• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Graduate Theses, Dissertations and Projects
    • Queen's Graduate Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Graduate Theses, Dissertations and Projects
    • Queen's Graduate Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Volunteering the Valley: Designing Technology for the Common Good in the San Francisco Bay Area

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Thesis document (1.310Mb)
    Author
    Rider, Karina
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    How can digital technologies be designed for good rather than harm? Dozens of civic organizations under the “tech for good” banner have emerged in recent years to address exactly this question. Although these organizations have commendable goals, many scholars have criticized them for naively believing that technologies can solve complex social problems. However, we do not yet have empirical data on how they are, in practice, working to address local social problems. This study investigates one particular effort to design digital technologies for the common good: civic technology. Civic technology organizations are made up of technologists—employed or seeking employment in the high-tech industry—who volunteer in their spare time to build digital technologies to be used by municipal employees and local residents. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with civic technologists in the San Francisco Bay Area, I argue that civic technologists’ efforts end up being less about serving local residents and more about proving that, despite current critiques, the Big Tech industry can still ‘save the world.’ To capture the complex dynamics which lead volunteers to repair their investment in the Big Tech industry even as they critique it, I develop the concept of the “spirit of civic technology,” which is an ethos comprised of value judgments about what makes a ‘good’ technology, technologist, project, and organization, and which are exported from high-tech workplaces into civic organizations. I conclude the spirit of civic technology leads volunteers to inadvertently reinforce the epistemic, economic, and cultural power of Big Tech firms.
    URI for this record
    http://hdl.handle.net/1974/28956
    Collections
    • Department of Sociology Graduate Theses
    • Queen's Graduate Theses and Dissertations
    Request an alternative format
    If you require this document in an alternate, accessible format, please contact the Queen's Adaptive Technology Centre

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2015  DuraSpace
    Contact Us
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV
     

     

    Browse

    All of QSpaceCommunities & CollectionsPublished DatesAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypesThis CollectionPublished DatesAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypes

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage StatisticsView Google Analytics Statistics

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2015  DuraSpace
    Contact Us
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV