Mobile IT as Immutable Mobiles? Exploring the Enabling Qualities of a Mobile IT Application

2005 ◽  
pp. 194-214
Author(s):  
Jonny Holmstrom
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
It Use ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Banking Business ◽  
It Applications ◽  
It Application

This chapter explores the social consequences of mobile IT. Even though the need for better theorizing on the topic has been highlighted recently, most attempts to date have failed not only to properly explore the social consequences of mobile IT, but also in being specific about the technology itself in any detail. A promising approach with which to explore mobile IT and its social consequences may be found in actor network theory (ANT). ANT’s rich methodology embraces scientific realism in its central concept of hybrids that are simultaneously technological and social. The advantages of conceiving mobile IT applications immersed in and a part of a network of hybrids are explored by drawing from a project concerned with mobile IT use in the context of the mobile bank terminal (MBT). It was found that the users were less than enthusiastic over the MBT, and two key problems were identified. First, the poor design of MBT hampered the possibilities for ad-hoc activities. Second, the users felt that ad-hoc activities could be seen as somewhat irresponsible in the context of banking business. To this end, the problems related to the MBT use were both social and technical. We conclude by identifying and elaborating on some aspects of the social consequences of mobile IT use in order to shed new light on the possibilities and challenges that mobile IT use conveys.

Creating an Analytical Lens for Understanding Digital Networks in Urban South Africa

2010 ◽  
pp. 1051-1067
Author(s):  
Nancy Odendaal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
African City ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Recent literature on African cities examines the way in which social networks function as critical livelihood arteries in the ongoing survival strategies of the poor. An understanding of livelihood strategies is not new, but these transactions cannot be defined in space or frozen in time. This terrain comprises a divergent range of intentions, communications and movements exchanged between a multiplicity of actors making sense of their life worlds; negotiating, scheming and bargaining. Urban life continues to be reinvented at the margins, despite prevailing exclusionary economic and social forces. The potential exists for harnessing these strategies for developmental aims—building on the social capital created despite the absence of, or in addition to, the usual resources available for survival. One of these resources is Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Clearly the “real-time” communication, information transfer and exchange functions facilitated by mobile phones, e-mail and the Internet create the potential for informed decision making around the use and distribution of scarce resources. However, this chapter begins with the premise that ICT can only be considered a meaningful development tool if it is appropriated as ongoing input into the day to day decision-making of the poor. It is at this scale—the local, the individual, the social—that the appropriation of digital technologies is examined. The social appropriation of technology is considered in tandem with the network strategies people employ to manage and access resources. A conceptual bridge between the theoretical foundations of actor-network theory and the more contemporary writings on the African city is constructed to posit a theoretical lens for understanding digital networks in South African cities. The chapter concludes with a number of methodological implications with regards to future research into ICT and social networks in developmental contexts.

Creating an Analytical Lens for Understanding Digital Networks in Urban South Africa

2010 ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Nancy Odendaal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
African City ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Recent literature on African cities examines the way in which social networks function as critical livelihood arteries in the ongoing survival strategies of the poor. An understanding of livelihood strategies is not new, but these transactions cannot be defined in space or frozen in time. This terrain comprises a divergent range of intentions, communications and movements exchanged between a multiplicity of actors making sense of their life worlds; negotiating, scheming and bargaining. Urban life continues to be reinvented at the margins, despite prevailing exclusionary economic and social forces. The potential exists for harnessing these strategies for developmental aims—building on the social capital created despite the absence of, or in addition to, the usual resources available for survival. One of these resources is Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Clearly the “real-time” communication, information transfer and exchange functions facilitated by mobile phones, e-mail and the Internet create the potential for informed decision making around the use and distribution of scarce resources. However, this chapter begins with the premise that ICT can only be considered a meaningful development tool if it is appropriated as ongoing input into the day to day decision-making of the poor. It is at this scale—the local, the individual, the social—that the appropriation of digital technologies is examined. The social appropriation of technology is considered in tandem with the network strategies people employ to manage and access resources. A conceptual bridge between the theoretical foundations of actor-network theory and the more contemporary writings on the African city is constructed to posit a theoretical lens for understanding digital networks in South African cities. The chapter concludes with a number of methodological implications with regards to future research into ICT and social networks in developmental contexts.

Effect of Lisping on Audience Evaluation of Male Speakers

1978 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald E. Mowrer ◽  
Priscilla Wahl ◽  
Susan J. Doolan
Keyword(s):  
Social Consequences ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
First Impression ◽  
Intelligence Education

The social consequences of adult listeners' first impression of lisping were evaluated in two studies. Five adult speakers were rated by adult listeners with regard to speaking ability, intelligence, education, masculinity, and friendship. Results from both studies indicate that listeners rate adult speakers who demonstrate frontal lisping lower than nonlispers in all five categories investigated. Efforts to correct frontal lisping are justifiable on the basis of the poor impression lisping speakers make on the listener.

