Iceland's Networked Society


Book Description

Linked by the politics of global trade networks, Viking Age Europe was a well-connected world. Within this fertile social environment, Iceland ironically has been casted as a marginal society too remote to participate in global affairs, and destined to live in the shadow of its more successful neighbours. Drawing on new archaeological evidence, Tara Carter challenges this view, arguing that by building strong social networks the first citizens of Iceland balanced thinking globally while acting locally, creating the first cosmopolitan society in the North Atlantic. Iceland’s Networked Society asks us to reconsider how societies like Iceland can, even when positioned at the margins of competing empires, remain active in a global political economy and achieve social complexity on its own terms.




Networks of Outrage and Hope


Book Description

Networks of Outrage and Hope is an exploration of the new forms of social movements and protests that are erupting in the world today, from the Arab uprisings to the indignadas movement in Spain, from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the social protests in Turkey, Brazil and elsewhere. While these and similar social movements differ in many important ways, there is one thing they share in common: they are all interwoven inextricably with the creation of autonomous communication networks supported by the Internet and wireless communication. In this new edition of his timely and important book, Manuel Castells examines the social, cultural and political roots of these new social movements, studies their innovative forms of self-organization, assesses the precise role of technology in the dynamics of the movements, suggests the reasons for the support they have found in large segments of society, and probes their capacity to induce political change by influencing people’s minds. Two new chapters bring the analysis up-to-date and draw out the implications of these social movements and protests for understanding the new forms of social change and political democracy in the global network society.




The Network Society


Book Description

Manuel Castells has drawn together a group of contributors to explore the patterns and dynamics of the network society in its cultural and institutional diversity.




Miss Iceland


Book Description

“Will appeal to readers of Elena Ferrante and Margaret Atwood . . . the unusual setting offers an interesting twist on the portrait of an artist as a young woman.” —Bookpage In 1960s Iceland, Hekla dreams of being a writer. In a nation of poets, where each household proudly displays leatherbound volumes of the Sagas, and there are more writers per capita than anywhere else in the world, there is only one problem: she is a woman. After packing her few belongings, including James Joyces’s Ulysses and a Remington typewriter, Hekla heads for Reykjavik with a manuscript buried in her bags. She moves in with her friend Jon, a gay man who longs to work in the theatre, but can only find dangerous, backbreaking work on fishing trawlers. Hekla’s opportunities are equally limited: marriage and babies, or her job as a waitress, in which harassment from customers is part of the daily grind. The two friends feel completely out of place in a small and conservative world. And yet that world is changing: JFK is shot. Hemlines are rising. In Iceland, another volcano erupts and Hekla meets a poet who brings to light harsh realities about her art—as she realizes she must escape to find freedom abroad, whatever the cost. Miss Iceland, a winner of two international book awards, comes from the acclaimed author of Hotel Silence, which received the Icelandic Literary Prize. “Only a great book can make you feel you’re really there, a thousand miles and a generation away. I loved it.” —Kit de Waal, author of My Name is Leon “[A] winning tale of friendship and self-fulfillment.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review




Mobility and Place


Book Description

The Northern peripheries of Europe, which are covered by this book, are associated with remoteness, the frontier, isolated communities, colonialism and resource extraction. Recently, huge projects in petroleum and hydropower have been located there, and the region has become better known as an attractive tourist destination. Although these spaces are perceived as being marginal, they are inhabited and linked into globalization and international agendas. This book examines how people live in such remote spaces in an emerging global world of connectivity, interdependency, mobility and non-linear dynamics. The various case studies examine a wide range of experiences, ranging from tourists and local settlers to those who migrate for labour in old or new industries, or to pursue the hybrid urban/rural life of the periphery. In this book, mobility and place come together. The analyses demonstrate how mobility and place mutually constitute each other and how specific relationships between the two aspects are crucial in the making of societies. The authors study attempts to reinvent places, together with connections and the opening of 'new scapes' in order to sustain businesses, municipalities and people's livelihood.




Noble Hardwoods Network


Book Description




Networked Cancer


Book Description

This book investigates how individual cancer narratives change in an age of networked social media. Through a range of case studies, it shows that a new type of entrepreneurial cancer narrative is currently evolving. This narrative is characterised by using illness to build projects and produce various forms of economic and social value, to stimulate affectively involved and large-scale public participation and to communicate across various social media platforms. Networked cancer: Affect, Narrative and Measurement offers a theoretical framework for understanding this entrepreneurial cancer narrative through an introduction focusing on the key concepts of illness narrative, social media and affect. The chapters examine the importance of connective mobilization, virality, experimental selfies, dark affects and new commemorative practices for understanding entrepreneurial cancer narratives. This study will be of great interest to scholars of media and cultural studies, as well as those interested in narrative medicine, health communication and affect and participation.




Communications and Networking in Education


Book Description

In most schools the dominant supporting technology has been either the stand-alone personal computer or a modest local network. The situation is changing rapidly as a rising number of schools provide access to the Internet for their staff and pupils, opening avenues for communication and networking hitherto not possible. This book reflects on this change. It aims to further the vision of how these new technologies could improve and transform aspects of education. Yet in parallel it asks serious questions about the realities of an interface between the social, cultural and pedagogical contexts of education and the actual affordances that these new information and communication technologies offer. The chapters in this book provide a heady mix of foresight and practical reporting, of planning for the future but at the same time respecting the problems education already has with current technologies. The richness of the points presented here stems in part from the range of experience of the international authors - from academics and administrators, to teachers and curriculum designers. This mix ensures that the central questions on communications and networking in education are considered not simply from a variety of personal perspectives, but also from different cultural and environmental experiences. And yet interest also lies in the commonality of reporting and discussion based on activity in the field. All the contributions draw heavily on research and experience in devising and running projects and experimental activities in a range of schools and teacher-training institutions and environments. The opinions expressed are thus grounded in knowledge gained from work embedded in the reality of today's educational settings. This must be the only sound base upon which to consider the issues of the future. This book is essential reading for all professionals involved in all aspects of information and communication technologies in education. Teachers, lecturers, researchers, students and administrators will find it invaluable.




History of Nordic Computing 3


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the Third IFIP WG 9.7 Conference on the History of Nordic Computing, HiNC3, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in October 2010. The 50 revised full papers presented together with a keynote address and a panel discussion were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers focus on the application and use of ICT and ways in which technical progress affected the conditions of the development and use of ICT systems in the Nordic countries covering a period from around 1970 until the beginning of the 1990s. They are organized in the following topical sections: computerizing public sector industries; computerizing management and financial industries; computerizing art, media, and schools; users and systems development; the making of a Nordic computing industry; Nordic networking; Nordic software development; Nordic research in software and systems development; teaching at Nordic universities; and new historiographical approaches and methodological reflections.




European and American Extreme Right Groups and the Internet


Book Description

How do right-wing extremist organizations throughout the world use the Internet as a tool for communication and recruitment? What is its role in identity-building within radical right-wing groups and how do they use the Internet to set their agenda, build contacts, spread their ideology and encourage mobilization? This important contribution to the field of Internet politics adopts a social movement perspective to address and examine these important questions. Conducting a comparative content analysis of more than 500 extreme right organizational web sites from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, it offers an overview of the Internet communication activities of these groups and systematically maps and analyses the links and structure of the virtual communities of the extreme right. Based on reports from the daily press the book presents a protest event analysis of right wing groups’ mobilisation and action strategies, relating them to their online practices. In doing so it exposes the new challenges and opportunities the Internet presents to the groups themselves and the societies in which they exist.