CFP | Kybernetes | Shifting spheres

Shifting Spheres Call for Papers to a special issue of Kybernetes [Clarivate Impact Factor: 1.381] Guest Editors: Markus Heidingsfelder, Xiamen University, Malaysia* Holger Briel, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, PR of China Steffen Roth, La Rochelle Business School, France, and Yerevan State University, Armenia *Corresponding guest editor. Email: markus.heidingsfelder@xmu.edu.my Focus: The concept of publicity as a […]

Release | Was that capitalism? A future-oriented big data analysis of the 19th and 20th century

Highlights: Foresights and futures studies depend on the adequacy of our knowledge of the present and the past. Big data evidence suggests that the English language area was not capitalist between 1800 and 2000. Popular social macro trend statements ought to be regularly scrutinised so as to reduce the risk that inadequate trend assumptions are […]

CFP | Digital transformation of social theory

Call for papers to a special issue of Technological Forecasting and Social Change [SSCI 3.226, Scopus, CNRS***, ABS***, VHB***]. “This is basically what I want to spend my life working on yet pretty much everything in this CfP irritates me” Mark Carrigan, Digital Sociologist, Social Media Consultant, and Digital Fellow at The Sociological Review “It sounds like […]

Release | Futures of a distributed memory. A global brain wave measurement

Roth S., Clark C., Trofimov N., Mkrtchyan A., Heidingsfelder M., Appignanesi L., Pérez-Valls M., Berkel J., and Kaivo-oja J. (2017) Futures of a distributed memory. A global brain wave measurement (1800-2000), Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 118 No. May, pp. 307-323 [SSCI 3.005, Scopus, CNRS***, ABS***, VHB***]. Abstract: If the global brain is a suitable model of […]

New editorial team @Kybernetes

I have recently joined the editorial board of Kybernetes, the official journal of the UNESCO recognized World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC) and The Cybernetics Society, as an Associate Editor. Published by Emerald, the journal is C/ABS-listed and indexed in Scopus as well as in the Thomson Reuters SCI (.637). I kindly invite submissions navigating the interface of social theory and ICT research and, needless […]

Release | Growth strategies for post-growth societies

Abstract: A sharp problem focus sharpens the problem. Sustainably ongrowing bodies of text on degrowth are not the key to post-growth scenarios because evocations of the limits of growth reinforce rather than transcend the economic principle, which is in the observation of scarcity. We therefore focus on alternative forms of growth rather than alternatives to […]

Release | Trends in functional differentiation

Trends in functional differentiation | Special Issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Vol. 22 No. 4. Guest Editor: Steffen Roth, ESC Rennes School of Business, France Table of content Steffen Roth: Foreword: Trends in Functional Differentiation Articles Steffen Roth and Anton Schütz: Ten Systems: Toward a Canon of Function Systems There is no description of modernity […]

Release | Ten systems. Toward a canon of function systems

Roth, S. and Schütz, A. (2015), Ten systems. Toward a canon of function systems, Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 11-31. Article available for download here. Abstract: There is no description of modernity without functional differentiation. The distinction of function systems such as economy, science, art, or religion, is a key to modernity. Modern science, […]

Release | Is the future a political economy?

Abstract: This article tests whether the field of foresight and futures studies shows significant variable selection biases in the modelling of the future in general and the impact of function systems in particular. We performed a word frequency analysis to measure the relative importance of the political system, the economy, science, art, religion, law, sport, […]