Information Technology: An Idea and Culture

(See also Business and Technology)

General Resources

History of Information and Computing

• General History
• Early Computing, Information, and Communications Theory
• Age of the Mainframe
• Age of the "Personal Computer" and Networking
• The "Future History" of IT (Predictions, Prophecies, Etc.)

The Telecommunications Revolution

"How Much Information Is There?" (objective measures of contemporary information and information work)

"Information Literacy"

IT Ethics

IT Law

Politics and Sociology of IT

Economics of the Internet

IT and Ethnic, Gender, and Other Underrepresented Populations

IT Sub-, Counter-, and Fringe-Cultures

Critical Reflections on Information Technology (on separate page)

= More Info (see policy on "more info" links)

General Resources

• Bretchen Bender and Timothy Drucker, ed., Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology (Seattle, WA: Bay, 1994)
• James R. Beniger, The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1986) (expansive, widely-informed book on the "control crisis" created in modernizing societies when the speed of machinery, transport, and other facets of industrialization outstripped older modes of mechanical, informational, organizational, and social control; perceives the information revolution to be continuous with the "control revolution" that ensued)
• Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, 3 vols. (Malden, Mass. / Oxford: Blackwell, 1996-98) (monumental trilogy that studies the information revolution in the context of global economic and social-political history; particularly focussed on the international sweep of postindustrial "networked" economies and the antithetical rise of communitarian or fundamentalist religious, ethnic, territorial, national identities among world populations marginalized by the new economy)
  1. I. The Rise of Network Society (1996)
  2. II. The Power of Identity (1997)
  3. III. End of Millennium
• Herbert S. Dordick and Georgette Wang, Information Society: A Retrospective View (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993) (socioeconomic measurement of "the status and consequences of the information revolution . . . [and] information society in those nations that have, over the past 20 years, announced policies for informatization and have undertaken specific programs. . . . ")
• Tom Forester, ed., The Information Technology Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985)
• Information Policy Resources (deep collection of resources organized by nation or region; includes links to official policy statements, organizations, surveys, essays, etc.) (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions)
  1. General Resources
  2. Asia-Pacific
  3. Canada
  4. Europe
  5. U.S.
  6. Community Networking
  7. Copyright and Intellectual Property
  8. G-7 Information Society Resources
• Information Society Links (John McCann and John Gallagher)
• Information Technology Industry Organizations (U.S. National Information Infrastructure Virtual Library)
• Internet and Networking: Surveys and Statistics (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions)
• R.L. Katz, The Information Society: An International Perspective (New York: Praeger, 1988)
• Yoneji Masuda, The Information Society as Post-Industrial Society (Tokyo: Institute for the Information Society, 1980 / Washington, D.C.: World Future Society, 1981)
  1. Excerpt from The Information Society as Post-Industrial Society: "Parameters of the Post-Industrial Society: Computopia," in Forester (1985), pp. 620-34
• S. Nora and A. Minc, The Computerization of Society: A Report to the President of France (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980)
• Gregory J.E. Rawlins, Slaves of the Machine: The Quickening of Computer Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997)
• Richard S. Rosenberg, The Social Impact of Computers. 2nd ed. (San Diego, Calif.: Academic, 1997)
• Paul A. Strassmann, Information Payoff: The Transformation of Work in the Electronic Age (New York: Free Press, 1985)
• Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998)

