Standards and Their Stories - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Standards and Their Stories write by Martha Lampland. This book was released on 2009. Standards and Their Stories available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Standardization is one of the defining aspects of modern life, its presence so pervasive that it is usually taken for granted. However cumbersome, onerous, or simply puzzling certain standards may be, their fundamental purpose in streamlining procedures, regulating behaviors, and predicting results is rarely questioned. Indeed, the invisibility of infrastructure and the imperative of standardizing processes signify their absolute necessity. Increasingly, however, social scientists are beginning to examine the origins and effects of the standards that underpin the technology and practices of everyday life. Standards and Their Stories explores how we interact with the network of standards that shape our lives in ways both obvious and invisible. The main chapters analyze standardization in biomedical research, government bureaucracies, the insurance industry, labor markets, and computer technology, providing detailed accounts of the invention of "standard humans" for medical testing and life insurance actuarial tables, the imposition of chronological age as a biographical determinant, the accepted means of determining labor productivity, the creation of international standards for the preservation and access of metadata, and the global consequences of "ASCII imperialism" and the use of English as the lingua franca of the Internet. Accompanying these in-depth critiques are a series of examples that depict an almost infinite variety of standards, from the controversies surrounding the European Union's supposed regulation of banana curvature to the minimum health requirements for immigrants at Ellis Island, conflicting (and ever-increasing) food portion sizes, and the impact of standardized punishment metrics like "Three Strikes" laws. The volume begins with a pioneering essay from Susan Leigh Star and Martha Lampland on the nature of standards in everyday life that brings together strands from the several fields represented in the book. In an appendix, the editors provide a guide for teaching courses in this emerging interdisciplinary field, which they term "infrastructure studies," making Standards and Their Stories ideal for scholars, students, and those curious about why coffins are becoming wider, for instance, or why the Financial Accounting Standards Board refused to classify September 11 as an "extraordinary" event.
Standards
Standards - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Standards write by Lawrence Busch. This book was released on 2011. Standards available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book investigates standards as the recipes that shape not only the physical world, but human social interactions. The author outlines the history of formal standards and describes how modern science came to be associated with the moral-technical project of standardization of both people and things. The author also explores how standards are intimately connected to power, empowering some but disempowering others.
Open Standards and the Digital Age
Open Standards and the Digital Age - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Open Standards and the Digital Age write by Andrew L. Russell. This book was released on 2014-04-28. Open Standards and the Digital Age available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book answers how openness became the defining principle of the information age, examining the history of information networks.
One Size Fits Few
One Size Fits Few - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook One Size Fits Few write by Susan Ohanian. This book was released on 1999. One Size Fits Few available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Susan Ohanian recounts her quest to make sense of the Standards educational movement.
Standards
Standards - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Standards write by Lawrence Busch. This book was released on 2013-08-16. Standards available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. An investigation into standards, the invisible infrastructures of our technical, moral, social, and physical worlds. Standards are the means by which we construct realities. There are established standards for professional accreditation, the environment, consumer products, animal welfare, the acceptable stress for highway bridges, healthcare, education—for almost everything. We are surrounded by a vast array of standards, many of which we take for granted but each of which has been and continues to be the subject of intense negotiation. In this book, Lawrence Busch investigates standards as “recipes for reality.” Standards, he argues, shape not only the physical world around us but also our social lives and even our selves. Busch shows how standards are intimately connected to power—that they often serve to empower some and disempower others. He outlines the history of formal standards and describes how modern science came to be associated with the moral-technical project of standardization of both people and things. Busch suggests guidelines for developing fair, equitable, and effective standards. Taking a uniquely integrated and comprehensive view of the subject, Busch shows how standards for people and things are inextricably linked, how standards are always layered (even if often addressed serially), and how standards are simultaneously technical, social, moral, legal, and ontological devices.
