Eric Gordon

Vassiliki Rapti

This book establishes play as a mode of humanistic inquiry with a profound effect on art, culture and society. Play is treated as a dynamic and relational modality where relationships of all kinds are forged and inquisitive interdisciplinary engagement is embraced. Play cultivates reflection, connection, and creativity, offering new epistemological directions for the humanities. With examples from a range of disciplines including poetry, history, science, religion and media, this book treats play as an object of inquiry, but also as a mode of inquiry. The chapters, each focusing on a specific cultural phenomenon, do not simply put culture on display, they put culture in play, providing a playful lens through which to see the world. The reader is encouraged to read the chapters in this book out of order, allowing constructive collision between ideas, moments in history, and theoretical perspectives. The act of reading this book, like the project of the humanities itself, should be emergent, generative, and playful.

Play as Humanistic Inquiry

Ludics

Gabriel Mugar

"Public trust in civic organizations is low. And many public serving organizations (government, news, civil society) assume that greater efficiency will build trust. As a result, they are quick to adopt new technologies to enhance what they do. However, efficiency, in the sense of charting a path to a goal with the least amount of friction, can sometimes be at odds with the goal of building trust. This book is about those practices that challenge the normative applications of "smart technologies" in order to build or repair trust with publics. Based on over sixty interviews with changemakers in public serving organizations throughout the United States, as well as detailed case studies, this book provides a practical and deeply philosophical picture of civic life in transition. It is a book about design, but not necessarily about designers. Without coordinating, these civic designers embedded within organizations have adopted an approach to public engagement we call "meaningful inefficiencies," or the deliberate design of less efficient over more efficient means of achieving some ends. This book illustrates how civic designers are creating meaningful inefficiencies in less than ideal conditions and encourages a rethinking of how innovation within public serving organizations is understood, applied, and sought after. Different than market innovation, civic innovation is not just about invention and novelty, it is concerned with building communities around novelty, and cultivating deep and persistent trust. It involves a plurality of publics (not just a single public good); it creates the conditions for those publics to play; and it results in people caring for the world. Meaningful Inefficiencies describes an emergent approach to creating civic life at a moment when smart and efficient are the dominant force in social and organizational change"--

Designing for Public Value in an Age of Digital Expediency

Meaningful Inefficiencies

Paul Mihailidis

Examinations of civic engagement in digital culture—the technologies, designs, and practices that support connection through common purpose in civic, political, and social life. Countless people around the world harness the affordances of digital media to enable democratic participation, coordinate disaster relief, campaign for policy change, and strengthen local advocacy groups. The world watched as activists used social media to organize protests during the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution. Many governmental and community organizations changed their mission and function as they adopted new digital tools and practices. This book examines the use of “civic media”—the technologies, designs, and practices that support connection through common purpose in civic, political, and social life. Scholars from a range of disciplines and practitioners from a variety of organizations offer analyses and case studies that explore the theory and practice of civic media. The contributors set out the conceptual context for the intersection of civic and media; examine the pressure to innovate and the sustainability of innovation; explore play as a template for resistance; look at civic education; discuss media-enabled activism in communities; and consider methods and funding for civic media research. The case studies that round out each section range from a “debt resistance” movement to government service delivery ratings to the “It Gets Better” campaign aimed at combating suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth. The book offers a valuable interdisciplinary dialogue on the challenges and opportunities of the increasingly influential space of civic media.

Technology, Design, Practice

Civic Media

How conceptions of the American city changed in response to new media technologies

American Concept Cities from Kodak to Google

The Urban Spectator

Examinations of civic engagement in digital culture -- the technologies, designs, and practices that support connection through common purpose in civic, political, and social life.

Adriana de Souza e Silva

The first book to provide an introduction to the new theory of Net Locality and the profound effect on individuals and societies when everything is located or locatable. Describes net locality as an emerging form of location awareness central to all aspects of digital media, from mobile phones, to Google Maps, to location-based social networks and games, such as Foursquare and facebook. Warns of the threats these technologies, such as data surveillance, present to our sense of privacy, while also outlining the opportunities for pro-social developments. Provides a theory of the web in the context of the history of emerging technologies, from GeoCities to GPS, Wi-Fi, Wiki Me, and Google Android.

Eric Gordon

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