Communication by Design: The Politics of Information and Communication Technologies

by Robin E. Mansell (editor), Roger Silverstone (Editor)

The information revolution has been described as 'the biggest technological juggernaut that ever rolled' and every day we hear more about the Global Information Infrastructure. The information and communications technologies (ICTs) of the 1990s enable the electronic production and consumption of increasingly vast quantities of information. They affect business, consumer, education and leisure activity. The consequences of these changes are unpredictable and contradictory, raising issues for governments, business, organizations and individuals.; This book gets to grips with recent developments and offers a new understanding of their likely effect. Because of the pervasive and quite unique characteristics of ICTs as a technology system, the authors argue that it is only through an interdisciplinary approach that we can fully grasp the implications and explore the uncertainties of the inter-relationship between the technical and the socio-economic.; Moving from economics to sociology and political science in its study of information and communication, this book will be essential reading for all those in these disciplines concerned to understand the ICT challenge. Two central concepts of design and capability run through the book, and the authors apply them to developments from the micro (domestic) level to the macro (international) level.; Based on work done in the major UK research programme PICT (the Programme on Information and Communication Technologies), the book is probing and reflective; its purpose is to provide tools of analysis rather than a catalogue of developments. Throughout the authors argue that the information age is about people, social organization, adaptation and control and not just technologies.

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First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Robin Elizabeth Mansell is Professor of New Media and the Internet in the Department of Media and Communications at London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2018–19 she directs the double degree MSc/MA Global Media and Communications (LSE and UCT). She has training in several social science disciplines including psychology, social psychology, politics and economics and is a strong advocate of interdisciplinary research when it builds on the strengths of disciplinary inquiry.

Her research and teaching focus on media and communications regulation and policy, internet governance, privacy and surveillance, digital platforms, the socio-technical features of data and information systems, and the social, political and economic impacts of innovation in digital networks and applications. Her current research focuses on the political economy of ‘platformisation’ and ‘datafication’ and its social consequences for society and on the challenges of designing and implementing regulatory norms, rules and processes through institutions in diverse contexts around the world.

She has been involved in many aspects of LSE life and served as Head of the Media and Communications Department in 2006-09 and in 2017-18 as well as LSE interim Deputy Director and Provost 2015-16 and academic Governor 2005-10. She is a Standing Selection Committee member of Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) Canada, board member of TPRC (Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy), member of the Scientific Advisory Council of LIRNEAsia, Sri Lanka, and Chairs the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Clearinghouse for Public Statements, having served as IAMCR President 2004-08. She was Trustee of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex 1999-2009 and serves as a Trustee of the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

As collections go, this was actually markedly uniform in terms of both its quality and the degree to which each of the selections spoke both to each other and the larger project of the book. It is also nice to see that these early looks into developing what the editors refer to as "middle ground theory" (adapted from Robert Merton) onto the complex terrain of information and communication technologies hold up after a couple decades. My reasonably low rating, therefore, is not about the quality of this book (which is great) but rather its relative utility to my own scholarship. Silverstone and Haddon's contribution, on the domestication of ICTs in homes, comes closest to being useful, and develops concepts they expand on elsewhere regarding the double articulation of technologies (the fact they exist as both objects and mediums), which are at once incredibly insightful and seemingly obvious. Silverstone and Haddon's understanding of the double articulation enables them to pay attention to the various roles technologies play in the lives of consumers, and identify the roles as related to either the technology's objectification or its content. It is immediately obvious to me that books are very much this sot of technology, and that expressing as much in Silverstone and Haddon's terminology is likely to be useful.