Overview
Bits and Atoms explores the governance potential found in the explosive growth of digital information and communication technology in areas of limited statehood. Today, places with weak or altogether missing state institutions are tied internally and to the larger world by widely available digital technology. The chapters in the book explore questions of when and if the growth in digital technology can fill some of the governance vacuum created by the absence of an effective state. For example, mobile money could fill a gap in traditional banking or mobile phones could allow rural populations to pay for basic services and receive much needed advice and market pricing information. Yet, as potentially revolutionary as this technology can be to areas of limited statehood, it still faces limitations. Bits and Atoms is a thought-provoking look at the prospects for and limitations of digital technology to function in place of traditional state apparatuses.
Full Product Details
Author: Steven Livingston (Professor of Media & Public Affairs and International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University) ,
Gregor Walter-Drop (Managing Director, Collaborative Research Center, Freie Universitat Berlin)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 16.20cm
, Height: 1.90cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.490kg
ISBN: 9780199941599
ISBN 10: 0199941599
Pages: 210
Publication Date: 27 February 2014
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
This pathbreaking book brings an innovative group of scholars and practitioners together to explore ways in which information and communication technologies are addressing governance problems that occur when states fail to deliver basic services or provide acceptable levels of social order and public input. The diverse cases illustrate both the capacities and limits of communication technologies in building various forms of social and political organization. These studies cast a much needed light on the spectrum of political problems and creative possibilities that shape the lives of the majority of people living outside of functional democratic political regimes. The book adds significantly to how we think about governance, the role of technology in social and political organization, and the nature of political communication. -- W. Lance Bennett, Professor of Political Science and Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor of Communication, University of Washington For readers versed in digital media and politics, this engaging book is about the rest of the world: Haiti, Nigeria, and other areas where states exercise limited authority. Through their special focus on such places, the contributors challenge assumptions about collective action. They show the power and limits of digital media to foster social action when authority is limited and collective goods are different than in well-functioning states. This is an innovative contribution to our understanding of collective action. --Bruce Bimber, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Author Information
Steven Livingston is Professor of Media and Public and International Affairs at the School of Public Affairs & Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, and he is the author of When The Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (Chicago, 2007), Clarifying the CNN Effect (Harvard, 1997), Terrorism Spectacle (Westview, 1994). Gregor Walter-Drop is the Managing Director of the Collaborative Research Center 700 Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood at Freie Universitat Berlin
