Exploring how technology transforms knowledge, culture, and society.
The Technology, Knowledge & Society Research Network investigates how emerging technologies shape knowledge systems, communication, and social organization. Member-based and scholar-led, the Network brings together researchers, educators, and practitioners to examine technology’s role in transforming how we create, share, and apply understanding in a connected world.
The Network was founded by William (Bill) Cope and Mary Kalantzis, whose collaborative work on multiliteracies and knowledge design established a foundational framework for understanding how technology reshapes meaning, participation, and learning. Their leadership shaped the Network’s early intellectual direction, linking literacy, design, and social practice to broader questions of digital transformation. Since 2013, the Network has been led by Marcus Breen (Boston College), the current Chair and Editor, whose scholarship in digital culture, political economy, media ecologies, and technological justice continues to guide the Network into new areas of inquiry. Breen’s editorial direction has reinforced the Network’s commitment to critically examining how technological systems intersect with civic agency, global governance, and social values.
The inaugural International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society was held at the University of California, Berkeley, under the theme Technological Transformations. In the years that followed, the conference travelled widely: to Hyderabad and Montreal in 2006; Cambridge University in 2007 for a dialogue on creativity and technology-driven change; the Von Braun Center in Huntsville in 2009; and Freie Universität Berlin in 2010 for a focused exploration of virtual knowledge production. Later gatherings in Bilbao, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Toronto, St. John’s University in New York, and CosmoCaixa Barcelona extended the conversation into questions of automation, networks, participation, and social innovation. Recent conferences at the University of Malta (2023), the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2024), and National Changhua University of Education in Taiwan (2025) address some of the most urgent issues of the moment: AI ethics, sustainable technological innovation, and the pedagogical futures of artificial intelligence.
Across two decades, the Network has hosted leading thinkers whose work has defined contemporary debates on technology and society. Early plenaries included Tim Luke (Virginia Tech), William Dutton (Oxford Internet Institute), and David Lyon (Queen’s University), whose contributions helped frame discussions of surveillance, digital politics, and networked publics. Later speakers such as Saskia Sassen, Robin Mansell, and McKenzie Wark expanded the conversation into globalization, media systems, and critical theory, while Henry Jenkins, Christiane Paul, Susana Finquelievich, and Anna Meroni brought insights from participatory culture, digital arts, urban innovation, and design for social transformation.
The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society is the Network’s primary scholarly platform. Cross-disciplinary in scope, the journal examines new technologies, their social impacts, their educational and community functions, and their place in evolving knowledge systems. Guided by values of creativity, innovation, equity, and autonomy, the journal is indexed in Scopus, ProQuest, EBSCO, Cabell’s, ARC, STM Source, and other major services, and operates as a Hybrid Open Access publication.
Each year, the Technology, Knowledge & Society International Award for Excellence recognizes one outstanding article selected from the ten highest-ranked peer-reviewed submissions. Award-winning research has included systematic reviews of physics education technologies, analyses of deepfakes, AI and global development goals, pandemic-era information ecologies, cyberinfrastructure and urban rights, ageism and digital divides, and the impact of machine learning on productivity and inequality.
The Technology, Knowledge & Society Book Imprint supports longer-form work across technology and culture, covering fields such as digital learning, AI ethics, governance, innovation ecosystems, sustainability, media and design, and global sociotechnical transitions. The imprint welcomes authors from all backgrounds and career stages and supports both broad and highly specialized subjects. Open Access pathways ensure that books can circulate widely among educators, policymakers, researchers, and communities.
As it enters its third decade, the Technology, Knowledge & Society Research Network remains committed to bridging technical and social inquiry. Through its global conference, journal, book imprint, and CGScholar community, the Network continues to support collaborative, interdisciplinary research that asks how technology can contribute to equitable, sustainable, and participatory futures.
