This thesis analyzes the social significance of the integration of the home into computer networks. The social significance of home networking is grasped when these systems are understood in their relationship to emerging forms of electronic social control. The thesis establishes this connection through an analysis of structural trends in the videotex industry which demonstrates the value to the corporate sector of cybernetic information generated by interactive systems. The North American tradition of privacy policy is reviewed and demonstrated as inadequate for the protection of personal privacy in home networking. It is further shown that privacy policy does not represent an adequate theorization of social control in computer networking, since it does not account for practices of aggregate social control, which have been termed in the thesis "social management," so vital to the cybernetic economy of late capitalism. Finally, the thesis argues that current conceptual frameworks and policy mechanisms cannot assure the socially beneficial development of home networking, given the tendency towards the integration of such systems into structures of social control.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.72035 |
| Date | January 1985 |
| Creators | Wilson, Kevin G., 1952- |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Graduate Communications Program.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000225810, proquestno: AAINL24034, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
Page generated in 0.003 seconds