Policy Press

Technology, data and society

Reflecting on UN Sustainable Development Goal 9: Industries, Innovation and Infrastructure, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities and Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, our list looks at the potential for innovation and creative solutions to global social problems, whilst critically engaging with the risks, such as worsened social inequality and damage to human rights.

Subjects covered include the development of sustainable technology to help combat climate change, the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse data more efficiently, the way social media creates a space for people to organise international social activism and the need to balance our digital lives and retain data sovereignty, especially for the most vulnerable in society.

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Technology, data and innovation, we aim to address the following goals:

SDG Publishers compact logoSDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructureSDG 10: Reduced inequalitiesSDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions

Showing 25-36 of 87 items.

The Pre-Crime Society

Crime, Culture and Control in the Ultramodern Age

We live in a pre-crime society where technological strategies and techniques are employed to achieve hyper-securitization. Exploring theories, technologies and institutional practices, this pioneering book explains how the pre-crime society operates in the ‘ultramodern’ age and proposes new directions in crime control policy.

Bristol Uni Press

The Politics and Ethics of Transhumanism

Techno-Human Evolution and Advanced Capitalism

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence

This book interrogates the promises of transhumanism, arguing that it is deeply entwined with capitalist ideology. It casts doubt on a utopian techno-capitalist narrative of unending progress and shows how an alternative ethical framework might foster a more inclusive future.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 27.99 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUB
  • Currently not availablePDF

The Political Economy of Digital Monopolies

Contradictions and Alternatives to Data Commodification

As outrage over the socially damaging practices of technology companies intensifies, this book asks what it actually means to hold a 'monopoly' in the tech world and offers an in-depth analysis of how these corporate giants are produced, financialized, and regulated.

Bristol Uni Press

Platform Politics

Corporate Power, Grassroots Movements and the Sharing Economy

This book charts the rise and fall of the ‘sharing economy’, the controversial lobbying tactics used by the central companies and the backlash seen so far. It offers key policy recommendations and presents state-of-the-art knowledge around the past, present and future of the platform economy.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 19.99 Pre-order
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 60.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 19.99

Parenting in an Algorithm Age

Parents talking algorithms and parenthood, amidst datafication

This book explores the intersection of parenthood and the digital age, where algorithms shape daily decisions.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 27.99 Pre-order
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 80.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 27.99

Pandemic Societies

This important book explores the dimensions, dynamics and implications of the emerging pandemic society, shedding new light on how pandemics are socially produced and, in turn, shape societies in governance, work and recreation, science and technology, education, and family life.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 19.99 Pre-order
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 85.99 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 19.99

Online Child Sexual Victimisation

Focusing on online facilitated online sexual abuse, this book takes a rigorous approach to existing literature to address some of the most pressing public and policy questions on this type of abuse. It examines which children are most vulnerable, how their vulnerability is made, what they are vulnerable to and how we can foster resilience.

Policy Press

Observing Justice

Digital Transparency, Openness and Accountability in Criminal Courts

This book examines how major but often under-scrutinised legal, social, and technological developments have affected the transparency and accountability of the criminal justice process. The book proposes a framework for open justice which prioritises public legal education and justice system accountability.

Bristol Uni Press

Networked Crime

Does the Digital Make the Difference?

Considering digital affordances for crime, this book considers whether cyberculture is significantly escalating social harms. Matthew David gives fresh insights into online harms and behaviours in the fields of hate, obscenity, corruptions of citizenship and appropriation, offering a comprehensive guide to the field of cybercrime.

Bristol Uni Press

Neighbourhoods on the net

The nature and impact of internet-based neighbourhood information systems

How a neighbourhood is viewed can affect the lives of those who live there and the attitudes and behaviour of others towards them. This report examines the increasing use and sophistication of Internet-Based Neighbourhood Information Systems and considers their potential impact on how neighbourhoods are viewed. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk

Policy Press

The Mutant Project

Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans

An anthropologist visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: whose values are guiding gene-editing experiments, and what are the implications for humanity?

Bristol Uni Press

Mistrust Issues

How Technology Discourses Quantify, Extract and Legitimize Inequalities

Discussing the political understandings of 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 the increasing of inequalities.

Bristol Uni Press