Appropriating Technology | Public Sphere Project — Liberating Voices Pattern Language

The Social Meaning of the Personal Computer: Or, Why the Personal Computer Revolution Was No Revolution

This essay presents a processual model of the personal computing movement that depicts the PC's birth within the context of complex and often contradictory social strategies, each of which used the meaning of computer technology in a distinctive way. It suggests that innovators are constrained by such processes to depict new artifacts in culturally meaningful ways, so that it is difficult for them to conceive of their technologies in radical terms. The rhetoric of "revolution" aside, innovators found it expedient to draw from the stock of meanings at hand as they created new meaning-frameworks for their artifacts. The result is that the new artifacts did not express a coherent or effective political vision and failed to have the intended social effects. This study implies that new technologies frequently reproduce existing social and meaning systems; if they do bring about social change, the changes may differ from those intended by the innovators.

The Social Meaning of the Personal Computer: Or, Why the Personal Computer Revolution Was No Revolution

This essay presents a processual model of the personal computing movement that depicts the PC's birth within the context of complex and often contradictory social strategies, each of which used the meaning of computer technology in a distinctive way. It suggests that innovators are constrained by such processes to depict new artifacts in culturally meaningful ways, so that it is difficult for them to conceive of their technologies in radical terms. The rhetoric of "revolution" aside, innovators found it expedient to draw from the stock of meanings at hand as they created new meaning-frameworks for their artifacts. The result is that the new artifacts did not express a coherent or effective political vision and failed to have the intended social effects. This study implies that new technologies frequently reproduce existing social and meaning systems; if they do bring about social change, the changes may differ from those intended by the innovators.

A People’s History of Tech

A collective storytelling project to build a more representative history that reflects the human impacts of technology.

What technology takes from us – and how to take it back | Rebecca Solnit

The long read: Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…

NEW MODELS 2026®

NEW MODELS is a media channel and community addressing the emergent effects of networked technology on culture.

New Design Congress (@newdesigncongress@mastodon.world)

4 Posts, 7 Following, 128 Followers · An independent research group confronting the gap between what is said to be happening and what is actually happening in digitised societies.

Palantir's social media manifesto is a blueprint for technofascism

The surveillance firm’s viral X post calls for hard power, conscription and the end of pluralism. AI expert and academic Mark Coeckelbergh on what happens when technology becomes the gateway to authoritarianism

Thoughts on Cyberpositionality: The Construction of Digital Communities in Digital Spaces, Damien Patrick Williams

I found Rebecca Monteleone, Martin Perez Comisso, and Elma Hajric’s “Cyberpositionality: Sociotechnical Location in the Digital Age” (2024) to be an extremely timely and important article which can…

Tech Policy Press - Technology and Democracy

Tech Policy Press is a nonprofit media and community venture intended to provoke new ideas, debate and discussion at the intersection of technology and democracy. We publish opinion and analysis.

mai ishikawa sutton

My work lies at the intersection of technology and the solidarity economy. I’m passionate about strengthening the digital commons, in which people control and steward communication technologies as collective goods.

Beyond Digital Exhaust: Reclaiming Agency in the Context Economy - A MozFest Discussion on Personal Context Infrastructure and the Future of AI

At this year's MozFest in Barcelona, we convened an urgent conversation about what may be the defining struggle of our digital future: who will control the vast

Cooperative Technologists Community Discourse Forum

The CoTech community Discourse forum is a UK based open discussion board for issues relating to co-operatives and technology.

An introduction to radical participatory design: decolonising participatory design processes

Outside of community-led design projects, most participatory design processes initiated by a company or organisation maintain or even strengthen power imbalances between the design organisation and the community on whose purported behalf they are designing, further increasing the absencing experience. Radical participatory design (RPD) is a radically relational answer to the coloniality inherent in participatory design where the community members’ disappointment is greater due to the greater expectations and presencing potential of a ‘participatory design’ process. We introduce the term RPD to show how research and design processes can be truly participatory to the root or core. Instead of treating participatory design as a method, a way of conducting a method, or a methodology, we introduce RPD as a meta-methodology, a way of doing any methodology. We explicitly describe what participation means and compare and contrast design processes based on the amount of participation, creating a typology of participation. We introduce ‘designer as community member’, ‘community member as designer,’ and ‘community member as facilitator’ models and provide characteristics for the meta-methodology of RPD.

An introduction to radical participatory design: decolonising participatory design processes

Outside of community-led design projects, most participatory design processes initiated by a company or organisation maintain or even strengthen power imbalances between the design organisation and the community on whose purported behalf they are designing, further increasing the absencing experience. Radical participatory design (RPD) is a radically relational answer to the coloniality inherent in participatory design where the community members’ disappointment is greater due to the greater expectations and presencing potential of a ‘participatory design’ process. We introduce the term RPD to show how research and design processes can be truly participatory to the root or core. Instead of treating participatory design as a method, a way of conducting a method, or a methodology, we introduce RPD as a meta-methodology, a way of doing any methodology. We explicitly describe what participation means and compare and contrast design processes based on the amount of participation, creating a typology of participation. We introduce ‘designer as community member’, ‘community member as designer,’ and ‘community member as facilitator’ models and provide characteristics for the meta-methodology of RPD.