Author Archive for kathryn

The fourth issue of Volume 7 of The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society has now been published.

Volume 7, Issue 4 contains:

• Sustaining Information and Communication Technology use among Canadians with at Least One Activity Limitation by Wendy Young, Jared Clarke, George Klima, Veeresh Gadag, Lan Gien and Irene Hardill.
• Analyzing Factors Influencing Students’ Productive Use of Computers: A Structural Equation Model by Ove Edvard Hatlevik.
• How Far Can We Reach? International Audiences in Online Museums Communities by Natalia Grincheva.
• Implications of Open-source Social Networking on Entrepreneurship by Emad Rahim.
• Assessing Pupils’ Perceptions of Schoolyard Habitats with the Use of Photoshop Drawings by Maria Savvaidou-Kambouropoulou and Michael Skoumios.
• Developing a Collaborative Health Informatics System to Foster Inter-agency Collaboration and Communication during Public Health Emergencies: Remote and Isolated First Nation Communities of Sub-arctic Ontario, Canada by Nadia A. Charania, Christine D. Barbeau, Daniel D. McCarthy, Donald Cowan and Leonard J. S. Tsuji.
• Speculative Art and Design Relationship with Communication Technology by Pauline de Souza.
• Ortega’s Tragicomedy of Technology: Our Starring Role by Langdon Winner.
• Investigating Risk Factors Affecting Infant Mortality Rates in the United States by Chau-Kuang Chen.
• The Relationship Between Good Governance and Foreign Direct Investment in East Asia’s Knowledge-based Economic Growth by Sajit Chandra Debnath.

Congratulations to John Branstetter the winner of the International Award for Excellencein the area of technology, knowledge and society with his paper  The (Broken?) Promise of Digital Democracy: An Early Assessment.

Abstract: The empirical data are just beginning to emerge about how the internet is actually being utilized for political means. With the answers to some of the descriptive questions becoming available, it is now also possible to begin addressing its normative impact. The question now is whether the internet’s use as a new medium for political discourse actually measures up to the hopes of those who argue that it has the potential to improve political discourse and democratic politics. In other words, although the internet certainly makes better politics possible, is it actually being used in a way that meets the normative expectations currently being placed on it? To answer this question, it is necessary to have some normative standard to appeal to. In this case, Habermas’ concept of discourse ethics and his contribution to the theories of deliberative democracy are a fruitful foundation from which to build. After clarifying how Habermas’ concepts can provide a standard for evaluation and considering some of the recent empirical literature, I conclude that based on the current evidence, much of the political discourse on the internet is not consistent with Habermas’ notion of ideal speech. Because of this, I argue that the idea that the internet is providing a qualitatively better form of political discourse is difficult to sustain.

The third issue of Volume 7 of The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society has now been published.

Volume 7, Issue 3 contains:

• Evaluating Web Accessibility of University Web Sites in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by Mukhtar Masood Rana, Mohammed Fakrudeen and Uzma Rana.
• Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Facilitate Student Learning: A Collaboration between Universities by Mitzi Lewis and LaRae Donnellan.
• Technology and Adult Learning: Understanding E-Learning and the Lifelong Learner by Kenneth D. Ott.
• Voices from Oman: Functional Discourse in the Electronic Age by Connie S. Eigenmann-Malik.
• Technological Disintermediation in Design and Higher Education by Paul Cesarini and Stan Guidera.
• Social Media, Social Design and Social Construction: A Dialectic Approach for the Use of Social Media in the Public Sector by B. Joon Kim and Farida Adam.

Continue reading ‘Technology Journal, Volume 7, Issue 3 now available’