Themes & Tensions

Theme 1: Histories of Technology

How do societies produce, become determined, and are seen as technologies themselves?

Living Tensions:

  • Long Histories – undersigning continuity and change
  • Humans and Machines – interfaces, mediation, and usability
  • Public or Private – considering social infrastructure
  • Ethics, Human Values and Technology – inputs or outputs
  • Open or Closed Systems – framing social architectures

Theme 2: Knowledge Makers

What are the epistemological foundations that shape technological epochs?

Living Tensions

  • Digital Meanings – multimodal communications and multiliteracies
  • Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Systems, Intelligent Agents – the human and the machine
  • Data and Metadata – boundaries, functions and ownership of knowledge
  • Ubiquitous Learning – nurturing personal and common knowledge
  • -Digital Divides – access, participation, capacity development

Theme 3: Social Realities

What is the role of technologies in community formation, maintenance, and change?

Living Tensions

  • Diversity and Meanings: cultural sustainability and sustainable heritage development
  • Reconfiguring the economic equation: contesting “financial years” and “instant gratification”
  • The Global Village – a place inclusion or privilege
  • Framing Consensus – who do we include in our social considerations
  • The Virtual and the Real – the speculative capacity of social imaginaries
  • Sustainable Technology – media archeology as ecological roadmaps
  • Privacy and Security – navigating legal and regulatory landscapes