ICTs in a changing society

Annotation

It is crucial to understand how ICT innovation is associated with change in society. The complex interrelationships between societal changes and the ICTs in use by both different societies and different sectors of societies encompass both technologically deterministic shifts grounded in fundamental telecommunications infrastructure (e.g. mobile internet in developing countries) and intensely social emergence trends such as the ever-shifting patterns of social media usage. Are ICTs reflecting, driving, or simply material-virtual manifestations of the accelerated change in contemporary society? A focus on change, on the one hand, and on theorising and understanding change, on the other, is sometimes lacking in the Information Systems field in general. Focussed, as many of us are, on the more day-to-day issues of how ICTs are used and engaged with in the world around us, stepping back to look at the broader sweep of recent history is something of a luxury. To use an old adage, it is sometimes difficult to see the wood for the trees, especially when the treeline is gradually shifting further up the mountain, and the mix of species is rebalancing. This e-book focuses on six different aspects of ICTs in a Changing Society.