History of Information and Computing

• General History
  • Charles Babbage Institute Center for the History of Computing ("dedicated to promoting the study and preservation of the history of information processing. . . . includes oral history interviews of prominent computer scientists, engineers, and industrialists") (U. Minnesota)
    1. Selected Reources:
    2. Archival Collections
    3. Oral History Collection
    4. DARPA/IPTO History Project
    5. Recent Publications in the History of Information Processing
    6. Web and Gopher Sites Related to the History of Information Processing
    7. Hollywood and Computers
    8. Photo Gallery
  • James R. Beniger, The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1986) (expansive, widely-informed book on the "control crisis" created in modernizing societies when the speed of machinery, transport, and other facets of industrialization outstripped older modes of mechanical, informational, organizational, and social control; perceives the information revolution to be continuous with the "control revolution" that ensued)
  • Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (New York: BasicBooks / HarperCollins, 1996)
  • Historic Images of Computers (history of computing) (Mike Muuss, U.S. Army Research Lab)
  • History of Computers and Communications: Online Resources (Wendy Gale Robinson, U. North Carolina at Chapel Hill/Duke U.)
  • The History of Computing (Web-mounted lecture by Michelle A. Hoyle, U. of Regina, Canada)
  • History of Computing (J.A.N. Lee, Virginia Tech)
  • The History of Computing at the Ballistics Research Laboratory (U. S. Army Research Lab) (illustrated lecture; Mike Muuss, U. S. Army Research lab)
  • History-of-Hypertext Timeline (Jorn Barger)
  • History of Microcomputers/Chronology of Events (Ken Polsson)
  • A Hypermedia Timeline (Kevin Hughes)
  • Robert E. Kraut, ed., Technology and the Transformation of White-Collar Work (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987)
  • Nicholas C. Metropolis, et al., eds., A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century: A Collection of Essays (New York: Academic, 1976)
  • Photograph of Babbage's Calculating Engine
  • Photograph of the Islamic Glass Alembic
  • Photograph of Cooke and Wheatstone's Telegraph
  • Joel Shurkin, Engines of the Mind: A History of the Computer (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984)
  • Timeline of Internet History (PBS)
  • Michael R. Williams, A History of Computing (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985)
  • Computer Museums
    1. Commercial Computing Museum (Waterloo, Ontario)
    2. The Computer Museum (Boston)
    3. The Intel Museum
    4. Museum of HP Calculators
    5. Obsolete Computer Museum (Tom Carlson)
    6. The Virtual Museum of Computing (history of computing) (Jonathan Bowen, Oxford U.)
• Early Computing, Information, and Communications Theory
  • Charles Babbage
    1. Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, "Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, Esq. By L.F. Meabrea, of Turin (1842), reprinted in B.V. Bowden, ed., Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines (England: Pittman, 1971), p. 368
    2. Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines: Selected Writings by Charles Babbage and Others, ed. Philip and Emily Morrison (New York: Dover, 1961)
    3. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, 3rd ed. (London: Charles Knight, 1833) (originally pub. 1832)
    4. Henry Prevost Babbage, ed., Babbage's Calculating Engines, Being a Collection of Papers Relating to Them, Their History and Construction Charles Babbage Institute Reprint for the History of Computing Series, vol. 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1984)
  • Kenneth Flamm, Creating the Computer: Government, Industry, and High Technology (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1988)
  • Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin, 1996; includes CD-ROM), Chap. 2 | see also the Road Ahead WWW Site
  • Herman H. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1972)
  • Simon Lavington, Early British Computers (Bedford, MA: Digital, 1980)
  • Brian Randell, ed., The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers, 3rd ed. (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1982)
• Age of the Mainframe (1950s through c. 1980)
  • Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past (1988; rpt. New York: Penguin, 1989)
  • Joan Greenbaum, Windows on the Workplace: Computers, Jobs, and the Organization of Office Work in the Late Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1995)
  • Harvey Shaiken, Work Transformed: Automation and Labor in the Computer Age (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984)
  • Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (New York: Basic Books, 1988) (important study of the computerization of industry and the office in the mainframe age; uses extensive interviews with workers and managers to argue that hierarchical control methods designed for earlier industrial automation conflict fundamentally with the nature of "informated" work; of particular interest to humanities scholars is Zuboff's focus on the "body" of the white-collar worker as the register of industrial changes and her use of Foucault's "panopticon" paradigm to describe the struggle between informating and controlling the workplace)
• Age of the "Personal Computer" and Networking
  • William F. Birdsall (Dalhousie U.), "The Internet and the Ideology of Information Technology" (1996) (on the relation between the push for information technology and economic factors) (The Internet Society)
  • John Brockman, Digerati: Encounters With the Cyber Elite (San Francisco: HardWired, 1996)
  • Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, 3 vols. (Malden, Mass. / Oxford: Blackwell, 1996-98) (monumental trilogy that studies the information revolution in the context of global economic and social-political history; particularly focussed on the international sweep of postindustrial "networked" economies and the antithetical rise of communitarian or fundamentalist religious, ethnic, territorial, national identities among world populations marginalized by the new economy)
    1. I. The Rise of Network Society (1996)
    2. II. The Power of Identity (1997)
    3. III. End of Millennium
  • Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer (Berkeley, Calif.: Osborne / McGraw-Hill, 1984)
  • Wendy M. Grossman, net.wars (New York: New York Univ., 1997)
  • Michael and Ronda Hauben, Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet (online book)
  • Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (New York: Viking, 1998)
  • D.K. Smith and R.C. Alexander, Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer (New York: William Morrow, 1988)
  • Mark Stefik, ed., Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996)
  • Joseph Straubhaar and Robert LaRose, Communications Media in the Information Society (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1996)
• The "Future History" of IT (Predictions, Prophecies, Etc.)
  • Michael Dertouzos, What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives (New York: HarperEdge / HarperCollins, 1998)
  • Esther Dyson, Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age (New York: Broadway, 1997)
  • Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin, 1996; includes CD-ROM) (1st ed., 1995)
  • Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (New York: Viking, 1998)
  • Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (New York: Knopf, 1995)
  • "Working Document on the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme" (1997) (Adobe Acrobat version of a set of initiatives to promote European Union information society in a socially responsible way
    1. Comment on the Document by a Belgian User (biting critique of the initiative)

