scholarly journals Media Innovation and Social Change: Introduction to the Special Issue

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niahmh Ní Bhroin ◽  
Stefania Milan

Our purpose with this Special Issue is to present and contribute to a body of research that critically explores the relationship between media innovation and social change. In doing so, we also outline the contours of a research agenda to further develop this emerging field. Our motivation arises from a review of research published in the nine previous editions of this journal, where we explored how research about media innovations engaged with the topic of social change. We find that research in the field of media innovations has tended to focus on business and economic imperatives for media innovation, following the paradigm of research on digitalisation introduced by von Hippel’s theories of ‘democratizing innovation’ (2005), Chesbrough’s ‘open innovation’ (2006), or Tapscott and Williams, ‘Wikinomics’ (2011). As a consequence, digitalisation and the introduction of new technologies is usually unquestioningly presented as a business imperative for media industry stakeholders.

Author(s):  
Rosario Sommella

The article, based on the scientific results of the last phase of the project “Retail, Consumption, and the City: Practices, Planning and Governance for Urban Inclusion, Resilience and Sustainability”, proposes further reflections on the changing urban landscapes of retail and consumption through studies on Italy and Catalonia. This stage of the research project has been aimed at investigating – through specific in-depth studies (thematic or related to case studies) – aspects not adequately dealt with in the published volumes of the seven research units, or even to take inspiration from themes and cases already dealt with to advance in a reflection that could contribute to build a further piece of a new research agenda on retail, consumption, and the city. By cross-referencing descriptive evidence and theoretical reflections, the article traces the main themes of this special issue, with regard to the evolutionary and, in some cases, analytical trajectories starting as from the different case studies analyzed, all aimed at reflecting on the relationship between consumption, retail and urban spaces in Italy and Catalonia at different scales.


This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real artificial intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed, and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. These chapters explore the revealing prehistory of key concerns of contemporary AI discourse, from the nature of mind and creativity to issues of power and rights, from the tension between fascination and ambivalence to investigations into artificial voices and technophobia. Part II focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerged alongside rapid developments in AI technology. These chapters reveal not only how AI narratives have consistently been entangled with the emergence of real robotics and AI, but also how they offer a rich source of insight into how we might live with these revolutionary machines. Through their close textual engagements, these chapters explore the relationship between imaginative narratives and contemporary debates about AI’s social, ethical, and philosophical consequences, including questions of dehumanization, automation, anthropomorphization, cybernetics, cyberpunk, immortality, slavery, and governance. The contributions, from leading humanities and social science scholars, show that narratives about AI offer a crucial epistemic site for exploring contemporary debates about these powerful new technologies.


Proceedings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Sebastiano Trevisani

Modern Earth Scientists need also to interact with other disciplines, apparently far from the Earth Sciences and Engineering. Disciplines related to history and philosophy of science are emblematic from this perspective. From one side, the quantitative analysis of information extracted from historical records (documents, maps, paintings, etc.) represents an exciting research topic, requiring a truly holistic approach. On the other side, epistemological and philosophy of science considerations on the relationship between geoscience and society in history are of fundamental importance for understanding past, present and future geosphere-anthroposphere interlinked dynamics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3418
Author(s):  
Dongwoo Ryu ◽  
Kwang Ho Baek ◽  
Junghyun Yoon

The importance of international markets is constantly emphasized for small and medium enterprises(SMEs). In previous studies, technological innovation capabilities were emphasized as a factor that enables SMEs to compete in the international market. To this end, SMEs need to cooperate with external partners to strengthen their technological innovation capabilities to thus improve their international performance. With the perspective view of open innovation, this research explores the effects of relational capital and technological innovation capability on international performance, with a particular focus on the moderating effect of alliance proactiveness. Building on previous literature regarding internationalization, technological innovation, and alliance proactiveness, research hypotheses were developed and tested using data collected from 175 SMEs. A hierarchical regression analysis was applied. The analysis showed that, first, relational capital had a significant effect on the technological innovation capability. Second, technological innovation capability has a significant influence on the international performance. Third, technological innovation capability mediated the relationship between relational capital and international performance. Finally, alliance proactiveness was found to moderate the relationship between technological innovation capability and international performance. The key research findings imply that relational capital and alliance proactiveness are the key factors of international performance, as they improved the development of the technological innovation capability.


2021 ◽  
pp. 097168582110159
Author(s):  
Sital Mohanty ◽  
Subhasis Sahoo ◽  
Pranay Kumar Swain

Science, technology and human values have been the subject of enquiry in the last few years for social scientists and eventually the relationship between science and gender is the subject of an ongoing debate. This is due to the event of globalization which led to the exponential growth of new technologies like assisted reproductive technology (ART). ART, one of the most iconic technological innovations of the twentieth century, has become increasingly a normal social fact of life. Since ART invades multiple human discourses—thereby transforming culture, society and politics—it is important what is sociological about ART as well as what is biological. This article argues in commendation of sociology of technology, which is alert to its democratic potential but does not concurrently conceal the historical and continuing role of technology in legitimizing gender discrimination. The article draws the empirical insights from local articulations (i.e., Odisha state in eastern India) for the understandings of motherhood, freedom and choice, reproductive right and rights over the body to which ART has contributed. Sociologically, the article has been supplemented within the broader perspectives of determinism, compatibilism alongside feminism.


