Incorporating societal concerns into communication technologies

Abstract

Communication technologies are now widely acknowledged to contain values that affect societal concerns, such as privacy. This paper argues that an important source of the values is the societal institution in which the communication technology is developed. This paper analyzes how four different societal institutions, universities, firms, consortia, and the open source movement incorporate societal concerns during the production of communication technologies. The analysis provides insights into how institutions can be employed proactively to incorporate societal values into communication technologies.