaped by an economic ruling class and/or the coercion of market forces.

- by Fikret Adaman
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society

Abstract We live in a world in which ever-greater arenas of social life are shaped by standardization and bureaucratic rationalization, as the pursuit of ‘measurable results’ sweeps everything from universities to hospitals to international organizations. Yet intuitively we understand that much of our collective and individual existence escapes these efforts of rationalization. How then do we develop a conception of the social world that appreciates both the powerful drive towards rationalization and the things that escape or overflow? This article seeks to answer this riddle by examining the central role of ambiguity in social life in general – and in organizational practice in particular. The concept of ambiguity is implicit in much social theory. Yet, over time, as theories become established, much of their openness to tension and ambiguity tends to be closed off. This article seeks to recapture some of that messiness, to shift the focus of attention slightly and to look at what slips out, does not fit or gets lost in translation. Drawing on the examples of two international organizations – the IMF and the World Bank – I explore the ways in which bureaucracies seek not only to contain ambiguity through various forms of quantification and standardization, but also to foster it.

- by Jacqueline Best
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society

This paper shows that Marx's theory of agricultural rent is not an adjunct t o his theory of capital at the level of distribution but is inseparably developed from it. The forms of differential and absolute rent are shown to correspond to the formation of market value and price of production in the agricultural sector respectively, these in turn depending upon the barriers posed by landed property to intensive and extensive cultivation. In appendices, Marx's critique of Ricardo's theory of rent, differential rent on the worst land, a critique of other interpretations of Marx, and the 'historical transformation problem' are each considered briefly.

- by Ben Fine
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society, Market Value

In this article the authors aim at showing how an "anomalous" international and very intense cooperation between Italy and Mozambique was born. In fact, Italy has not a strong colonial tradition, especially in Mozambique, so it seems interesting to try to understand the reason why this former Portuguese colony has become the Italian most important partner in its cooperation activity. This analysis is based on the main hypothesis related to the birth of international bilateral cooperation: they have been seriously considered in order to explain the origin of this strange relationship, but they cannot completely clarify this particular case. According to the Italian social and political recent history, the privileged relationship with Mozambique is due more to a "bottom up" process than to geo-strategic or economic reasons. The fact that Mozambique had belonged to a weak Western power such as Portugal certainly gave Italy the opportunity to penetrate more easily in this country than in the ones which had been under the strong dominion of France or England. One of the most important results of this "anomalous" cooperation has to be found in the scientific fields (such as geology, architecture, biotechnologies) and in its impact on the development of Mozambique.

- by Luca Bussotti
- •
- African Studies, Comparative History, Africa, Science

Intellectual property rights is a concern for developing countries ever since the publication of Dunkel proposal. Creation of WTO has generated fear in the minds of member nations. These efforts have been viewed as a strategy by the developed world to control the developing world. In India there were discussions on the impact of WTO on agriculture, manufacturing and service sectors. There were specific instances in which very strong criticisms were raised on the patenting of Basmati rice, ponni rice, turmeric and other agricultural products. There were also anxieties on what will be the impact of WTO in other sectors. One such sector is Information Technology. IT contributes substantially to Indian economy. It is very important to understand the importance of WTO and IPR on IT sector. The present article is an effort to discuss impacts of IPR on IT.

- by Srinivasan Kannan
- •
- Information Technology, Economics, Intellectual Property, IT Management

Under the planned economy China’s urban population was largely immobile and governed through the socialist workunit (danwei). Market reforms begun in the 1980s have culminated in the last decade with a dramatic decline of the state-sector and the emergence of a more mobile, heterogeneous and economically independent urban population. In rendering the old system obsolete, these trends have led the Chinese government to rethink its strategies for urban governance. At the turn of the millennium, a new campaign to ‘build communities’ was launched throughout the nation with the objective of establishing the residential ‘community’ as the new basic unit of urban governance. This paper explores the logic behind this policy innovation and analyzes the techniques adopted to operationalize ‘community governance’.

- by David Bray
- •
- Sociology, Governance, Urbanism, Construction

The attempt to establish a unified taxonomy for the field of Information Ethics is both unattainable and unwarranted. The categorization of Information Ethics as a defined discipline, an applicable practice, a philosophy and a worldview remains constantly in flux due to, what Luciano Floridi terms, ‘philosophical naturalism’. As such, a broadening understanding of the field will only serve to further collapse categorization. The following paper will outline, using a discourse analysis methodology, how the nature of the field of Information Ethics at a foundational level must necessarily defy classification. The assumptions behind the current classifications of the field will be questioned. Beginning with the history of the inception of the field through Librarianship and Cybernetics and questioning the yet unresolved ontological debates between information philosophers such as Rafael Capurro and Floridi, this paper will explicate how any such attempt to develop an agreed upon taxonomy will and should always remain incomplete.

