IDS 101: The Power of Data: Books & More

Surveillance is commonly rationalized as a practice to address existing political or social problems such as crime, fraud, and terrorism. This book also explores how surveillance, disguised as managing risk or reducing harm, can cause a range of problems, including poverty, over-policing, and exclusion.

Today, with everything from e-mail to blogs, iPods and podcasts, through Google, Yahoo, eBay, and with cutting-edge smart phones, we find ourselves developing relationships with these newest communication tools that aren’t simply allowing us to communicate faster, farther and with more ease than ever before. We aren’t just moving around ideas, data, and information at unimaginable speed and scale. Our interminglings and fusions with digital communication technologies are also altering both individual and group consciousness in fundamental ways—how we form and sustain relationships, how we think and perceive, what it means to see and to feel.

Technological changes are posing stark challenges to America’s core values. Basic constitutional principles find themselves under stress from stunning advances that were unimaginable even a few decades ago, much less during the Founders’ era. Policymakers and scholars must begin thinking about how constitutional principles are being tested by technological change and how to ensure that those principles can be preserved without hindering technological progress.

This book provides an ambitious and authoritative introduction to the field, with discussions of a range of topics including privacy, ownership, freedom of speech, responsibility, technological determinism, the digital divide, cyber warfare, and online pornography. It offers an accessible and thoughtful survey of the transformations brought about by ICTs and their implications for the future of human life and society, for the evaluation of behavior, and for the evolution of moral values and rights.

Twenty-nine cases, drawn from the real-life experiences of computer professionals, are included in the book as a means to let students experiment with solving ethical dilemmas and identify the philosophical underpinnings of the solutions. Ethical dilemmas range in the field of computing, taking a philosophical, rather than a legal, approach to the topic. It first examines the principles of Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, Existentialism, and Philosophical Analysis, explaining how each of them might be adopted as a basis for solving computing dilemmas.

Technology plays a vital role in shaping modern society, while society plays a vital role in shaping technological trends. This book demonstrates this interdependent relationship by going beyond definitions and descriptions and into the minds of some of the world's most exciting thought leaders. A diverse collection of readings by technology enthusiasts and critics, the book discusses philosophical approaches as well as specific technologies to provide a unique and unparalleled overview of technology today.

This book describes why the impact of new technology has brought constitutes a revolution, and it looks at the significance of this revolution with respect to our growing dependence on technology, how we communicate, how we locate and publish information, and how we socialize.

The survey research discipline faces unprecedented challenges, such as falling response rates, inadequate sampling frames, and antiquated approaches and tools. Addressing this changing landscape, Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research introduces readers to a multitude of new techniques in data collection in one of the fastest developing areas of survey research.

Provides an up-to-date discussion of the main ethical issues that face today's information-intensive society, including the areas of intellectual property rights, privacy, accessibility and censorship. The explosive growth of information technology, increased competition in the global marketplace, and the rush to use information in an effort to protect society from terrorism has led to the unintended erosion of rights and duties that are often considered fundamental.