Thanks to the actual and allegorical role of interactive technologies in our work and lives, we may now have the ability to understand many social and political constructs in very new contexts.

These interactive communication technologies could even help us to understand autonomy as a collective phenomenon, a shared state that emerges spontaneously and quite naturally when people are allowed to participate actively in their mutual self-interest.

The battle for control over new and little understood communication technologies has rendered transparent many of the agendas implicit in our political and cultural narratives.

Meanwhile, the technologies themselves empower individuals to take part in the creation of new narratives.

Thus, in an era when crass perversions of populism, and exaggerated calls for national security, threaten the very premises of representational democracy and free discourse, interactive technologies offer us a ray of hope for a renewed spirit of genuine civic engagement.

In moments when new technologies of storytelling develop, the competitive value of the medium can be more influential than the value of the message.

People developed and shared new technologies with no expectation of financial return.

The technologies in use on the internet today, from browsers and POP email programs to streaming video, were all developed by this shareware community of software engineers.

The demystification of media, enabled by the joystick and other early interactive technologies, was quickly reversed through the development of increasingly opaque computer interfaces.

The entire cycle, the birth of a new medium, the battle to control it and the downfall of the first victorious camp, taught us a lot about the relationship of stories to the technologies through which they are disseminated.

New technologies, global media, and the spread of international corporate conglomerates have forced just such a clash of worldviews.

Psychedelics enthusiasts (people who either ingested substances such as LSD or found themselves inspired by the art, writing and expression of the culture associated with these drugs) found themselves drawn to technologies that were capable of reproducing both the visual effects of their hallucinations as well as the sense of newfound connection with others.

Only now are the social effects of these technologies being considered by political scientists for what they may teach us about public opinion and civic engagement.

Finally, networking technologies allow for online collaboration in the implementation of new models, and the very real-world organisation of social activism and relief efforts.

If screen resolutions are too low to replace paper, then how come everyone I know spends more time reading off a screen every year, up to and including my sainted grandmother (geeks have a really crappy tendency to argue that certain technologies aren't ready for primetime because their grandmothers won't use them well, my grandmother sends me email all the time.

(And please, before we get any farther, forget all that business about how the Internet's copying model is more disruptive than the technologies that proceeded it.

The edition has since folded and it is a shame that the paper doesn't do more at the international level now, perhaps utilising new technologies available to streamline the whole process.

But with neither of them aiming to break out for total dominance there is little investment either in editorial or in printing technologies.

MANTELL, CHARLES L. Calcium metallurgy and technology, by C.L. Mantell & Charles Hardy.

DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY & CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE ON CHEMICAL UTILIZATION OF COAL.

DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY & CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY.

The American ice harvests: a historical study in technology, 1800-1918.

By Siebel Institute of Technology.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PWH); 6May77; R662420.

Technology and international relations.