Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present the modeling of industrial–postindustrial transition in Russian society. The very special part of this process concerns the relations between lordship and bondage. The relations between Lordship and Bondage in a context of so-called Master–Slave dialectic can elucidate a way to the knowledge-based society as a kind of modern capitalistic society.

An author uses a complex of methods. He applies a phenomenological approach, mixed with the dialectics and analytical approach. Phenomenological approach presupposes the neediness of attention on a work of the conscious actions within formation of the social experiences. The modification of dialectics helps to make the comprehension of the history of social relations as a game of forces in self-consciousness, which nowadays bases on the attitudes between leaders and led people. A variant of analytic methodology helps to understand each problem as a puzzle.

As a result, author finds a spirit of the processes within development of knowledge-based society and innovative economy depends on so-called Master–Slave dialectic. In Europe, Master–Slave dialectic caused the leading role of scientists. In Russia, scientists depended on the Government and played secondary role in economy.

Research is the philosophical treatise, which demonstrates the speculative evaluation of industrial–postindustrial transition in Russian society.

Practical implications is the constructing the prognosis of the development of the Russian society.

Research can help to improve the understanding of the mechanisms of leadership in society.

Originality of the paper is the reconstruction of social forms, which caused the social progress in Russia.

Any reasonably advanced practice is a blend of rational thinking, thinking structured by concepts and numerical representations rendering the world static and immovable, and intuitive thinking, a mode of knowing operating “in‐between” concepts and representations and, therefore, are apprehending the fluid and fleeting nature of being. When moving from being a novice to an expert practitioner, the actor must both appropriate rational thinking and increasingly, as experience is acquired, draw on intuitive thinking. For the novice, the concern is however that intuitive thinking is complicated to articulate or represent but is primarily acquired through years of experience and practice. The paper seeks to discuss practice as a term that includes both these two elements of thinking.

The paper uses empirical examples from nursing work, financial trading, and scientific research to further develop the concept of practice.

The paper suggests that “skilled coping” of expert practitioners are examined as a gradual appropriation and combining of rational and intuitive thinking. The difficulty of becoming a skilled practitioner is, inter alia, to acquire inarticulate know‐how through collaboration with experienced peers.

The paper seeks to discuss the concept of practice based on process philosophy underlining the distinction between rational and intuitive thinking, yet emphasizing their mutual constitution in the domain of practice. The concept of practice is thus anchored in a solid theoretical framework capable of exploring some of the difficulties involved in acquiring expert skills.

In this editorial introduction Allen Lee's definition of the information systems (IS) field is taken as the starting point: “Research in the information systems field examines more than just the technological system, or just the social system, or even the two systems side by side; in addition, it investigates the phenomena that emerge when the two interact” (Lee, A. “Editorial”, MISQ, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2001, p. iii). By emphasizing the last part of this, it is argued that actor‐network theory (ANT) can provide IS research with unique and very powerful tools to help us overcome the current poor understanding of the information technology (IT) artifact (Orlikowski, W. and Iacono, S., “Research commentary: desperately seeking the ‘IT’ in IT research – a call for theorizing the IT artifact”, Information Systems Research, Vol. 10 No. 2, 2001, pp. 121‐34). These tools include a broad range of concepts describing the interwoven relationships between the social.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the methods and findings of a pilot study which applied bibliometrics and webometrics to examine collaboration in Malaysian biotechnology.

The research applied bibliometric and webometric methods to publications and web sites affiliated with Malaysian institutions. The bibliometric analysis focused on biotechnology‐related journal articles indexed in Web of Knowledge. The webometric analysis examined the web sites of top biotechnology institutions generated in the bibliometric analysis. Collaboration behaviour was assessed in three ways: intra‐institutional versus inter‐institutional; national versus international collaboration; and by type of institution collaboration according to the triple helix model.

Findings of the pilot study, which applied bibliometric and webometric analyses to a limited sample, indicate that the methodologies will collect the desired data for a more extensive study.

The quantitative research results describe the collaboration evident in publications and web sites, but not why it has happened in such a way.

The methodologies provide a framework for similar research exploring the impacts of collaboration in an e‐research environment. The methodology is innovative and practical in terms of the combined use of bibliometric and webometric analyses.

This is one of few studies that has examined collaboration using both bibliometric and webometric methods, and elements of the methodology appear to be unique to the study. The methodologies will contribute to an emerging body of literature that explores the nature of research productivity and research collaboration.