The Telecommunications Revolution

• Columbia U. Center for Telecom Research
• Columbia Institute for Tele-Information
• Jones Telecommunications and Multimedia Encyclopedia (online site "provides an interactive sampling of what people can expect" from the full product)
• Armand Mattelart, Mapping World Communications: War, Progress, Culture, trans. Susan Emanuel and James A. Cohen (Minneapolis: U. Minnesota Press, 1994) (originally pub. as La Communication-monde. Histoire des idées et des stratégies (Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1991)
• John S. Mayo, "The Telecommunications Explosion: Evolution of the Intelligent Network," in Forester (1985), pp. 106-19
• Telecommunications Industry Assoc. -- Communications Online
• Telecom Information Resources on the Internet (Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, U. Michigan)

"How Much Information Is There?"

(objective measures of contemporary information and information work)

• J. Barnes and D. Lamberton, "The Growth of the Australian Information Society," in M. Jussawalla and D.M. Lamberton, eds., Communication Economics and Development (New York: Pergamon, 1976), pp. 128-40
• Herbert S. Dordick and Georgette Wang, Information Society: A Retrospective View (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993) (socioeconomic measurement of "the status and consequences of the information revolution . . . [and] information society in those nations that have, over the past 20 years, announced policies for informatization and have undertaken specific programs. . . . "; contains excellent survey of the literature on the measurement of information's breadth and penetration)
• Y. Ito, "The 'Johoka Shakai" Approach to the Study of Communication in Japan," in G.C. Wilhoit and H. de Bock, eds., Mass Communiction Review Yearbook (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1981), pp. 671-98 (on the Johaka Index developed by Japan's Research Institute of Telecommunications and Economics to measure informationalization in Japan as compared to other countries; the index used the interesting but problematic approach of counting transmitted versus consumed "words" [and their equivalent in various media]; the former quantity rose dramatically while the latter remained level)
• M. Jussawalla, D.M. Lamberton, and N.D. Karunaratne, The Cost of Thinking: Information Economies of Ten Pacific Countries (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1988)
• R.L. Katz, "Explaining Information Sector Growth in Developing Countries," Telecommunications Policy 10 (1986): 209-228
• Fritz Machlup (early, vast, and definitive works on the topic; particularly noteworth for its blending of the categories of "information" and "knowledge" into an expansive notion of mind-work)
  1. The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1962
  2. Knowledge: Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton U. Press)
     • I. Knowledge and Knowledge Production (1980)
     • The Branches of Learning (1982)
• OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Information Activities,Electronics and Telecommunication Technologies (Paris: Author, 1981)
• Ithiel de Sola Pool, et al., Communication Flows: A Census in the United States and Japan (Amsterdam: Univ. of Tokyo Press, 1984) (compares the quantity of print, electronic, and face-to-face communication as well as the ratio of "words supplied" to "words consumed")
• M. Porat and M. Rubin, The Information Economy: Development and Measurement (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1977) (authoritative tabulation following after Machlup's early work; asserts a typology of information work divided between "primary" and "secondary" information sectors; education is classified in the secondary sector under "private" along with such industries as telecom, banking, insurance, real estate, advertising, law, and data processing)

