Monthly Archive for August, 2009

Special Issue of tripleC

Call for Papers:

The Crisis that began in 2007 continues to convulse the world. Labelled by some as merely a recession, yet it is associated with dramatic changes in national and global power. Others frame the Crisis as merely a consequence of over-promoting a narrow range of financial transactions associated with subprime mortgage instruments. These were indeed overly aggressively oversold by deregulated bankers, but this was likely only an important trigger of the Crisis, not the primary cause.

In this special issue, we will explore the notion that much of the basis of the Crisis should be assigned to financial transactions not just made possible but also strongly afforded by use of computer technologies. Thus, those operating at the highest levels of algorithmic capacity bear substantial responsibility for the Crisis.

For students of technological innovation and diffusion, many questions emerge about the connection between the Crisis in general and computerization. Some of the questions involve the tight relationship between cultures of technological empowerment and financial elites. Others questions, while appearing initially to be purely economic, turn out on examination to articulate strongly with the public interest, civil society, policymaking, and public discourse more generally.

These in turn lead to further, perhaps quite new critical questions about the emerging relationships between capitalism, democracy and the data-information-knowledge-technology nexus. Thus, equally important for responsibility is specification of what is known within computer science about the technological dimensions of the Crisis of this crisis. Ultimately, a rethinking of the very notion of “crisis” itself may be needed.
Continue reading ‘Information and Communication Technologies and the Current Crisis: How Are They Connected?’