Voluntary Associations and the Social Integration of the Poor

1971 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-357
Author(s):  
Russell L. Curtis, Jr. ◽  
Louis A. Zurcher, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Social Integration ◽  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social

D?r al-?arb as the Motherland? The Muslim Tatars of (the Grand Duchy of) Lithuania and Social Contract

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Egdūnas Račius
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Grand Duchy

Muslim presence in Lithuania, though already addressed from many angles, has not hitherto been approached from either the perspective of the social contract theories or of the compliance with Muslim jurisprudence. The author argues that through choice of non-Muslim Grand Duchy of Lithuania as their adopted Motherland, Muslim Tatars effectively entered into a unique (yet, from the point of Hanafi fiqh, arguably Islamically valid) social contract with the non-Muslim state and society. The article follows the development of this social contract since its inception in the fourteenth century all the way into the nation-state of Lithuania that emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century and continues until the present. The epitome of the social contract under investigation is the official granting in 1995 to Muslim Tatars of a status of one of the nine traditional faiths in Lithuania with all the ensuing political, legal and social consequences for both the Muslim minority and the state.

The Paradox of Poverty: Socio-Economic Aspects of Population Growth.— By T. Scarlett Epstein and Darrell Jackson. The Macmillan of India Limited Delhi, 1975. pp.127.

1978 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-382
Author(s):  
M. Javed Akbar Zaki
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Rural India ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Fertility Decision ◽  
The Social

To many social theoreticians, the population explosion, particularly in the developing nations presents a crippling threat to their developmental pro¬cesses. Their argument's validity rests mainly on the assumption that expected economic progress is swallowed up by unbalanced rise of numbers in the population. The book being reviewed deals mainly with this subject matter and is divided into two parts, each containing three articles contributed by various researchers. Part one, 'The Social context of Fertility Decision' is focused on analyzing the role of factors affecting fertility at the micro-level decision making process. The first article 'Fertility decision in rural India' by Vinod Jainath, examines the applicability to rural India of various models of the process of fertility decision making and finds most of these wanting with respect to the Indian social situation. While analyzing the fertility patterns of Rural India, he points out the positive need for larger families among the poor small farmers mainly due to labour supply considerations. The author argues that unemployment and under¬employment actually motivate the poor to have more children as it better ensures their economic security in their old age. As the chances of gaining employ¬ment for their offspring diminish, they are induced to increase the total number of children in order that atleast one will be able to support them. Thus a vicious circle of poverty arises in large families because of each of the parents wanting to increase their children's chances of employment by ultimately reducing the overall employment opportunities even further and exacerbating their poverty.

Broken Promises and the Rise of a Stereotype

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koji Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Political History ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Balance Of Trade

Projects began to emerge during the sixteenth century en masse by promising to relieve the poor, improve the balance of trade, raise money for the Crown, and thereby push England’s imperial ambitions abroad. Yet such promises were often too good to be true. This chapter explores how the ‘reformation of abuses’—a fateful slogan associated with England’s break from Rome—came to be used widely in economic contexts, and undermined promised public service under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts. The negative image of the projector soon emerged in response, reaching both upper and lower echelons of society. The chapter reconstructs the social circulation of distrust under Charles, and considers its repercussions. To do this it brings conceptual tools developed in social psychology and sociology to bear upon sources conventionally studied in literary and political history.

Poverty and Penia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This chapter lays out the theoretical approach for the book and discusses the methodological problems of writing about poverty and the poor in the ancient world. Whilst studying the lives of the poor in the ancient world is to some extent elusive, it argues that historians can do more than simply imagine this group of people back into the gaps left by other evidence. As well as reviewing previous scholarship on poverty in the ancient world, it suggests a way forward which is more in line with contemporary poverty research within the social sciences.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louçã Francisco ◽  
Ash Michael
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
First Century ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Global Restructuring ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Diffusion ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Mode Of Production

This book investigates two questions, how did finance become hegemonic in the capitalist system; and what are the social consequences of the rise of finance? We do not dwell on other topics, such as the evolution of the mode of production or the development of class conflict over the longer run. Our theme is not the genesis, history, dynamics, or contradictions of capitalism but, instead, we address the rise of financialization beginning in the last quarter of the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first century. Therefore, we investigate the transnationalization of the circuits and processes of capital accumulation that originated the expansion and financialization of the mechanisms of production, social reproduction, and hegemony, including the ideology, the functioning of the states, and the political decision making. We do not discuss the prevailing neoliberalism as an ideology, although we pay attention to the creation and diffusion of ideas, since we sketch an overview of the process of global restructuring of production and finance leading to the prevalence of the shadow economy....

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