Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines. They get themselves learned and learned well, so that they get played long and hard by a great many people. This is how they and their designers survive and perpetuate themselves. If a game cannot be learned and even mastered at a certain level, it won't get played by enough people, and the company that makes it will go broke. Good learning in games is a capitalist-driven Darwinian process of selection of the fittest. Of course, game designers could have solved their learning problems by making games shorter and easier, by dumbing them down, so to speak. But most gamers don't want short and easy games. Thus, designers face and largely solve an intriguing educational dilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces: how to get people, often young people, to learn and master something that is long and challenging--and enjoy it, to boot.

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What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

The configuration of developed countries has become today diverse and multiethnic due to international migration. A single coherent theoretical explanation for international migration is lacking. The aim of this discussion was the generation and integration of current theories that clarify basic assumptions and hypotheses of the various models. Theories were differentiated as explaining the initiation of migration and the perpetuation of international movement. Initiation theories discussed were 1) macro theories of neoclassical economics; 2) micro theories of neoclassical economics; 3) the new economics with examples for crop insurance markets futures markets unemployment insurance and capital markets; 4) dual labor market theory and structural inflation motivational problems economic dualism and the demography of labor supply; and 5) world systems theory and the impacts of land raw materials labor material links ideological links and global cities. Perpetuation theories were indicated as network theories of declining risks and costs; institutional theory cumulative causation through distribution of income and land organization of agrarian production culture of migration regional distribution of human capital and social labeling factors; and migration systems theory. The assumptions and propositions of these theories although divergent were not inherently contradictory but had very different implications for policy formulation. The policy decisions over the next decades will be very important and carry with them the potential for misunderstanding and conflict. Policy options based on the explicated models range from regulation by changing wages and employment conditions in destination countries or promoting development in countries of origin to changing structural market economic relations.

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Theories of international migration: a review and appraisal.

The field of information systems is premised on the centrality of information technology in everyday socio-economic life. Yet, drawing on a review of the full set of articles published inInformation Systems Research ( ISR) over the past ten years, we argue that the field has not deeply engaged its core subject matter--the information technology (IT) artifact. Instead, we find that IS researchers tend to give central theoretical significance to the context (within which some usually unspecified technology is seen to operate), the discrete processing capabilities of the artifact (as separable from its context or use), or the dependent variable (that which is posited to be affected or changed as technology is developed, implemented, and used). The IT artifact itself tends to disappear from view, be taken for granted, or is presumed to be unproblematic once it is built and installed. After discussing the implications of our findings, we propose a research direction for the IS field that begins to take technology as seriously as its effects, context, and capabilities. In particular, we propose that IS researchers begin to theorize specifically about IT artifacts, and then incorporate these theories explicitly into their studies. We believe that such a research direction is critical if IS research is to make a significant contribution to the understanding of a world increasingly suffused with ubiquitous, interdependent, and emergent information technologies.

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Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the IT in IT Research--A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact

This essay elaborates a critical geographical perspective on neoliberalism that emphasizes (a) the path–dependent character of neoliberal reform projects and (b) the strategic role of cities in the contemporary remaking of political–economic space. We begin by presenting the methodological foundations for an approach to the geographies of what we term “actually existing neoliberalism.” In contrast to neoliberal ideology, in which market forces are assumed to operate according to immutable laws no matter where they are “unleashed,” we emphasize the contextual embeddedness of neoliberal restructuring projects insofar as they have been produced within national, regional, and local contexts defined by the legacies of inherited institutional frameworks, policy regimes, regulatory practices, and political struggles. An adequate understanding of actually existing neoliberalism must therefore explore the path–dependent, contextually specific interactions between inherited regulatory landscapes and emergent neoliberal, market–oriented restructuring projects at a broad range of geographical scales. These considerations lead to a conceptualization of contemporary neoliberalization processes as catalysts and expressions of an ongoing creative destruction of political–economic space at multiple geographical scales. While the neoliberal restructuring projects of the last two decades have not established a coherent basis for sustainable capitalist growth, it can be argued that they have nonetheless profoundly reworked the institutional infrastructures upon which Fordist–Keynesian capitalism was grounded. The concept of creative destruction is presented as a useful means for describing the geographically uneven, socially regressive, and politically volatile trajectories of institutional/spatial change that have been crystallizing under these conditions. The essay concludes by discussing the role of urban spaces within the contradictory and chronically unstable geographies of actually existing neoliberalism. Throughout the advanced capitalist world, we suggest, cities have become strategically crucial geographical arenas in which a variety of neoliberal initiatives—along with closely intertwined strategies of crisis displacement and crisis management—have been articulated.

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Cities and the Geographies of “Actually Existing Neoliberalism”

Y a-t-il une sociologie urbaine ?

