A new book co-authored by Janna Anderson, associate professor of communications, and Lee Rainie, a member of the School of Communications Advisory Board and director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, focuses on the future of intelligence in the age of instant information.
The book, titled “Challenges and Opportunities: The Future of the Internet, Volume 4,” is published by Cambria Press. It contains details of a 2010 Elon-Pew survey of nearly 900 expert respondents around the world. These technologists, business leaders, scholars and others shared their views about the Internet and the evolution of several topics, including the following:
- intelligence; reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge
- identity and authentication
- gadgets, applications and the predictability of innovation
- personal and social relationships
- industrial-age institutions
- cloud computing
- the Semantic Web and Linked Data
- Generation Y, also known as the Millennials
- core values of the Internet, such as the end-to-end principle.
This book is an extension of and deeper look at the results of six Pew Internet/Imagining the Internet Center reports generated from the Future of the Internet survey in 2010.
This is Anderson’s fifth book tied to the research being completed by Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, which she directs. Other titles include: “Imagining the Internet: Personalities, Predictions, Perspectives” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); “Up for Grabs: The Future of the Internet Volume 1” (Cambria Press, 2008); “Hopes and Fears: The Future of the Internet Volume 2” (Cambria Press, 2008); “Ubiquity, Mobility, Security: The Future of the Internet Volume 3” (Cambria Press, 2009). She and Rainie have teamed to co-author the four books in the Cambria Press “Future of the Internet” series.
To see a PDF with details of the Future of the Internet series, click here: http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/predictions/Future_of_Internet_Books.pdf
The Future of the Internet surveys garner smart, detailed assessments of multi-layered issues from a variety of voices, ranging from the scientists and engineers who created the first Internet architecture a decade ago to social commentators to technology leaders in corporations, media, government and higher education.
The Imagining the Internet Center’s mission is to explore and provide insights into emerging network innovations, global development, dynamics, diffusion and governance. Its research holds a mirror to humanity’s use of communications technologies, informs policy development, exposes potential futures and provides a historic record. It works to illuminate issues in order to serve the greater good, making its work public, free and open. The center is a network of faculty, students, staff, alumni, advisers and friends working to identify, explore and engage with the challenges and opportunities of evolving communications forms and issues.
The Imagining the Internet site tied to the 2010 survey has complete details of survey respondents input, freely open and available. To read it, start here: http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/2010survey/default.xhtml