Author(s):  
Livio Cricelli ◽  
Michele Grimaldi ◽  
Silvia Vermicelli

AbstractIn recent years, Open Innovation (OI) and crowdsourcing have been very popular topics in the innovation management literature, attracting significant interest and attention, and inspiring a rich production of publications. Although these two topics share common themes and address similar managerial challenges, to the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic literature review that digs deep into the intersection of both fields. To fill in this gap a joint review of crowdsourcing and OI topics is both timely and of interest. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to carry out a comprehensive, systematic, and objective review of academic research to help shed light on the relationship between OI and crowdsourcing. For this purpose, we reviewed the literature published on these two topics between 2008 and 2019, applying two bibliometric techniques, co-citation and co-word analysis. We obtained the following results: (i) we provide a qualitative analysis of the emerging and trending themes, (ii) we discuss a characterization of the intersection between OI and crowdsourcing, identifying four dimensions (strategic, managerial, behavioral, and technological), (iii) we present a schematic reconceptualization of the thematic clusters, proposing an integrated view. We conclude by suggesting promising opportunities for future research.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002193472110115
Author(s):  
Keisha-Khan Y. Perry ◽  
Anani Dzidzienyo

This essay provides a brief introduction to this special issue focused on the life and work of Black Brazilian scholar-activist Abdias Nascimento. The contributors include, Vera Lucia Benedito, Ollie Johnson, Zachary Morgan, Elisa Larkin Nascimento, and Cheryl Sterling who all participated in a 2015 conference at Africana Studies at Brown University. This group of scholars aptly illustrate that Nascimento had long contributed to the internationalization of Black Studies as a field in US academe and he was crucial in establishing Brazil as a central component of the Black World. The essays have much to teach us about Nascimento’s views on the relationship between art and politics, the role of military service in shaping his activism, the significance of black politicians in the reconceptualization of Brazilian democracy, and the importance of preserving archives and expanding our understanding of the Black radical tradition.


2021 ◽  
pp. 000765032098508
Author(s):  
Sameer Azizi ◽  
Tanja Börzel ◽  
Hans Krause Hansen

In this introductory article we explore the relationship between statehood and governance, examining in more detail how non-state actors like MNCs, international NGOs, and indigenous authorities, often under conditions of extreme economic scarcity, ethnic diversity, social inequality and violence, take part in the making of rules and the provision of collective goods. Conceptually, we focus on the literature on Areas of Limited Statehood and discuss its usefulness in exploring how business-society relations are governed in the global South, and beyond. Building on insights from this literature, among others, the four articles included in this special issue provide rich illustrations and critical reflections on the multiple, complex and often ambiguous roles of state and non-state actors operating in contemporary Syria, Nigeria, India and Palestine, with implications for conventional understandings of CSR, stakeholders, and related conceptualizations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Agota Giedrė Raišienė ◽  
Violeta Rapuano ◽  
Kristina Varkulevičiūtė

Despite the huge number of studies on telework in 2020, the influence of socio-demographic characteristics of workers on their attitudes towards telework continues to raise questions. Researchers agree on some aspects, such as younger individuals being better at absorbing new technologies. However, given that not only those who wanted to but also those who were obliged to switched to teleworking, it appears that younger people may not be as effective at working remotely as previously thought. The relevance of our study is based on the contradictory findings of research conducted during the pandemic. With this article, we contribute to the accumulation of knowledge about the change that takes place in telework. The paper aims to examine the relationship between socio-demographic indicators and the evaluation of telework. Our study confirms that the gender and age of employees are important factors in an employee’s attitude to telecommuting. Mostly, the attitudes vary in terms of gender. At least in the case of Lithuania where the research was conducted, Millennial men, unlike other generations and significantly more than Millennial women, see personal career development problems working remotely. Meanwhile, older generations do not declare greater dissatisfaction working remotely, although they do not express much favour for this approach. The results of the study indicate that in the circumstances created by the pandemic, organizations should update their human resource management strategies to achieve employee work efficiency and maintain employee motivation. The practical implication of our study in terms of open innovation is that in the future, the development of virtual working relationships will need to focus not on the technological training of older workers but on the specific provision of feedback to younger workers. In this regard, our insights may be useful for leaders in human resource management and open innovation teams.


Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Esther Salmerón-Manzano

New technologies and so-called communication and information technologies are transforming our society, the way in which we relate to each other, and the way we understand the world. By a wider extension, they are also influencing the world of law. That is why technologies will have a huge impact on society in the coming years and will bring new challenges and legal challenges to the legal sector worldwide. On the other hand, the new communications era also brings many new legal issues such as those derived from e-commerce and payment services, intellectual property, or the problems derived from the use of new technologies by young people. This will undoubtedly affect the development, evolution, and understanding of law. This Special Issue has become this window into the new challenges of law in relation to new technologies.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document