Kees Boersma

The early history of the Philips National Laboratory began in the winter of 1913 when Gerard Philips and his brother Anton founded a research organization as a separate part of their company in Eindhoven. The Philips brothers hired Gilles Holst and others to carry out scientific experiments in order to improve existing light bulb technology and later to create new products such as x-ray tubes and radio sets. Holst became the leader and organizer of the research laboratory. Scientists who worked under him proved the business value of industrial research for the Philips company. The National Laboratory story indicates that it was not enough for Philips to simply have a tradition of innovation-the company also needed to create a culture and structure that permitted the coordination between people and resources that was necessary for developing innovations in an industrial context. These innovations spaw such diverse topics as irradication of plants with artificial light and creating an agricultural research network of particular interest is comparisons drawn between Philips and General Electric. Kees Boersma shows that the National Laboratory history in the first decades of the twentieth century can be seen as part of a broader development internationally. During the function of the industrial research laboratory became institutionalized. The institutionalization process of industrial research involved an intentional structuring of the research organization in the company, in which various persons worked together in specific business contexts. At a local level, Philips people, headed by Holst, reinvented the research function. It is exactly this process that is central this book. This will be a welcome addition to the literature on business history-informed as it is by a sense of social theory and social organizations. Kees Boersma is a historian who works as a researcher in the group of Culture, Organization and Management of the Faculty of Social Studies at the Free University of Amsterdam. His research expertise is grounded in the areas of science, technology, culture, and organization studies.

A History of the Philips Nat. Lab. 1914-1946

Inventing Structures for Industrial Research

Christian Fuchs

Anders Albrechtslund

Marisol Sandoval

The Internet has been transformed in the past years from a system primarily oriented on information provision into a medium for communication and community-building. The notion of “Web 2.0”, social software, and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have emerged in this context. With such platforms comes the massive provision and storage of personal data that are systematically evaluated, marketed, and used for targeting users with advertising. In a world of global economic competition, economic crisis, and fear of terrorism after 9/11, both corporations and state institutions have a growing interest in accessing this personal data. Here, contributors explore this changing landscape by addressing topics such as commercial data collection by advertising, consumer sites and interactive media; self-disclosure in the social web; surveillance of file-sharers; privacy in the age of the internet; civil watch-surveillance on social networking sites; and networked interactive surveillance in transnational space. This book is a result of a research action launched by the intergovernmental network COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).

The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media

Internet and Surveillance

Chiara Fonio

Big data, surveillance, crisis management. Three largely different and richly researched fields, however, the interplay amongst these three domains is rarely addressed. In this enlightening title, the link between these three fields is explored in a consequential order through a variety of contributions and series of unique and international case studies. Indeed, whilst considering crisis management as an "umbrella term" that covers a number of crises and ways of managing them, the reader will also explore the collection of "big data" by governmental crisis organisations. However, this volume also addresses the unintended consequences of using such data. In particular, through the lens of surveillance, one will also investigate how the use and abuse of big data can easily lead to monitoring and controlling the behaviour of people affected by crises. Thus, the reader will ultimately join the authors in their debate of how big data in crisis management needs to be examined as a political process involving questions of power and transparency. An enlightening and highly topical volume, Big Data, Surveillance and Crisis Management will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields including Sociology and Surveillance Studies, Disaster and Crisis Management, Media Studies, Governmentality, Organisation Theory and Information Society Studies.

Big Data, Surveillance and Crisis Management

Rosamunde van Brakel

Pieter Wagenaar

Does the development of new technology cause an increase in the level of surveillance used by central government? Is the growth in surveillance merely a reaction to terrorism, or a solution to crime control? Are there more structural roots for the increase in surveillance? This book attempts to find some answers to these questions by examining how governments have increased their use of surveillance technology. Focusing on a range of countries in Europe and beyond, this book demonstrates how government penetration into private citizens' lives was developing years before the ‘war on terrorism.’ It also aims to answer the question of whether central government actually has penetrated ever deeper into the lives of private citizens in various countries inside and outside of Europe, and whether citizens are protected against it, or have fought back. The main focus of the volume is on how surveillance has shaped the relationship between the citizen and the State. The contributors and editors of the volume look into the question of how central government came to intrude on citizens’ private lives from two perspectives: identification card systems and surveillance in post-authoritarian societies. Their aim is to present the heterogeneity of the European historical surveillance past in the hope that this might shed light on current trends. Essential reading for criminologists, sociologists and political scientists alike, this book provides some much-needed historical context on a highly topical issue.

Kees Boersma

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