"Information Literacy"

• B.M. Compain, "Information Technology and Cultural Change: Toward a New Literacy," in B.M. Compain, ed., Issues in New Information Technology (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1988), pp. 145-56
• Herbert S. Dordick and Georgette Wang, Information Society: A Retrospective View (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993) (see pp. 112 ff. on official national efforts to promote "computer literacy")
• K. Alix Hayden (U. Calgary), "Information Literacy"
• Information Literacy Definitions (Information Literacy Group, U. Calgary)
• Information Literacy Bibliography (K. Alix Hayden, U. Calgary)
• M.E. Martinez and N.E. Mead, Computer Competence: The First National Assessment (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1988)
• Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shelley K. Hughes (Fielding Inst.), "Information Literacy as a Liberal Art: Enlightenment Proposals for a New Curriculum" (1996) ("What sort of 'information literacy' -- an often-used but dangerously ambiguous concept -- should we be promoting. . . . something broader, something that enables individuals not only to use information and information technology effectively and adapt to their constant changes but also to think critically about the entire information enterprise and information society?") (Educom Review)

IT Ethics

• Robert N. Barger, Notre Dame U.)
  1. Computer Ethics Cases (Robert N. Barger, Notre Dame U.)
  2. (course) Electronic Information Processing: Studying Computer Ethics, the Internet, and the Web
• Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (School of Computing Sciences, De Montfort U., UK)
• Computer & Information Ethics Resources on WWW (Centre for Applied Ethics, U. British Columbia)
• Computer Ethics (Meng Weng Wong, U. Penn.)
• Cyberspace Law Abstracts (papers in Adobe Acrobat format) (Social Science Research Network)
• Roy Dejoie, et al., ed., Ethical Issues in Information Systems (Boston: Boyd & Fraser, 1991)
• (course) Fergus Duniho (U. Rochester), Computer Ethics
• Envisioning a Global Information Infrastructure: Project on The Ethical, Legal and Technological Aspects of Computer Network Use and Abuse (Directorate for Science and Policy Programs / American Association for the Advancement of Science)
• ETHICOMP98: Fourth International Conference on Ethical Issues of Information Technology (March 25-27, 1998, Erasmus U., The Netherlands)
• Ethics of Technology in Education (1993) (an "ethics statement" "distilled from the critical works of Neil Postman, the far-reaching wisdom of Isaac Asimov, and the penetrating insights of Jane Jacobs,--- all authors and ethicists in their respective fields. This ethics statement has been adopted by public and private educational institutions and educators in Hawaii, Texas and New York") (Carrie Beverly)
• Tom Forester and Perry Morrison, ed. Computer Ethics: Cautionary Tales and Ethical Dilemmas (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990)
• Ruth Guthrie and James Pick (U. Redlands, California), "Teleworking Ethics"
• The "Hacker Ethic" (brief code from the MIT fishWrap server whose emphasis on "thou shalt not," succinctness, and implicit complexity shows the clear influence of Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics)
• Deborah G. Johnson and John W. Snapper, ed., Ethical Issues in the Use of Computers (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1985)
• Alan Liu (U. California, Santa Barbara), "Should We Link to the Unabomber? An Essay on Practical Web Ethics" (1995)
• Monitors: A Journal of Human Rights and Technology
• IT Codes of Ethics (Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort U., UK)
• Netfuture: Technology and Human Responsibility (weekly newsletter that submits the net to ethical, social, political critique) (Steve Talbott)
• Netfuture: Technology and Human Responsibility (weekly newsletter that submits the net to ethical, social, political critique) (Steve Talbott)
• Science and Engineering Ethics: Special Issue on Global Information Ethics (April 1996) (abstracts)
• Social Issues of Computing (Tom Jewett, Calif. State U., Long Beach)
• (course) Wendy Robinson (U. North Carolina at Chapel Hill/Duke U.), Ethics and the Internet (1997) (religious studies course at Duke U. with a deep, well-organized index of online readings and other resources)
  1. Readings and Surfings
  2. Ethics Sources
  3. Legal and Civic Resources
  4. Techno-Cultural Media Resources
  5. Relevant Periodicals
• Simon Rogerson and Terrell Ward Bynum, "Information Ethics: The Second Generation" (1996) ("there is increasing evidence that computer professionals do not recognise when and where ethical issues present themselves") (Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort U., UK)
• Mary R. Sumner (Southern Illinois U., Edwardsville), "Ethics Online" (1996) (on differences between student and faculty views if online ethics) (Educom Review)
• Teaching Social Issues of Computing: Challenges, Ideas, and Resources (Tom Jewett, Rob Kling)
• USA Today, "Companies Grapple with Techno-Ethics" (April 27, 1998)

