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Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has the potential to improve services provided by the public and voluntary sectors, empower staff and strengthen the community. Therefore, it is in the interests of those working in social welfare to understand and grapple with key issues. This book analyses the current context and use of ICT in these sectors and builds on this to provide practical guidance for managers and staff.
Assuming no technical knowledge, the book provides the ideas, tools and resources to think critically and creatively about current ICT practice and to implement positive change at individual, team and organisational level.
The relationship between science and belief has been a prominent subject of public debate for many years, one that has relevance to everything from science communication, health and education to immigration and national values. Yet, sociological analysis of these subjects remains surprisingly scarce.
This wide-ranging book critically reviews the ways in which religious and non-religious belief systems interact with scientific theories and practices. Contributors explore how, for some secularists, ‘science’ forms an important part of social identity. Others examine how many contemporary religious movements justify their beliefs by making a claim upon science. Moving beyond the traditional focus on the United States, the book shows how debates about science and belief are firmly embedded in political conflict, class, community and culture.
Drawing on the latest research, theory and practice, this is the first book to provide social workers with an evidence-based, practical guide to safeguarding children and young people from abuse, in a world of sexting, selfies and snap chat.
It presents an overview of the key e-safety and online risks to children and young people, including dark play, digital self-harm, and online grooming, sexualisation, bullying, offending and radicalisation. It also examines online boundaries, relationships and identity and the future of technologies.
Case study examples and discussion of key principles will help social workers consider, mitigate and manage online risks and their effects for safeguarding children and young people, and their families and carers.
We are all ‘glass consumers’. Organisations know so much about us, they can almost see through us. Governments and businesses collect and process our personal information on a massive scale. Everything we do, and everywhere we go, leaves a trail. But is this in our interests?
The glass consumer appraises this relentless scrutiny of consumers’ lives. It reviews what is known about how personal information is used and examines the benefits and risks to consumers. The book takes the debate beyond privacy issues, arguing that we are living in a world in which - more than ever before - our personal information defines our opportunities in life.
This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of information use, data protection and privacy. It will also appeal more widely to those with an interest in technology and society, social policy, consumption, marketing and business studies.
We now live in a pre-crime society, in which information technology strategies and techniques such as predictive policing, actuarial justice and surveillance penology are used to achieve hyper-securitization.
However, such securitization comes at a cost – the criminalization of everyday life is guaranteed, justice functions as an algorithmic industry and punishment is administered through dataveillance regimes.
This pioneering book explores relevant theories, developing technologies and institutional practices and explains how the pre-crime society operates in the ‘ultramodern’ age of digital reality construction. Reviewing pre-crime's cultural and political effects, the authors propose new directions in crime control policy.
We are living in algorithmic times.
From machine learning and artificial intelligence to blockchain or simpler news-feed filtering, automated systems can transform the social world in ways that are just starting to be imagined.
Redefining these emergent technologies as the new systems of knowing, pioneering scholar David Beer examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable. Drawing on cases ranging from the art market and the smart home through to financial tech, AI patents and neural networks, he develops key concepts for understanding the framing, envisioning and implementation of algorithms.
This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the rise of algorithmic thinking and the way it permeates society.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere, yet it causes damage to society in ways that can’t be fixed. Instead of helping to address our current crises, AI causes divisions that limit people’s life chances, and even suggests fascistic solutions to social problems. This book provides an analysis of AI’s deep learning technology and its political effects and traces the ways that it resonates with contemporary political and social currents, from global austerity to the rise of the far right.
Dan McQuillan calls for us to resist AI as we know it and restructure it by prioritising the common good over algorithmic optimisation. He sets out an anti-fascist approach to AI that replaces exclusions with caring, proposes people’s councils as a way to restructure AI through mutual aid and outlines new mechanisms that would adapt to changing times by supporting collective freedom.
Academically rigorous, yet accessible to a socially engaged readership, this unique book will be of interest to all who wish to challenge the social logic of AI by reasserting the importance of the common good.
The concept of transhumanism emerged in the middle of the 20th century, and has influenced discussions around AI, brain–computer interfaces, genetic technologies and life extension. Despite its enduring influence in the public imagination, a fully developed philosophy of transhumanism has not yet been presented.
In this new book, leading philosopher Stefan Lorenz Sorgner explores the critical issues that link transhumanism with digitalization, gene technologies and ethics. He examines the history and meaning of transhumanism and asks bold questions about human perfection, cyborgs, genetically enhanced entities, and uploaded minds.
Offering insightful reflections on values, norms and utopia, this will be an important guide for readers interested in contemporary digital culture, gene ethics, and policy making.
If prison regimes had continued as normal during the COVID-19 lockdown, social distancing would have been impossible. Therefore, sweeping restrictions were imposed confining prisoners to their cells, cancelling communal activity and prohibiting visits from family and friends.
This insightful book identifies the risks posed by prison lockdowns to minority ethnic prisoners, foreign national prisoners and prisoners from Traveller and Roma communities across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It documents the unequal impacts on their mental and physical health, feelings of isolation and fear, access to services and contact with visitors.
The legacy of the lockdown will be profound. This book exposes the long-term significance and impact on minority ethnic prisoners.
In an age when the next generation have worse prospects than those of their parents, this book appraises the challenges young people face resulting from the instability of their lives.
Based on youth experience of education, employment and political participation in England and Germany, the book examines the impact of digitalisation in the context of rising inequality, accelerating technological transformation, fragile European institutions, growing nationalism and mental and economic stress arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The insights gained point to young peoples’ agency as central to acquiring the skills and resources needed to shape their future in the digital society.
