Sandra Braman: Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power (2006)
Filed under book | Tags: · copyright, data, governance, information policy, internet governance, law, politics, power, technology
As the informational state replaces the bureaucratic welfare state, control over information creation, processing, flows, and use has become the most effective form of power. In Change of State Sandra Braman examines the theoretical and practical ramifications of this “change of state.” She looks at the ways in which governments are deliberate, explicit, and consistent in their use of information policy to exercise power, exploring not only such familiar topics as intellectual property rights and privacy but also areas in which policy is highly effective but little understood. Such lesser-known issues include hybrid citizenship, the use of “functionally equivalent borders” internally to allow exceptions to U.S. law, research funding, census methods, and network interconnection. Trends in information policy, argues Braman, both manifest and trigger change in the nature of governance itself.
After laying the theoretical, conceptual, and historical foundations for understanding the informational state, Braman examines 20 information policy principles found in the U.S Constitution. She then explores the effects of U.S. information policy on the identity, structure, borders, and change processes of the state itself and on the individuals, communities, and organizations that make up the state. Looking across the breadth of the legal system, she presents current law as well as trends in and consequences of several information policy issues in each category affected.
Change of State introduces information policy on two levels, coupling discussions of specific contemporary problems with more abstract analysis drawing on social theory and empirical research as well as law. Most important, the book provides a way of understanding how information policy brings about the fundamental social changes that come with the transformation to the informational state.
Publisher MIT Press, 2006
ISBN 0262025973, 9780262025973
545 pages
Giovanni Ziccardi: Resistance, Liberation Technology and Human Rights in the Digital Age (2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, censorship, crowdsourcing, cyberwar, facebook, hacking, hacktivism, human rights, internet, internet activism, liberation technologies, open data, politics, resistance, social media, surveillance, technology, transparency, twitter, wikileaks
This book explains strategies, techniques, legal issues and the relationships between digital resistance activities, information warfare actions, liberation technology and human rights. It studies the concept of authority in the digital era and focuses in particular on the actions of so-called digital dissidents. Moving from the difference between hacking and computer crimes, the book explains concepts of hacktivism, the information war between states, a new form of politics (such as open data movements, radical transparency, crowd sourcing and “Twitter Revolutions”), and the hacking of political systems and of state technologies. The book focuses on the protection of human rights in countries with oppressive regimes.
– Deals with digital resistance activities all over the world
– First book to describe political and human rights issues in Egypt, Tunisia, Cuba and Yemen
– A critical analysis of the WikiLeaks case
Publisher Springer, 2013
Volume 7 van Law, Governance and Technology series
ISBN 9400752768, 9789400752764
328 pages
via Marcell Mars via Jaromil
Yongming Zhou: Historicizing Online Politics: Telegraphy, the Internet, and Political Participation in China (2006)
Filed under book | Tags: · anthropology, china, history of technology, internet, politics, technology, telegraphy, web
It is widely recognized that internet technology has had a profound effect on political participation in China, but this new use of technology is not unprecedented in Chinese history. This is a pioneering work that systematically describes and analyzes the manner in which the Chinese used telegraphy during the late Qing, and the internet in the contemporary period, to participate in politics.
Drawing upon insights from the fields of anthropology, history, political science, and media studies, this book historicizes the internet in China and may change the direction of the emergent field of Chinese internet studies. In contrast to previous works, this book is unprecedented in its perspective, in the depth of information and understanding, in the conclusions it reaches, and in its methodology. Written in a clear and engaging style, this book is accessible to a broad audience.
Publisher Stanford University Press, 2006
Asian Studies / Political Science series
ISBN 0804751285, 9780804751285
304 pages