IT Law

• J. Dianne Brinson and Mark F. Radcliffe, "Multimedia Law Handbook: A Practical Guide for Developers and Publishers"
• Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner LLP (NY, LA, and Hartford based law firm with emphasis on high-technology and new-media law [as well as other areas]; page includes writings and links on the issues)
• E-Law Page (articles from the "Technology Law" column in the Chicago Daily Law Bullein and other technology law resources) (David Loundy)
• Fred Greguras & Sandy J. Wong, "Multimedia Content and the Super Highway: Rapid Acceleration or Foot on the Brake?"
• Bernard J. Hibbitts (U. Pittsburgh School of Law), "Last Writes?: Re-assessing the Law Review in the Age of Cyberspace"
• High Technology Law Journal (U. California, Berkeley)
• Marjorie W. Hodges and Steven L. Worona
  1. "The First Amendment in Cyberspace" (1997) (Cause/Effect)
  2. "Legal Underpinnings for Creating Campus Computer Policy" (1996) (Cause/Effect)
• Journal of Online Law (William & Mary C.)
• Law Firm Specializing in Information Law
• Legal, Privacy and Security Issues in Electronic Commerce (Linda Hansen, U. New Brunswick)
• David Loundy, "E-Law 3.0: Computer Information Systems Law & System Operator Liability in 1995" (essay)
• Pepper & Corazzini L.L.P. Law Firm: Links to Legal and Telecommunications Resources
• Richmond Journal of Law & Technology
• UCLA Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy
• WWW Multimedia Law (Sandy Jane Wong)

Politics and Sociology of IT

(See also General Critique of Information Technology)

