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In this book, Kean Birch analyses the co-construction of markets and natures in the emerging bio-economy as a policy response to global environmental change. The bio-economy is an economic system characterized by the use of plants and other biological materials rather than fossil fuels to produce energy, chemicals, and societal goods. Over the last decade or so, numerous countries around the world have developed bio-economy strategies as a potential transition pathway to a low-carbon future. Whether this is achievable or not remains an open question, one which this book seeks to answer. In addressing this question, Kean Birch draws on over ten years of research on the bio-economy around the world, but especially in North America. He examines what kinds of markets and natures are being imagined and constructed in the pursuit of the bio-economy, and problematizes the idea that this is being driven by neoliberalism and the neoliberalization of nature(s). .

Technology—Sociological aspects. --- Science and Technology Studies.

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The exploration of ways to conceptualize the shaping of the present by socio‐technical futures is the aim of this volume. Therefore it brings together contributions from Science and Technology Studies and Technology Assessment, which focus all on the question how socio-technical images of the future shape present processes of innovation and transformation starting from empirical case studies and generalizing specific findings or by tackling conceptual questions from the outset. A white paper of 23 authors, which aims to sensitize researchers and practitioners completes the volume. Contents Analytical Concepts, Different Kinds and Patterns of Socio-Technical Futures.- Socio-Technical Futures in Different Processes of Change.- Intervening into the Present Through Prospective Reasoning.- White Paper. Target Groups Researchers and students from social sciences and humanities The Editors Andreas Lösch is senior research scientist at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) and private lecturer for sociology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Armin Grunwald is director of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), full professor of philosophy and ethics of technology at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and heads the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB). Martin Meister is a research associate at the Department of Sociology, Chair on Sociology of Technology and Innovation at Technical University of Berlin. Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer is full professor of sociology and head of the sociology of technology and innovation group at the Department of Sociology at Technical University of Berlin.

Technology --- Social aspects. --- Philosophy. --- Technology—Sociological aspects. --- Philosophy of Technology. --- Science and Technology Studies. --- Mental philosophy --- Humanities

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This Handbook is a detailed introduction to the numerous academic perspectives that apply to the study of the internet as a political, social and communicative phenomenon. Covering both practical and theoretical angles, established researchers from around the world discuss everything: the foundations of internet research appear alongside chapters on understanding and analyzing current examples of online activities and artifacts. The material covers all continents and explores in depth subjects such as networked gaming, economics and the law. The sheer scope and breadth of topics examined in this volume, which ranges from on-line communities to e-science via digital aesthetics, are evidence that in today’s world, internet research is a vibrant and mature field in which practitioners have long since stopped considering the internet as either an utopian or dystopian "new" space, but instead approach it as a medium that has become an integral part of our everyday culture and a natural mode of communication. This Second International Handbook of Internet Research is an updated version of the first International Handbook of Internet Research that came out in 2010. Since then, the field has changed, and this new version retains a number of the key updated chapters from the first handbook, as well as completely new chapters.

Communication. --- Sociology. --- Computers and civilization. --- Mass media. --- Technology—Sociological aspects. --- Media Research. --- Computers and Society. --- Media Sociology. --- Science and Technology Studies. --- Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary.

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Frequently enabled by digitalization, great transformations are taking place in socio-technical systems such as energy, telecommunications, and mobility. These transformations indicate widespread shifts in societal infrastructure systems, rearranging relations between governments, industries, NGOs, and consumers. In this context, the question of trust in systems – as introduced by sociologists Luhmann, Coleman and Giddens – acquires new urgency, as yet uncommented upon in trust research, or socio-technical systems debates. Focusing on the energy sector, Patrick Sumpf analyzes the meanings of system and trust to develop a framework for both theoretical and empirical research, which is synthesized into an “Architecture of Trust” in systems. Contents The Dualism of System Trust Intersections in Trust Research Open and Closed Systems System Identity Toward an ‘Architecture of Trust’ Case Study: Trust in the Energy System Target Groups Researchers and students in sociology, communications, psychology, management, trust research, and energy research Consultants in energy policy and management The Author Patrick Sumpf holds a Dr. phil. in media and communication studies from Mannheim University, Germany. He is a research associate and project lead at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

System theory. --- Systems, Theory of --- Systems science --- Science --- Philosophy --- Sociology-Research. --- Technology—Sociological aspects. --- Sociological Theory. --- Research Methodology. --- Science and Technology Studies. --- Sociology. --- Sociology—Research. --- Social theory --- Social sciences

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This book describes community ophthalmology professionals in South Asia who demonstrate social entrepreneurship in global health to help the rural poor. Their innovations contested economic and scientific norms, and spread from India and Nepal outwards to other countries in Africa and Asia, as well as the United States, Australia, and Finland. This feminist postcolonial global ethnography illustrates how these innovations have resulted in dual socio-technical systems to solve the problem of avoidable blindness. Policymakers and activists might use this example of how to avoid Schumacher's critique of low labor, large scale and implement Gandhi's philosophy of good for all.

Technology—Sociological aspects. --- Social medicine. --- Medical anthropology. --- Science and Technology Studies. --- Medical Sociology. --- Medical Anthropology. --- Medical care --- Medicine --- Anthropology --- Medical sociology --- Medicine, Social --- Public health --- Public welfare --- Sociology --- Medical ethics --- Medical sociologists --- Anthropological aspects --- Social aspects