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 37-48 of 86 items.

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

DataPublics

The Construction of Publics in Datafied Democracies

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Drawing on empirical data from US and UK as well as the unique example of Nordic countries where there is a high level of confidence in state and media institutions, this book shows how platforms and algorithms are transforming media, journalism and audiences’ civic practices.

Bristol Uni Press

Making Information Matter

Understanding Surveillance and Making a Difference

This book advances a new view of information and surveillance practices, as well as their related agencies, politics, and powers. Drawing on case studies, the author crafts a new methodology of studying information life cycles which will help us navigate information regimes today.

Bristol Uni Press

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.

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

Understanding Abuse in Young People’s Intimate Relationships

Female Perspectives on Power, Control and Gendered Social Norms

Gender-based violence is explored from the perspective of young women in this essential guide for those working with young people.

Policy Press

Exploring Digital Technology in Education

Why Theory Matters and What to Do about It

The field of digital technology in education has long been under-theorised. This book will enable the reader to reflect on the use of theory when explaining technology use and set out ways in which we can theorise better.

Policy Press

The Digital Health Self

Wellness, Tracking and Social Media

Putting the spotlight on neoliberalism as a pervasive tool that dictates wellness as a moral obligation, this book critically analyses how users navigate relationships between self-tracking technologies, social media and health management.

Bristol Uni Press

Care Technologies for Ageing Societies

An International Comparison

Exploring the role of technology in Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan, this book compares the ways in which technology is being implemented in different national contexts to contribute effectively to the sustainability of care systems.

Policy Press

The Life of a Number

Measurement, Meaning and the Media

Drawing on case studies, this book examines how politicians, academics and journalists gave meaning to data during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawson sheds light on the distinct nature of the pandemic that led to the increased politicization of data and how it permanently changed the way we view health and society more broadly.

Bristol Uni Press

The Ethics of Hacking

Bristol Uni Press

Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy

Amazon and the Power of Organization

Drawing on interviews with Amazon workers and original empirical data, this book explores how different working conditions estrange and alienate workers, and how, despite these, workers find ways to organize and express their agency. This is an important analysis of work on the digital shop floor for the scholars of platform economy.

Bristol Uni Press