• John Arquilla & David Ronfeldt (RAND Foundation), "Cyberocracy, Cyberspace, and Cyberology: Political Effects of the Information Revolution"
• Brooke Shelby Biggs, "Way-New Solipsism" (1998) (on the Internet and democracy) (Net Effects)
• Paulina Borsook, "Cyberselfish" (1996) ("Although the technologists I encountered [in Silicon Valley] were the liberals on social issues I would have expected (pro-choice, as far as abortion; pro-diversity, as far as domestic partner benefits; inclined to sanction the occasional use of recreational drugs), they were violently lacking in compassion, ravingly anti-government, and tremendously opposed to regulation") (Mother Jones Interactive)
• Government & Politics on the Net Project (U. California, Santa Barbara) (NSF-funded three-year study of political uses of the Net; "the research is aimed at understanding whether the technologies of the Net may alter patterns of political participation and engagement in public affairs by citizens in the U.S.") (Bruce Bimber, UCSB)
  1. Demographics of Internet Access
  2. Bruce Bimber (U. California, Santa Barbara), "The Internet and Political Transformation" (1996)
  3. Web Research Sites (online resources providing information relevant to the demographics and usage patterns of the Internet)
• Lawrence K. Grossman, The Electronic Republic : Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age (New York: Viking, 1995)
• David Hudson, "The Digital Dark Ages" (1996) ("With a right-wing libertarian ethic dominating the on-line world, will the "digital revolution" leave much of society behind?") (San Francisco Bay Guardian)
• Anthony Judge, "The Challenge of Cyber-Parliaments and Statutory Virtual Assemblies" (1998)
• Jon Katz
  1. "Birth of a Digital Nation" (1997)
  2. "The Digital Citizen" (1997) (""The First in-depth poll finds Digital Citizens are optimistic, tolerant, civic-minded, and radically committed to change") (Wired)
• Brian D. Loader
  1. ed., Cyberspace Divide: Equality, Agency, and Policy in the Information Society (London, New York: Routledge, 1998)
  2. ed., The Governance of Cyberspace: Politics, Technology and Global Restructuring (London, New York: Routledge, 1997)
• Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985)
• Netfuture: Technology and Human Responsibility (weekly newsletter that submits the net to ethical, social, political critique) (Steve Talbott)
• The Network Observer ("on-line newsletter about networks and democracy") (Phil Agre, U. Calif., San Diego)
• Juan Rada, "Information Technology and the Third World," in Forester (1985), pp. 571-89
• Wayne Rash, Jr., Politics on the Nets: Wiring the Political Process (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1997)
• Richard E. Sclove, Democracy and Technology (New York: Guilford, 1995)
• Andres Shapiro (Harvard Law School), "Is the Net Democratic? Yes -- and No"
• Andrea Whittam Smith, "An Oxford Debate on the Nation State and the Net" (1997) (argues that the Internet does not undermine the nation state) (London Independent / New York Times Syndicate)
• Fiona Steinkamp, "The Ideology of the Internet"
• Kevin Lee Thomason, J.D., "The Binary Split: Race and Technology at the End of the 20th Century" ("how recent advances in information technology will affect this already divided country") (Seamless Website)
• Paul Treanor
  1. "Internet as Hyper-Liberalism" ("The political ethic, and structure, of the Internet are liberal. In fact, it clarifies the defects of liberalism: it can and should be ended")
  2. MII-DEM List Archives (archives of articles and discussions on the contested relation between communication technology and democracy)
  3. "Pro-Net Fallacies" ("a few of the fallacies that circulate in political texts about the Net")
• Langdon Winner (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community" (1997) ("critique of the banal fantasies that pass as 'vision' among of many of those who speculate about cyberspace and politics in our time")