This contribution shows perspectives of experts from different disciplines and professional backgrounds in order to elaborate on maker approaches such as do-it-yourself prosthetics and collaborative tools. As a result, aspects of open source practices related to medical and assistive technologies will be critically reflected upon. In addition, implications of heterogeneous interests, economic implications and everyday achievements of social material assemblages produced through participatory design research are discussed.

In order to address an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective on the relationships between body (differences) and technology, it is necessary to bring together studies from both Science and Technology Studies (STS) and crip technoscience as well as approaches from participatory design research and practice. This challenge was addressed by a roundtable organized as part of the third network meeting of the Dis/Ability and Digital Media Research Network on 16 September 2020.

Against the backdrop of “crip technoscience” DIY and collaborative open source practices are not only understood as valuable alternatives to standardized medical prosthetics and assistive devices. These bottom-up approaches which draw from the expert knowledge of disabled users (Hamraie and Fritsch, 2019) also facilitate devices that defy categories such as “prosthetic” or “medical aid” not only aesthetically but semantically, too.

The Network Dis/Abilities and Digital Media intends to integrate media and technology studies with disability studies on a theoretical level. This round table discussion delivers proof of how – on the practical level – technology and dis/ability need to be thought of as relational and co-constitutive (Mills and Sterne, 2017).

The introduction in Italy in July 2021 of the “COVID-19 Green Certification”, known as the “Green Pass”, was a particularly important moment in the political and social history of the country. While its use for health reasons is debatable both logically and scientifically, its effects should be measured at the general sociological level. The “Green Pass” allowed Italian social life to be shaped according to a social and political profile that can be traced back to a “society of control”. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

This paper, of a theoretical nature, intends to verify such an interpretation through a critical survey of Gilles Deleuze's well-known Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle (1990) and relating the theories to it from cybernetic science, sociology of social systems and the continental philosophy, specifically Michel Foucault. After a short introduction on the history of the instrument's introduction, the paper, divided into parts reflecting the set-up of Deleuze's text, examines the systemic social effects of the “Green Pass” with regard to its logic, and concludes with a reflection on the program of the instrument's future developments.

The “Green Pass” put into practice a model of a society of control as anticipated by Deleuze, verified with particular reference to some instances of Luhmann's theory of social systems, and in the perspective of a Foucault's “normalizing society” in the process of definition and affirmation.

The “Green Pass” has been a controversial tool that has caused forms of social discrimination and exclusion and has seriously questioned the architecture of the rule of law. The conceptual paper tries to reflect on the premises and implications of this instrument.

The approach to the problem both in a critical key and according to concepts and theories of the sociology of social systems, cybernetics and continental philosophy.

The pupose of this paper is twofold. First, to consider the cultural reception of recent developments in genetic technology and human reproduction, particularly in relation to the prospect of human cloning and the advent of the “designer human”; and second, to explore the ways in which public discussion of these developments presuppose and recast issues of diversity, difference and (in)equality.

The research draws upon UK print media sources (broadsheet and tabloid newspapers) over the past two decades to examine the ways in which cultural expectations concerning developments in reproductive technology are commonly expressed. It does not aim at a quantitative examination of the content of what was said; rather it seeks to explore how it was said and thus the discursive resources that were employed in doing so.

The paper suggests that images of “technology” function simultaneously as “mirrors of society”, providing a means for articulating and rhetorically rehearsing the various philosophical antinomies and moral conflicts that characterize social organization.

The paper adopts a novel approach to the question of diversity, difference and (in)equality by considering the “monsters” discursively associated with recent developments in genetic and reproductive technology as well as the “monstrous” forms of social organization that they foreshadow.

The notion of “sustainable development” has had a short and tumultuous history, including a departure from economic reductionism by focusing on a multidimensional aspect and addressing the issues of its scope across many disciplines. It has become a project enabling a rethinking of capitalism based on the concept of a reformed type of capitalism. The purpose of this paper is to study this issue.

The paper is based on the following arguments: the presentation of sustainable development as a “vague” theory, an empirical proof of this vagueness with regard to corporate actions whose justification is based around the notion of sustainable development, and finally the ambiguities of the notion.

The notion of sustainable development raises the question of an apparent consensus on its correlates: solidarity, responsibility, equity, etc. It tends to establish a protean sense of the firms' responsibility, particularly the larger ones. The largely political dimension of the notion has today consequences on its usage. Sustainable development as addressed in the firm tends to take on the dimension of a management issue, which is likely to persist due to its larger political dimension.

The paper provides insight on the catch‐all dimension of the notion and its appealing rhetorical character and bases the ambiguity related with references to an “in‐between.” On the institutional level, it refers to a social and fair economy that stands arguably in between the state and the market. On the methodological level, it refers to heuristics of fear and hope.