Digital, Knowledge, and Spatial Asymmetries in the Socio-Technological Landscape

• In Event: 1555 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 3. Examining Inequality: Science and Tech as Solution or Snake Oil?

Abstract

Acknowledgements of digital and geo-spatial divides typically identify rural areas as relatively disadvantaged in terms of capacities to produce, consume, and apply data, information, and knowledge, especially in regard to overall wellbeing in today’s expanding digital society. To gain insight on this matter, both instrumental and intrinsic aspects of rural-urban digital and knowledge asymmetries are examined here relative to changing socio-technological processes and relations. Attending particularly to conceptual delineations and systematic applications, five interrelated substantive topics are explored as major defining and determinant issues: crowdsourced sensing, transportation automation and artificial intelligence, the blockchain, the Internet of Things, and autonomy, privacy, and ethics.

Author

• Connie L. McNeely, George Mason University