Crisis urbana y cambio social

Dieser Aufsatz prasentiert Bausteine einer Theorie der Netzwerkgesellschaft. Sie ist das Ergebnis empirischer und kulturvergleichender Untersuchungen und beschreibt in einer ersten Annaherung die das Informationszeitalter charakterisierende Gesellschaftsstruktur. In einer Vielzahl kultureller und institutioneller Erscheinungsweisen pragt die Netzwerkgesellschaft die meisten Gesellschaften dieser Erde auf ahnliche Weise wie die Industriegesellschaft die Gesellschaftsstruktur des Kapitalismus und der Planwirtschaft uber weite Strecken des 20. Jahrhunderts gepragt hat. Gesellschaftsstrukturen organisieren sich um Verhaltnisse von Produktion und Konsum, Macht und sozialer Erfahrung. Deren jeweilige raum-zeitliche Konfigurationen begrunden Kulturen, die von sozialen Akteuren geschaffen, von ihnen reproduziert und durch sie transformiert werden. Ein zentrales Charakteristikum der Gesellschaftsstruktur im Informationszeitalter ist, dass sie auf Netzwerken beruht, die die soziale Morphologie kennzeichnen. Im Gegensatz zu fruheren Formen stutzen sich Netzwerke heute auf die neuen Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien, so dass sie sowohl den Erfordernissen flexibler Dezentralisierung als auch jenen effektiver Entscheidungsfindung gerecht werden konnen. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die spezifische Interaktion zwischen der Netzwerkmorphologie und den Verhaltnissen von Produktion und Konsum, Macht und sozialer Erfahrung sowie der Kultur im Prozess einer neu entstehenden Gesellschaftsstruktur zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts.

Bausteine einer Theorie der Netzwerkgesellschaft

This is an autobiographical review of the published research that I did over five decades of my academic life, from 1965 to 2015. It highlights the common thread that brings together my intellectual project through a great diversity of topics: the quest for a grounded theory of power. The review presents the gradual emergence of this theory without disguising the difficulties and contradictions in its development. I consider power relationships to be the foundational relationships of society in all domains. Here, I show how my research used this approach to study urban structure and spatial dynamics; the uses and consequences of information technologies; the process of globalization; the formation of a new social structure, the network society; and the interaction between communication and power in a digital environment. Finally, I propose a network theory of power in the network society, the society we are in.

A Sociology of Power: My Intellectual Journey

La conference « Ni Dieu ni Maitre : les Reseaux » est la premiere manifestation publique de la Chaire "Analyse interdisciplinaire de la societe en reseaux" de Manuel CASTELLS au sein du nouveau College d'Etudes Mondiales que developpe la Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. 
Comme le precise Michel WIEVIORKA, lors de l’ouverture de la conference, le College d’Etudes Mondiales / Institute for Global Studies correspond a une exigence intellectuelle majeure : nous devons penser "global", tout en veillant a articuler les niveaux d'analyse, et nous devons nous interesser a la facon dont les acteurs, individuels et collectifs, se construisent, ou se detruisent dans la configuration d'un monde globalise. 
Le College d'Etudes Mondiales existe officiellement depuis le 30 juin 2011, il s'organise autour de chaires, une vingtaine a terme, dont une est confiee precisement a Manuel Castells. Dirige par Michel Wieviorka, il est dote d'un Haut Conseil preside par Alain Touraine, et d'un Conseil scientifique. 
Introduite par Alain TOURAINE, sociologue et directeur d’etudes a l’EHESS, la conference a ete diffusee en direct sur internet. 
Manuel CASTELLS est actuellement professeur a l'Annenberg School of Communication (University of Southern California) et dirige l'Internet Interdisciplinary Institute de Barcelone, universite virtuelle mondiale. Apres des etudes en France, il devient directeur d'etudes associe en sociologie a l'EHESS, puis est nomme professeur de sociologie et de planification urbaine et regionale a l'Universite de Berkeley en Californie. Il a ete professeur invite dans dix-sept universites internationales et a recu des doctorats d'honneur de quinze universites en Europe, Amerique latine, Amerique du Nord et Asie. Ses œuvres ont ete primees a de nombreuses reprises et traduites en plus d'une vingtaine de langues.
Manuel Castells a ete un des sociologues fondateurs de l'Ecole francaise de sociologie urbaine au cours des annees 1970. Son premier livre intitule La question urbaine (Maspero, 1972), est devenu une reference mondiale. Avec sa trilogie consacree a L'ere de l'information (Fayard, 1996- 1998), il devient le specialiste internationalement reconnu de la societe de l'information et des reseaux. 
Sa demarche est transdisciplinaire et allie analyse de l'espace et des mouvements et etude du role des technologies de l'information dans la production des societes contemporaines. Le modele de l'information y represente un changement de paradigme pour penser le monde social. La disparition du modele industriel des annees 70 a laisse place a une organisation multicentree. L'intensification des flux d'information entre differents points du monde conduit a la demultiplication des centres de decisions autour de nœuds de reseaux. Il n'y a plus de centralite mais des noeuds multiples de decision. La societe de l'information fait ainsi irruption dans les structures de decision des entreprises, ce qui le conduit a repenser les relations du monde social dans leurs horizontalites. La circulation de l'information ne s'accompagne pas seulement d'une fluidite du social, mais genere des oppositions, des frictions, des resistances: les societes resistent a la societe de l'information en reactivant des solidarites primaires.
Recemment, Manuel Castells a publie Communication Power (Oxford University Press, 2009). Il se base sur son analyse des reseaux et des technologies de communication pour developper une nouvelle theorie du pouvoir a l'ere de l'information. Un nouveau systeme de communication a emerge: une auto-communication de masse a travers les sites de reseaux sociaux, les blogs et le chat. Ce nouvel environnement communicationnel modifie profondement les relations de pouvoir. A travers plusieurs analyses de cas (la mesinformation du public americain sur la guerre en Irak, les mouvements environnementaux pour prevenir le changement climatique, la campagne de Barack Obama etc.), il montre les consequences de cette evolution sur les processus politiques et les mouvements sociaux.

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00677225/document

Manuel Castells

Papers

Y a-t-il une sociologie urbaine ?

Crisis urbana y cambio social

Bausteine einer Theorie der Netzwerkgesellschaft

A Sociology of Power: My Intellectual Journey

Ni Dieu ni Maître : les Réseaux