Harold Sackman
Published: 1987
Total Pages: 630
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This anthology demonstrates the astonishing challenge, cultural complexity, and urgency of social impacts of computers. The papers stem from a decade of work sponsored by the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP), organized by the IFIP Committee on Computer Relationships with Society (TC9). The key goals of this collection are: firstly, to reach a broader audience of the educated public world-wide on the massive socio-economic impacts of computers; secondly, to provide an authoritative, diversified sampling of international research and contributions in this area for scholars and advanced students; thirdly, to discuss action-oriented human choice at local, national and international levels in planning, designing, developing and using computer-based information systems; and, fourthly, to encourage talented professionals in the various disciplines that contribute to social consequences of computers to support new IFIP TC9 ventures and objectives for the worldwide community. The anthology draws on authors from almost 40 countries around the world, representing a diversity of philosophies. The topics cover a wide range of areas, including: politics and democracy, national economic policies, the quality of working life, individual and group privacy, information power in bureaucracies, philosophical and psychological impacts of computers, international telecommunications, and computers in national defense and in mass communication media. The format followed in the text includes editorial comments providing a short overview of each conference and a brief description of each of the papers, which will assist the reader in identifying key themes and finding his area of interest.