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This book focuses on how public institutions such as the police create new forms of technically mediated access to information and services in an environment that can be critical in terms of life, property and public safety. The development of public applications of technologies involves not only considering new configurations of technologies but also the social and symbolic aspects of services in relation to citizens´ lives and expectations. It thus puts the creation of new technical applications into an arena of changing social expectations and cultural trends. To explore the issues and dynamics of the innovation of technologies in this environment a European Telematics project was studied. The project involved the Metropolitan Police Service and other public administrations in London and Europe. A theoretical priority was given to the meaningfulness of human action and the dynamics of the problem were analysed through the concept of the cultural form. The combination of symbolic action and cultural forms analysis enabled the researcher to gain an understanding of the ways in which new technologies emerge from the meanings of actors in specific contexts.

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Bridgette Wessels is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sheffield and the Director of Interdisciplinary Research into Socio-digital Worlds (IRiS). Her research addresses the development and value of ICT in everyday life and public services such as local and national government, policing, health care, social care and culture.

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