Political Science and Digitalization – Global Perspectives

Digitalization is not only a new research subject for political science, but a transformative force for the discipline in terms of teaching and learning as well as research methods and publishing. This volume provides the first account of the influence of digitalization on the discipline of political science including contributions from 20 different countries. It presents a regional stocktaking of the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in most world regions

Power, Policy, and Digital Switchover: An Analysis of Communication Policy Making and its Challenges for Regulating Ghana’s Digital Television Sector

This thesis examines communication policy making in Ghana during the country’s digital switchover process launched in 2010. The thesis argues that Ghana’s digital switchover policy making process was an opportunity to refashion policy and regulatory structures towards the public interest that went beyond the modernisation of broadcasting transmission infrastructure and the innovations digital switchover brought. The thesis investigates whether, and the extent to which, structural and institutional characteristics in the communication policy arena facilitated or hindered broadcasting policy making, and explains the persistence of the analogue era broadcasting regulatory regime in the digital multichannel television market. Ghana’s return to Constitutional rule since 1992 led to the liberalisation of the broadcasting sector, permitting private ownership of broadcast media for the first time in the country’s history, as well as the reconfiguration of the communication policy making arena (and the wider policy environment), with more actors engaged in policy making. Yet, the manner in which this was achieved sustained the capability of state policy actors in the communication sector to influence the shape, pace and direction of policy due to the concentration of power within the Executive that granted the government excessive power. The thesis draws on political science and sociological concepts and approaches to analyse original qualitative data based on extensive documentary analysis and elite interviews with policy actors, during Ghana’s digital switchover policy making process from 2010. The study finds that political events during Ghana’s transition to Constitutional rule in the early 1990s, after ten years of military autocratic rule was the critical juncture that laid the foundation for a path-dependent communication policy making trajectory. Overtime this has produced a fractured and uncoordinated broadcasting policy making context whereby policy makers act without much consideration for the wider interest of the sector, whilst non-state policy actors remain ineffective to sustain advocacy that would serve the public interest. This played out during Ghana’s digital switchover process as the dominance of state-controlled policy actors ensured the framing of domestic digital switchover policy objectives along narrow externally set priorities at the expense of longstanding and pertinent broadcasting policy and regulatory concerns that could have been part of the country’s digital switchover policy making agenda. The study maintains that as the full implications of the digital switchover process on Ghana’s broadcasting sector becomes apparent, the continued lack of an adequate policy and regulatory framework for the new digital television broadcasting market, and, indeed the larger broadcasting sector, does not serve the public interest and as such, it impoverishes the broadcasting service available to citizens

Esa 12th Conference: Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination: Abstract Book

Esa 12th Conference: Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination: Abstract Boo

Open Mapping towards Sustainable Development Goals

This collection amplifies the experiences of some of the world’s young people who are working to address SDGs using geospatial technologies and multi-national collaboration. Authors from every region of the world who have emerged as leaders in the YouthMappers movement share their perspectives and knowledge in an accessible and peer-friendly format. YouthMappers are university students who create and use open mapping for development and humanitarian purposes. Their work leverages digital innovations - both geospatial platforms and communications technologies - to answer the call for leadership to address sustainability challenges. The book conveys a sense of robust knowledge emerging from formal studies or informal academic experiences - in the first-person voices of students and recent graduates who are at the forefront of creating a new map of the world. YouthMappers use OpenStreetMap as the foundational sharing mechanism for creating data together. Authors impart the way they are learning about themselves, about each other, about the world. They are developing technology skills, and simultaneously teaching the rest of the world about the potential contributions of a highly connected generation of emerging world leaders for the SDGs. The book is timely, in that it captures a pivotal moment in the trajectory of the YouthMappers movement’s ability to share emerging expertise, and one that coincides with a pivotal moment in the geopolitical history of planet earth whose inhabitants need to hear from them. Most volumes that cover the topic of sustainability in terms of youth development are written by non-youth authors. Moreover, most are written by non-majoritarian, entrenched academic scholars. This book instead puts forward the diverse voices of students and recent graduates in countries where YouthMappers works, all over the world. Authors cover topics that range from water, agriculture, food, to waste, education, gender, climate action and disasters from their own eyes in working with data, mapping, and humanitarian action, often working across national boundaries and across continents. To inspire readers with their insights, the chapters are mapped to the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in ways that connect a youth agenda to a global agenda. With a preface written by Carrie Stokes, Chief Geographer and GeoCenter Director, United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This is an open access book

A comparative investigation of the use of digital technologies to facilitate school collaboration within the framework of the eTwinning programme

This thesis looks at how digital technologies can create opportunities for online collaboration across schools within the framework of the eTwinning programme, an EU initiative that seeks to promote web-based learning and collaboration between schools across Europe. A socio-technical approach was employed, focusing on the role of social context in shaping the technology use surrounding the eTwinning activities. This 'social shaping of technology' approach allowed exploration of the range of social actors and factors that influence the implementation of digital technologies for school collaboration at micro, meso and macro levels of analysis. \ud Through a comparative, qualitative case study of four different eTwinning projects in the UK and Greece, this thesis investigates how digital technologies such as wikis, blogs and discussion forums were used as online collaborative environments. Data collection took place during the course of the academic year 2009-2010, consisting of semi-structured individual and group interviews alongside classroom observations and online documentary analysis.\ud The findings suggest that students' and teachers' use of digital technologies and, in particular web 2.0 tools, was influenced by a range of social issues relating to the wider school context. As such the tools per se did not lead to noticeable changes in practice - especially regarding collaborative activity. Specifically, all four case study projects were bounded by wider settings and factors such as time, resourcing, assessment regimes and 'fit' with curriculum. This thesis argues that amidst the enthusiasm that surrounds digital technologies in education, there is a pressing need for more critical consideration of the socially and institutionally shaped realities of use. The thesis concludes with a range of suggestions for the future improvement of such web-based collaborative initiatives. \u