A publication explains what technological change means for us as individuals and society
Making digitization clearly and easily comprehensible on almost 80 pages - this is what the "Digitization" issue of the journal series "Information on Political Education", which the iRights.Lab developed on behalf of the Federal Agency for Civic Education / bpb, achieves.
Digitization […] affects our everyday life and thus us as individuals, as part of different groups and as members of society. Therefore, the understanding of digitization must be expanded to include the dimension of social processes that it initiates and in which it becomes effective. Thus the authors Jaana Müller-Brehm, Michael Puntschuh and Philipp Otto clarify right at the beginning of the booklet the significant connection between technologies and the people who develop and use them.
In eight chapters, the publication explains basic terms and processes of digitization. The author — collective explains how digital change is changing central areas of our everyday lives such as working, learning, communication, politics and healthcare. Enriched by infographics, pictures, in-depth newspaper articles and a glossary, the book also includes current topics such as hate speech, disinformation, digital literacy, platform economy and copyright reforms.
Dealing with these topics is of central importance for all of us, because: “Technologies such as algorithmic systems are part of our everyday life — even when we are not using a smartphone or sitting in front of a laptop. So far, however, there are hardly any comprehensible, self-contained materials on comprehensive technological change available that explain digitization in a condensed and well-founded manner. This is changing with the new issue of the same name in the magazine series. In order to create such a publication, many iRights.Lab staff worked together to bring in knowledge from various scientific disciplines as well as experience from editorial work, format conception and pedagogy.
The quarterly “Information on Political Education” is a central resource of the bpb for political education. The latest issue is aimed in particular at teachers, pupils, extracurricular educators and all those who wish to gain an equally accessible and well-founded overview of technological change.
The authors are available for questions and comments at kontakt@irights-lab.de.
The “Digitization” issue of the series is available here as a PDF file and can be ordered as a print version free of charge.