Matei Candea (ed.): The Social after Gabriel Tarde: Debates and Assessments (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · actor-network theory, social science, society, sociology

The social sciences and humanities are now being swept by a Tardean revival, a rediscovery and reappraisal of the work of this truly unique thinker, for whom ‘everything is a society and every science a sociology’. Tarde is being brought forward as the misrecognised forerunner of a post-Durkheimian era. Reclaimed from a century of near-oblivion, his sociology has been linked to Foucaultian microphysics of power, to Deleuze’s philosophy of difference, and most recently to the spectrum of approaches related to Actor Network Theory. In this connection, Bruno Latour hailed Tarde’s sociology as “an alternative beginning for an alternative social science”. This volume asks what such an alternative social science might look like.
Publisher Routledge, 2009
CRESC (Culture, Economy and the Social) series
ISBN 0415543398, 9780415543392
287 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-7-17)
Comment (0)Richard Sproat: Language, Technology, and Society (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · language, linguistics, literacy, society, speech, technology, translation, writing

This book traces the history of language technology from writing – the first technology specifically designed for language – to digital speech and other contemporary language systems. The book describes the social impact of technological developments over five millennia, and addresses topics such as the ways in which literacy has influenced cognitive and scientific development; the social impact of modern speech technology; the influence of various printing technologies; the uses and limitations of machine translation; how far mass information access is a means for exploitation or enlightenment; the deciphering of ancient scripts; and technical aids for people with language disabilities.
Richard Sproat writes in a clear, readable style, introducing linguistic and other scientific concepts as they are needed. His book offers fascinating reading for everyone interested in how language and technology have shaped and continue to shape our day-to-day lives.
Publisher Oxford University Press, 2010
ISBN 0199549389, 9780199549382
Length 286 pages
e-G8 Forum report (2011)
Filed under report | Tags: · business, economy, education, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, internet, open government, politics, society, technology, web 2.0

“Fittingly, this e-book is a virtual incarnation of an event whose physical existence was fleeting, but whose impact will endure. Opened on May 24, 2011 in Paris by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the e-G8 Forum gathered together the finest minds and most skillful operators of the Internet for just two days. But the Forum’s effect as a catalyst—on participants, on the G8 Summit that succeeded it, and on public policy by governments worldwide—was, and will continue to be, far more meaningful.
The Forum was an intense and ambitious gathering of 1500 participants from more than 30 countries. It culminated in a delegation to the G8 Summit of Heads and State and governments, where questions regarding
the Internet were on the agenda for the first time in the history of international summit meetings. The delegation was led by Maurice Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, and comprised Hiroski Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten; Yuri Milner, CEO of Digital Sky Technologies; Stéphane Richard, CEO of France Telecom-Orange; Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google; and Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook.” (from Preface)
Edited by Ruth Marshall
Produced by PublicisLive
Published in June 2011
76 pages
authors
wikipedia
protest site