- by Jared Bielby
- •
- Critical Theory, Information Systems, Business Ethics, Discourse Analysis

This paper engages with a wide range of social theories to argue for a more nuanced understanding of money that is attuned to its spatial and scalar dimensions. The paper begins with a brief overview of modernist and postmodernist accounts, including the works of These theories have provided a useful corrective to neoclassical economic accounts that distil the economic from society and culture, but they reinforce an understanding of money that is homogenizing, in that it is said to annihilate space by time. By contrast, network theories of money, which are reviewed in the following section of this paper, offer a more contextualized understanding of money's embeddedness in social relations, in particular vis-à -vis the trust that is invested in money forms and institutions that help to knit together the networks through which money circulates. The spatial dynamics of monetary circulation are intrinsic to this model, but there is little sense of the geopolitical dimensions of money's role in the territorialization of space. The studies of money that are reviewed in the penultimate section of this paper begin to address the dimensions of power at work in money's production and circulation, largely in terms of the rise of the state and national currencies, with particular attention to the particularities of money forms. As I argue in the conclusion to this paper, these various epistemological approaches are not easily reconciled. But I suggest that the aim should not be to resolve the paradoxes that emerge, but to foreground them. In so doing, not only will it be possible to think more carefully about the scales through which money circulates and which it helps to produce and reproduce, but to invest our understanding of money with a little more life and dynamism.

- by Emily Gilbert
- •
- Sociology, Social Theory, Information Economy/Society, Money

The present era that we are living can be described as the " Information Age " as a semnificative general abordation for Information Society. No matter what area of science and technology we look at, it is more obvious that ever that we are dealing with an 'information overflow' without precedent in the history of humanity. Environment Sciences are no exception to this rule and recent advances in this field would have been unthinkable, unmanageable and unattainable without the support offered by modern information technology, in the sense of Environment Information Systems or Environment Informatics. The aim of the present paper is to introduce and to underline the importance of Environment Information Systems, especially in environmental protection, planning, management and, of course, decision making. This work paper is focused on the creation, management, use and role of Environmental Information Systems; at the same time, the paper explores the typology of EISs and examined the common definitions of them in the light of these major issues: the concepts of data, information and knowledge in EISs, the connection between EISs and EI, the problems and obstacles to the development of EISs and finally, the emerging demand for public access via EISs and EI to environmental information and environmental protection, engineering and research in Information Society.

ABSTRACT This article addresses the issue of how the market and the non-market are to be understood especially by concentrating on the theory of money. For mainstream economics, the market is simply an institution facilitating exchange, money being the key instrument for alleviating the inefficiencies of barter. In contrast, recent work in other social sciences, such as that by Zelizer, distinguishes among markets, and various roles of money, depending on cultural and social content. While being sympathetic to such an approach, we claim that the commodity is a better analytical starting point than the market. Based on Marx's work, we then show what commodities have in common and establish a common essence for money as generalized purchasing power. This is a peculiarly bland essence that allows money to undertake the variety of social roles identified by Zelizer.

- by Ben Fine
- •
- Sociology, Social Theory, Political Economy, Theory

Contributors to this series have been invited to include 'historical reflection' on the emergence of the 'moment of theory', a period running from the late 1960s through to the early 1980s, as a component of their discussions. The greater part of my discussion focuses on Althusserian Marxism in Britain, using this case to add a further level of complexity to the schema set out in Ian Hunter's invaluable 'Notes for a Seminar'.

- by barry hindess
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society
- by Monica Greco
- •
- Sociology, Information Economy/Society
- by Lilis Setiani
- •
- Information Economy/Society

This paper addresses recent changes in governance patterns that significantly altered power relations and wealth distribution in global commodity chains. First, it emphasizes the rise of a financial sphere made up of institutional investors and executives of large corporations at the top of GCCs, and discusses its consequences for supplier relations and working conditions of women workers at the base of GCCs. Second, by linking recent governance debates at the level of the firm to issues of governance of the whole chain, it identifies three distinct normative views (shareholder, stakeholder and institutional) of the ways in which the distribution of social welfare can be improved in GCCs. Beyond the shareholder and stakeholder views, a call is made for strengthening an institutional view of GCC governance.

