Debates about digitalization and democracy have always been controversial and range from optimistic views to sceptic or even dystopian perspectives. The former emphasize the potential of the internet to drive innovation in society and to enhance democracy. In contrast, skeptical views highlight the risks and even threats of digitalization. This finds expression in aspects such as the growing relevance of fake news online. Algorithmic filtering promotes visibility of polarizing content. Fur...

Paradoxes of Media and Information Literacy contributes to ongoing conversations about control of knowledge and different ways of knowing. It does so by analysing why media and information literacy (MIL) is proposed as a solution for addressing the current information crisis.Questioning why MIL is commonly believed to wield such power, the book throws into sharp relief several paradoxes that are built into common understandings of such literacies. Haider and Sundin take th...

Over one billion people use the Internet globally. Psychologists are beginning to understand what people do online, and the impact being online has on behaviour. It's making us re-think many of our existing assumptions about what it means to be a social being. For instance, if we can talk, flirt, meet people and fall in love online, this challenges many of psychology's theories that intimacy or understanding requires physical co-presence. "The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology" brings...

This open access book discusses how the involvement of citizens into scientific endeavors is expected to contribute to solve the big challenges of our time, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities within and between societies, and the sustainability turn. The field of citizen science has been growing in recent decades. Many different stakeholders from scientists to citizens and from policy makers to environmental organisations have been involved in its pra...

This book provides a significant contribution to the increasing conversation concerning the place of big data in education. Offering a multidisciplinary approach with a diversity of perspectives from international scholars and industry experts, chapter authors engage in both research- and industry-informed discussions and analyses on the place of big data in education, particularly as it pertains to large-scale and ongoing assessment practices moving into the digital space. This volume off...

This open access textbook offers a practical guide into research ethics for undergraduate students in the social sciences. A step-by-step approach of the most viable issues, in-depth discussions of case histories and a variety of didactical tools will aid the student to grasp the issues at hand and help him or her develop strategies to deal with them.This book addresses problems and questions that any bachelor student in the social sciences should be aware of, including plagiarism,...

Participatory design is about the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the technologies they use. Its central concern is how collaborative design processes can be driven by the participation of the people affected by the technology designed. Embracing a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses, and social institutions more responsive to human needs, the International Handbook of Participatory Design is...

This open access book presents state-of-the-art insights on transdisciplinary work towards societal transformation. It provides theoretical and practical guidance and tools, applicable across diverse empirical settings. The book supports researchers and practitioners, especially those early in their careers, to navigate dilemmas inherent in transdisciplinarity for transformation. The book serves as a valuable resource for (graduate) educational programs in any field open to transformation-...

This open access book shows the breadth and various facets of e-Science, while also illustrating their shared core. Changes in scientific work are driven by the shift to grid-based worlds, the use of information and communication systems, and the existential infrastructure, which includes global collaboration. In this context, the book addresses emerging issues such as open access, collaboration and virtual communities and highlights the diverse range of developments associated with e-Scie...

"Using Communication Theory was a rarity in bridging the gap between ideas and practice. It was itself a model of good communication and in its second, revised edition, it is still a most reliable and accessible guide to the lessons that communication theory and research offer to practitioners, especially in planning for change."- Denis McQuail, Professor Emeritus, University of Amsterdam"Using Communication Theory has become a classic in the educat...

This open access book addresses the complex interrelations between education policy and education practice developed under new ways of governance. It illuminates the nexuses of the interrelated fields of education policy and education practice including the characteristics of these relationships.The book offers a selection of cases with varied approaches to the question of how different actors and stakeholders are situated in contemporary policy and practice nexuses. The cases pres...

The Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics offers a lively, authoritative, up-to-date exploration of pressing ethical issues in our digital world. An international team of philosophers, some pioneers of digital ethics, others experts in related areas of philosophy, give critical appraisals of research in the this fast-growing field and locate it in the broader philosophical context. They push the discipline forward by exploring novel approaches and arguments that will shape the agenda ...