Change of State

Do you read First Monday? Well to be honest I don’t usually have the time to read through every issue but I get the email alert for every new issue – its out on the first Monday of every month – and I tend to browse through the titles and find something interesting to read each month.

First Monday is one of the first openly accessible, peerâ??reviewed journals on the Internet, solely devoted to the Internet. Since its start in May 1996, First Monday has published 795 papers in 132 issues; these papers were written by 951 different authors. In addition, eight special issues have appeared.

This month has a focus on Wikipedia which is naturally interesting but what really caught my eye was a chapter from Sandra Braman’s book Change of State: Information, Policy and Power.

Thanks to MIT Press and Sandra Braman, First Monday is pleased to present an excerpt from Sandraâ??s latest book Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power. This book examines the implications of the change of the governments from welfare states to informational states. Sandra describes how information policy in areas as diverse as intellectual property, border protection, privacy, and research funding affect issues such as identity, the nature of technological systems, and organizational structures.

The table of contents for Change of State follows with a link to chapter 9, â??Information, Policy, and Power in the Informational State.â??

The book is naturally amerocentric but promises some interesting ideas. It looks like another book to add to the reading list – check it out.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *