Economy, Technology and Society
The Age of Low Tech
Towards a Technologically Sustainable Civilization
A best-seller in France, this English language edition introduces readers to an alternative perspective on our technological future. Bihouix skilfully goes against the grain to argue that ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and envisages a different approach to manage our resources and build a more resilient and sustainable society.
Algorithms and the End of Politics
How Technology Shapes 21st-Century American Life
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book is a timely analysis of the growing impact of digital technologies on populism in the US and beyond.
Anarchist Cybernetics
Control and Communication in Radical Politics
Igniting a new field of scholarly inquiry, this pioneering book introduces cybernetic thinking to politics and organizational studies to explore the continuing development of the radical idea of participatory democracy within organizations.
At the End of Property
Patents, Plants and the Crisis of Propertization
This book explores the idea of ownership in the realm of plant breeding, revealing how plants have been legally and physically transformed into property. It highlights the controversial aspects in the process of turning seeds, plants and genes into property and how this endangers the viability of the seed industry.
Disrupted Urbanism
Situated Smart Initiatives in African Cities
The ‘smart city’ is often promoted as a technology-driven solution to complex urban issues. Drawing on original research conducted in urban African settings, this book provides a much-needed alternative view, exploring how ‘home-grown’ digital disruption, driven and initiated by local actors, upending the mainstream corporate narrative.
The Economic Lives of Platforms
Rethinking the Political Economy of Digital Markets
This interdisciplinary collection rethinks the political economy of the digital market by asking what came before platforms and suggesting what might come after them. Addressing themes like internet decolonisation, the book makes a timely assessment of the impact of evolving connections between technology, information, society and markets.
From Capital to Commons
Exploring the Promise of a World beyond Capitalism
This stimulating analysis from Hannes Gerhardt shows how technology-led and commons-oriented strategies can create fairer economies and societies. Setting out the role of various digital tools with concrete examples of their value, it is a constructive and optimistic guide to overcoming anti-capitalist barriers.
Games in the Platform Economy
Steam's Tangled Markets
This book examines the evolution of digital platform economies through the lens of online gaming with a unique economic sociology perspective.
Paying particular attention to Valve’s ‘Steam’ platform, the book examines the architecture of this online videogame marketplace and the way it enables new markets and economic transactions.
The glass consumer
Life in a surveillance society
We are all 'glass consumers'. Organisations know so much about us, they can almost see through us. This 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.
Labour Conflicts in the Digital Age
A Comparative Perspective
This book offers a complete view of the new labour conflicts in the platform economy. Through case studies in advanced economies in Europe and the US and with an original approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations, it provides a radical interpretation on the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age.
Marketing Science Fictions
An Ethnography of Marketing Analytics, Consumer Insight and Data Science
This book pulls back the curtain on contemporary data-driven marketing, revealing the intricate ways marketers create value from online data. It offers valuable lessons for academics and students of marketing, technology and data science.