- by Florence Palpacuer
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- Sociology, Information Economy/Society, Wealth Distribution, Social Context

Hoopla about the emergence of an information economy was widespread by the 1990s, when academics, politicians and the press celebrated the social transformations brought aboutby computers. Yet the rhetoric of high-tech revolution long predates Windows 95 or even the World Wide Web. Building on the work of Howard Brick and others on postwar debates over technology and the economy, this article explores how the trope of the “information revolution” entered public discourse in the United States in the 1960s. It considers how the general idea of a post-industrial society – an economy in which manufacturing might play a diminished role – became specifically tied in the public imagination to information technology and intellectual property. Technology firms waged a concerted campaign to assuage anxieties about technological unemployment while extolling the importance of computing and other new technologies to the nation’s economic future. It illustrates how advertisers developed a public relations message for firms such as RCA and IBM, aiming to reassure the public about the potential of computers and automation to transform society for the better. This promotion of the information revolution actually predated the influential discussions of a post-industrial society by theorists such as Daniel Bell and Alain Touraine in the early 1970s. The essay also highlights how prominent public intellectuals, such as Margaret Mead and Herman Kahn, and government officials lent their credibility to claims about the value of a future economy based on creating and processing information during the 1960s.

- by Alex Sayf Cummings
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- Intellectual History, 1960s (U.S. history), History of Technology, Advertising
- by Jared Bielby
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- Information Systems, Finance, Religion, Buddhism

Одним из основных нарративов общественного развития в последнее время становится «цифровизация», которая постепенно красной нитью пронизывает все пространства существования человека, все сферы его деятельности. Но совсем недавно постулировалось развитие общества как информационного, и в общественном и, соответственно, научном дискурсе обсуждались «актуальные проблемы информатизации» (образо-вания, экономики, культуры и т. д.). Что же повлияло на переход от «инфор-матизации» к «цифровизации»? Какие смыслы можно из этого извлечь? Как это связано с процессами глобализации? К какому обществу мы движемся, когда некоторые мыслители констатируют наступление общества постин-формационного? В предлагаемой статье производится попытка дать ответ на эти и другие вопросы, проанализировать основные смыслы «цифровизации».

The concept of the circular economy has gained increasing prominence in academic, practitioner and policy circles and is linked to greening economies and sustainable development. However, the idea is more often celebrated than critically interrogated. Analysis shows the concept circulates as an idea and ideal, exemplified by industrial symbiosis and extended product life. Yet, its actual enactment is limited and fragile. Instead, circular economies are achieved mostly through global recycling networks which are the primary means by which wastes are recovered as resources. European policies eschew these circuits. Resource recovery through global recycling networks is regarded as a dirty and illegal trade. In its place, EU circular economies attempt to transform wastes to resources within the boundaries of the EU. Through an analysis of two case studies of resource recovery in the UK, we highlight the challenges that confront making circular economies within the EU, showing that these are borne of a conjuncture of politically created markets, material properties and morally defined materials circuits. We show resource recovery in the EU to be framed by moral economies, driven by discourses of ecological modernisation, environmental justice and resource (in)security, the last of which connects to China's resource-intensive development.

- by Helen Holmes
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- Sociology, Recycling, Waste, Information Economy/Society
- by Kaan Kangal
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- Marxist Economics, Information Economy/Society, Immaterial Labour, Karl Marx
- by László Csicsmann
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- Information Economy/Society, Applied Economics, National Security

The thought of Gabriel Tarde has recently been presented as a radical alternative to a modernist tradition in social theory that continues to rely on supposedly moribund concepts of class, action, statehood, and the like. Focussing on Tarde's political writings, this article seeks to counter this prevalent vision of Tarde as a thinker of molecular social processes who provides us with the tools to think beyond the parameters of sovereignty and to embrace a transnational understanding of social change. Tarde's thinking of politics is analysed in terms of its reliance on a political anthropology of obedience, its ambivalent attitude towards the democratization of the political sphere, its image of the state as an enabler and filter of inventions, and its attempts to articulate the relation between the social and the political. By means of the notion of 'empowering pacification', the article concludes that the significance of Tarde for the present lies in his contradictory and symptomatic conceptualization of the persistence of political power and institutional centralization in the midst of a tendency towards the global expansion of the field of social interactions, as well as in his strategic attempt to imagine forms of power that would neutralize the possibility of social turmoil and class conflict.

- by Alberto Toscano
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- Sociology, Information Economy/Society

Always cite the published version, so the author(s) will receive recognition through services that track citation counts, e.g. Scopus. If you need to cite the page number of the TSpace version 1 because you cannot access the published version , then cite the Tspace version in addition to the 2 published version. Published version citation: Li, Tania M. 2007 Practices of assemblage and community forest management. Economy and society, 36(2): 263-293. TSpace version citation: Li, Tania M. 2007 Practices of assemblage and community forest management. TSpace. Available at

- by Tania Li
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- Sociology, Information Economy/Society
- by Thomas Lemke
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- Sociology, Political Economy, Political Theory, Governmentality