Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive of over 1500 titles.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
You are looking at 1 - 10 of 21 items for :
- Type: Book x
- Sociology of Science and Technology x
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We are often expected to trust technologies, and how they are used, even if we have good reason not to. There is no room to mistrust.
Exploring relations between trust and mistrust in the context of data, AI and technology at large, this book defines a process of ‘trustification’ used by governments, corporations, researchers and the media to legitimise exploitation and increase inequalities.
Aimed at social scientists, computer scientists and public policy, the book aptly reveals how trust is operationalised and converted into a metric in order to extract legitimacy from populations and support the furthering of technology to manage society.
This book exposes how inequalities based on class and social background arise from employment practices in the digital age. It considers instances where social media is used in hiring to infiltrate private lives and hide job advertisements based on locality; where algorithms assess socio-economic data to filter candidates; where human interviewers are replaced by artificial intelligence with design that disadvantages users of classed language; and where already vulnerable groups become victims of digitalisation and remote work.
The author examines whether these practices create risks of discrimination based on certain protected attributes, including "social origin" in international labour law and laws in Australia and South Africa, "social condition" and "family status" in laws within Canada, and others. The book proposes essential law reform and improvements to workplace policy.
In this stimulating analysis, Hannes Gerhardt outlines the potentials and challenges of a technology-enabled, commons-focused transition out of capitalism.
The book shows that openness and cooperation are more beneficial in today’s economies and societies than competition and profit-seeking. Driven by this conviction, Gerhardt identifies key imperatives for overcoming capitalism, from democratizing our digital, material, and financial economies to maintaining a robust, political mobilization. Using clear examples, he explores tactical openings through the lens of ‘compeerism’, a newly constructed framework that highlights the latent counter-capitalist possibilities, but also limits, of our emerging technological landscape.
This is an accessible contribution to counter-capitalist discourse that is both inspiring and pragmatic for academics and activists alike.
Do digital networks make a difference to the scope, scale and severity of social harm? Considering four distinct digital affordances for crime (access, concealment, evasion and incitement) this book asks whether they are simply new packaging for old problems, with no greater effect on society overall – or is cyberculture significantly escalating illegality?
Matthew David gives fresh insights into online harms and behaviours in the fields of hate, obscenity, corruptions of citizenship and appropriation, offering a comprehensive and integrated approach for those both new and experienced in the field of cybercrime.
Conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion in science communication are in danger of generating much concern without effecting change and systematic transformations.
This radical volume addresses these circular discourses and reveals the gaps in the field. Putting the spotlight on the marginalized voices of so-called 'racialized minorities', and those from Global South regions, it interrogates the global footprint of the science communication enterprise.
Moving beyond tokenistic and extractive approaches, this book creates a space for academics and practitioners to challenge issues around race and sociocultural inclusion, providing mutual learning, paradigm-shifting perspectives and innovative ways forward for the science communication advancement agenda.
Political elites have been evading the causes of climate change through deceptive fixes. Their market-type instruments such as carbon trading aim to incentivise technological innovation which will supposedly decarbonize or replace dominant high-carbon systems. In practice this techno-market framework has perpetuated climate change and social injustices, thus provoking public controversy. Using this opportunity, social movements have counterposed low-carbon, resource-light, socially just alternatives. Such transformative mobilisations can fulfil the popular slogan, ‘System Change Not Climate Change’.
This book develops key critical concepts through case studies such as GM crops, biofuels, waste incineration and Green New Deal agendas.
Do numbers have a life of their own or do we give them meaning? How do data play a role in constructing people’s perceptions of the world around them? How far can we trust numbers to speak truth to power?
The COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique moment to answer these questions. This book examines how politicians, experts and journalists gave meaning to data through the story of seven iconic numbers from the pandemic.
Shedding light on a new dawn of data, this book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship between numbers, meaning and society.
A book on queer themes and science communication is timely, if not well overdue.
LGBTIQA+ people have unique contributions to make and issues to meet through science communication. So, bringing ‘queer’ and ‘science communication’ together is an important step for queer protest, liberation, and visibility.
This collection examines the place of queer people within science communication and asks what it means for the field to ‘queer’ science communication practice, theory and research agendas.
Written by leading names in the field, it offers concrete examples for academics, students and practitioners who strive to foster radical inclusivity and equity in science communication.
Why is finance so important? How do stock markets work and what do they really do? Most importantly, what might finance be and what could we expect from it?
Exploring contemporary finance via the development of stock exchanges, markets and the links with states, Roscoe mingles historical and technical detail with humorous anecdotes and lively portraits of market participants.
Deftly combining research and autobiographical vignettes, he offers a cautionary tale about the drive of financial markets towards expropriation, capture and exclusion. Positioning financial markets as central devices in the organisation of the global economy, he includes contemporary concerns over inequality, climate emergency and (de)colonialism and concludes by wondering, in the market’s own angst-filled voice, what the future for finance might be, and how we might get there.
Exploring the digital frontiers of feminist international relations, this book investigates how gender can be mainstreamed into discourse about technology and security.
With a focus on big data, communications technology, social media, cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, the book explores the ways in which technology presents sites for gender-based violence. Crucially, it examines potential avenues for resistance at these sites, especially regarding the actions of major tech companies, surveillance by repressive governments and attempts to use the Global South as a laboratory for new interventions.
The book draws valuable insights which will be essential to researchers in International Relations, Security Studies and Feminist Security Studies.
