Technological Determinism and Social Change : Communication in a Tech-Mad World

The aim of this book is to shed new light on this theoretically and practically significant issue, and questions the role of technology and culture in social change. It challenges us to reconsider and rethink the impact of new information and communication technologies on civil society, participatory democracy and digital citizenship in theoretical and methodological contributions, through the analysis of specific cases in Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, China, Colombia, Kenya, Netherlands and the United States. Access to information and communication technologies is a necessity, and the importance of access should not be trivialized, but a plea for digital literacy implies recognizing that access is the beginning of ICT policies and not the end of it. Digital literacy requires using the Internet and social media in socially and culturally useful ways aimed at the inclusion of everybody in the emerging information/knowledge society. Technology matters, but people matter more.