Understanding Creative Users of ICTs: Users as Social Actors
About this ebook
The contributions in this volume provide studies of such integrations of ICTs into the lives of human users, and demonstrate that such uses should not be regarded as 'faulty' or 'mistaken', merely because they 'fail' to meet the expectations of the original designers of the ICTs. Instead, human users should be given precedence over ICTs, and the creative uses of 'universal' technologies by individual users should be emphasised and studied, so as to move towards a better understanding and appreciation of the integration of ICTs into human lives.
This book was originally published as special issue of The Information Society.
About the author
David Kurt Herold taught and researched in China for over nine years, before joining the Hong Kong Polytechnic University as Lecturer for Sociology. His research focuses on the use of ICTs by humans, online and offline China, encounters between Chinese and non-Chinese online, and online education.
Harmeet Sawhney studied engineering, business, mass communication, and telecommunications policy and worked in marketing and advertising before joining the faculty of the Department of Telecommunications, Indiana University, Bloomington. His research interests focus on how telecommunications networks are envisioned and created.
Leopoldina Fortunati studied letters and philosophy before embracing sociology. She taught at several Italian universities before joining the Faculty of Education and the Department of Human Sciences, University of Udine, Italy. Her research interests focus on cultural processes and social phenomena, and in particular on the practices of use of communication and information technologies.