Economics of the Internet

• M.F. Bailey and R.J. Gordon, "The Productivity Slowdown: Measurement Issues and the Explosion of Computer Power," in Brookings Paper on Economic Activity, No. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1980), pp. 347-420
• William F. Birdsall (Dalhousie U.), "The Internet and the Ideology of Information Technology" (1996) (on the relation between the push for information technology and economic factors) (The Internet Society)
• Brad Cox (George Mason U.), Superdistribution: Objects as Property on the Electronic Frontier (originally titled Taming the Electronic Frontier)
• The Information Economy: The Economics of the Internet, Information Goods, Intellectual Property and Related Issues (Hal R. Varian, School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley)
• Internet Economics (Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, U. Michigan)
• Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (New York: Viking, 1998)
• Ali Mir and Maya Yajnik (U. Massachusetts, Amherst), "The Uneven Development of Places: From Bodyshopping to Global Assembly Lines" (Samar)
• Staying Alive: Labor in the Global Information Economy (articles and links) (Corporate Watch)
  1. Selected Resources:
  2. David Bacon, Organizing Silicon Valley's High Tech Workers
  3. Labour and the Internet: The Others/Periphery (summary of a 1997 seminar moderated by Jagdish Parikh and Roberto Verzola)
• Roberto Verzola, "Towards A Political Economy of Information" (1995) (SoliNet)
• IT and the "Productivity Paradox" (i.e., why has investment in IT led to zero or declining productivity measures?)
  • Business Week, "The Productivity Paradox," June 1988, pp. 100-102
  • P.A. David, Computer and Dynamo: The Modern Productivity Paradox in a Not-Too-Distant Mirror, CEPR Pub. No. 172) (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1989)
  • Herbert S. Dordick and Georgette Wang, The Information Society: A Retrospective View (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993), Chap. 6
  • Thomas K. Landauer, The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity (details the infamous "missing" economic productivity of investment in IT; links lagging productivity with fundamental problems in the process of designing IT for usefulness and usability) (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996)
  • Jerome A. Mark, "Measuring Productivity in Services Industries," in Guile and Quinn, pp. 139-59 ("However, some areas within the services sector, such as education, entertainment, legal and social services, and many segments of medical services, present severe conceptual and data problems for measuring productivity," p. 157)
  • R.O. Panko, Is Office Productivity Stagnant?, Working Paper 90-008 (Honolulu, HI: Pacific Research Institute for Information Systems and Management, 1990)
  • Paul A. Strassmann, Information Payoff: The Transformation of Work in the Electronic Age (New York: Free Press, 1985), Chaps. 5-9

IT and Ethnic, Gender, and Other Underrepresented Populations

(Note: This section gathers resources on the relation between minorities/underrepresented populatons and IT, not on the more general topics of minority or gender resources on the Internet. For the latter, see for example, VoS: Minority Studies and VoS: Gender Studies)

• IT and Afro-Americans
  • Vanderbilt U. Study on Racial Divide in Web Use, April 1998
    1. C/Net, "Racial Discrepancy on Net" (April 17, 1998)
    2. Los Angeles Times, "Study Finds Racial Divide Among Internet Users," April 17, 1998, A26 ("even among people with equal education and income, whites were much more likely to own a home computer and to regularly use the World Wide Web . . . ")
  • Steve Silberman, "Black Flight to the Net" ("The author of a new study reporting a US$53 million surge in high-tech purchases by African American families in 1996 says that the rush of blacks to the online world is being driven partly by a hunger to find replacements for news and programming that have vanished during a decade of buyouts of minority broadcast outlets by huge conglomerates like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.") (Wired)
• IT and Women
  • The Ada Project Bibliographies (Yale U.) (bibliographies in fields that include: "Women in Computer Science," "Women in Cyberspace," "Women in Science and Engineering," Early Science and Technology Education," "History of Women in Science and Technology")
  • Anita Borg, "Why Systers?" (rationale for Systers forum by its founder)
  • Ba-CyberDykes Home Page
  • Shannon Bell, "Kate Bornstein: A Transgender Transsexual Postmodern Tiresias" (CTHEORY , Carnegie Mellon U.)
  • Rosi Braidotti
    1. "Cyberfeminism with a Difference" (1996) ("I will first of all situate the question of cyber-bodies in the framework of postmodernity, stressing the paradoxes of embodiment . . . ")
    2. Kathleen O'Grady (Cambridge U.), "Nomadic Philosopher: A Conversation with Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht, The Netherlands, August 1995)" (U. Iowa Libraries / Women's Education des femmes)
  • Lynn Cherny (Stanford U.), "Gender Differences in Text-Based Virtual Reality" (1994)
  • Keng Chua (Southern Cross U.), "Gender and the Web" ("I wish to look at the both the technologies of gender and the technologies of knowledge, which includes the technologies of writing, reading and communication, as they converge in this new technology called the WorldWideWebI wish to look at the both the technologies of gender and the technologies of knowledge, which includes the technologies of writing, reading and communication, as they converge in this new technology called the WorldWideWeb") (AusWeb95)
  • Cybergrrl
  • F-e-mail & Beyond ("Women artists working with this network are serving as role models helping debunk the mythology which is alienating women from technology") (Victora Vesna, U. California, Santa Barbara)
  • geekgirl (zine)
  • Gender and Postmodern Communication ("This page locates the current Monist Interactive Issue discussion on Gender and Postmodern Communication"; includes links to resources)
  • "Gender Issues in Online Communications" (essay by Bay Areas Women in Telecommunications)
  • Camilla Griggers, SuRGe (SUPPRESSOR) (from Cultronix 1994) (deleuzo-guattarian essay on gender and the "micropolitics of psychopharmacology")
  • International Network of Women in Technology (WITI)
    • 95 Channels for Change (highlights of WITI 1995 conference)
    • 1996 Conference (announcement of WITI conference, June 1996)
  • Information Technology and Women's Lives (Linda Shult / U. Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian's Office)
  • Elizabeth Lane Lawley (U. Alabama), "Computers and the Communication of Gender"
  • Michael Maranda (U. Rochester), "Faking it in Cyberspace: Boys will be Girls will be Boys" (1994)
  • Shannon McRae, "Coming Apart at the Seams: The Erotics of Virtual Embodiment" (1995)
  • The Pheminist Cyber RoadShow (Internet workshops for women) (Elisabeth Binder, Birgit Schröder)
  • Allucquere Rosanne Stone (U. Texas, Austin)
    1. Sandy Stone's Homepage
    2. "The 'Empire' Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto"
    3. "Techno-Prosthetics and Exterior Presence: A Conversation With Allucquere Rosanne Stone" (Speed, Spring 1995)
    4. MONDO 2000 Interview (uncut version) (text file)
    5. "Violation and Virtuality: Two Cases of Physical and Psychological Boundary Transgressions and Their Implications"
    6. "What Vampires Know: Transsubjection and Transgender in Cyberspace"
  • TAP: The Ada Project ("tapping Internet resources for women in computing") (Elisabeth Freeman, Susanne Hupfer)
  • Sherry Turkle (MIT), "Gender, Technology, and Computer Culture" (course)
  • Web-sters' Net-Work: Women in Info Technology (Jerome P. McDonough, UC Berkeley)
  • Shawn P. Wilbur (Bowling Green State U.), " 'Cyberpunks' to Synners: Toward a Feminist Posthumanism?"
  • Women and Computer Science (Ellen Spertus)
  • Women and Computing (Julie Albright / Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility)
  • Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory: Issue on "Sexuality and Cyberspace"
  • Women in the Age of Computers (WWWomen!)
  • Women Online (Women's resources on the internet)
• IT and Gays
  • Steve Silberman, "We're Teen, We're Queer, and We've Got E-Mail" (Wired)

IT Sub-, Counter-, and Fringe-Cultures

• Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, + Mysticism in the Age of Information (New York: Harmony, 1998)
• Mark Dery, Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century (New York: Grove, 1996) (well-documented study of Mondo 2000-style cyber/counterculture, cyberpunk and techno-rock music, extreme robotics, cybersex, and "posthuman" body borging/morphing)
• Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, ed., Digital Delirium (New York: St. Martin's, 1997)
• R.U. Sirius, "It's Better to be Inspired than Wired: An Interview with R.U. Sirius [by Jon Jebkowsky]," in Kroker and Kroker, 1997, pp. 16-24 ("It's particularly sad and poignant for me to witness how comfortably the subcultural contempt for the normal, the hunger for novelty and change, and the basic anarchistic temperament that was at the core of Mondo 2000 fits the hip, smug, boundary-breaking, fast-moving, no-time-for-social-niceties world of your wired mega-corporate-info/comm/media players. . . . The joke's on me," p. 23)

Critical Reflections on Information Technology (on separate page)