CCT 205: Digital Innovation and Cultural Transformation

Lecture 4: Information Society as Ideology

Administrivia

• Concept mashup proposals due tonight

• MIA this weekend most likely

• Ignore the wiki message re: expiry

Cui bono?

• Minutes of the the [sic] Lead Pencil Club - a collection of infoskeptic opinions (that could have used a grammar checker)

• Literal meaning - who benefits? • Figurative - To what good purpose?• Different questions but both important -

many IT implementations offer nothing but biased results

Infrastructure as Ideology

• Bowker/Star in Sorting Things Out - classification and information infrastructures as political process

• Early choices in information infrastructure can shape future use

• What is and is not recorded? In what format? To what purpose? Why?

Information Technology and Control

• Early IT implementations were command and control oriented (e.g., workflow processes, surveillance, control technologies for machinery)

• Early days of Internet - emerged out of military-industrial complex, tight controls on who had access, strong social and regulatory pressures of what they could do

IT and Economic Control

• Early workplace implementations - control of machinery, workflow process monitoring and optimization, surveillance

• Extension of scientific management

• Also seen as labour saving device - capital costs increase efficiency of labour, allowing for eventual reduction in workforce

But…

• For years this did not happen. • Productivity paradox - investments in IT

were inconclusive, sometimes negative• Only when businesses changed their models

to meet the IT infrastructure did productivity increase

• Education paradox (http://www.nosignficiantdifference.org) - potentially similar issue

Alternatives…

• Scandinavia and participatory design - why?• Alternative technologies and alternative uses

(e.g, PeaceNet)• Technological cooptation vs. determinism -

even in hardwired infrastructure, original goals can be hijacked by determined users

• In relatively neutral infrastructures, this effect can be broad and even become dominant

But again…

• Control impulse still exists at various levels

• Vista registration example and similar DRM technologies

• Google/China

• Net Neutrality

• Others?

Is it just about control and money?

• Other ideologies of technology exist - linked to control and power, though

• Rhetoric of information technology - what promises are made?

• Marketing has a lot to do with this

• Some already touched on - infoglut and mass collaboration are themselves conflicting perspectives on end effects

Technological Determinism

• Age of the Automobile, Age of the Internet, Age of the Steam Engine…anything with capital A’s in Age, really.

• Tendency to link all societal change to introduction to new technology in cause/effect relationship

• Certainly all these have had impacts, but how precise is this? How helpful?

Religion of Technology

• Rhetoric rises to seemingly religious fervour (and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result)

• Destiny and inevitability of better times - but also dystopian visions of vengeful technology and super-centralized control

• Particularly bizarre when we see man’s relation to creation and use

Ex: Information Economy

• Information work as inevitable forward progress.

• What of current primary/secondary workers? Without either, we have essentially…well, nothing - and those jobs lose status

• Qualification: we’re losing this information quickly, creating new value (e.g., home renovation) but also potentially permanent skill loss (e.g., thatched roofs)

Planned Obsolescence

• Technology is always new, and new is always better than old

• Expectations and incremental improvements create compulsion to have the new best thing - creation of peer pressure helps immensely

• Technology = fashion for geeks - last year’s model is uncool (although much older is retro cool)

Spatial Relations

• McLuhan and global village - we may reach out to those who are similar in India, but in process ignore all those who are local?

• iPod as severe localization - shunning outside world while listening to world music? Irony or problem?

• Locality and globalization operate in creative tension - examples?

Culture of Connectivity

• 24/7 access by email, IM, cell phones, etc.

• We’re constantly connected, but not necessarily for the best - no downtime for contemplation, reflection (which is wisdom building?)

• Examples?

Issues with Connectivity

• Tightly vs. loosely coupled systems - accelerated and efficient feedback loops create vicious and virtuous cycles

• Connectivity spreads bad news as quickly (worse?) than good news

• Connectivity and resilience - Upside of Down principle and solution

IT and Ingenuity

• Back to infoglut - if we’re stupefied with information, are we smarter?

• Ingenuity Gap - we attempt to manage complex situations we have no intuitive or grand vision of, and have a tendency to fail miserably at it as a result

• IT might just accentuate our arrogance in thinking we know what we really don’t?

A Poem of our Time

The Unknown

As we know,There are known knowns.

There are things we know we know.We also know

There are known unknowns.That is to say

We know there are some thingsWe do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns,The ones we don't know

We don't know.

D.H. Rumsfeld (http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/)

Learning Journal #2

• From your own personal experience, describe an instance in which the rhetoric of the information age didn’t quite match up to reality.

• Cui bono?

Next Week

• Chs. 7,8 for lecture

• Labs tonight - mashup proposal submission on wiki, tips on feedback