This very casual newsletter is inspired by the rich academic discipline of science and technology studies which study “how society, politics, and culture affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these, in turn, affect society, politics, and culture1,” but is focused primarily on the technology used by civil society and governments for “civics.”
Essentially this is a space to examine questions like:
Why does the United States keep its laws behind a paywall?
Should we nationalize TurboTax?
How have people that self-identify as being part of the “civic technology” community inadvertently reinforced the epistemic, economic, and cultural power of Big Tech firms2?
in longer than a Twitter thread.
Welcome to Civic Tech Studies.
“Science and Technology Studies.” 20 Aug. 2021. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Science_and_technology_studies&oldid=1039716934.
Rider, Karina. Volunteering the Valley: Designing Technology for the Common Good in the San Francisco Bay Area. 13 July 2021. qspace.library.queensu.ca, https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/28956.