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ICS 417: ICT and Society

2. ICT and Social Context Perspectives

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Unit Objectives

To discuss the changing views of ICT in social context

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2.1 Technical View Often referred to as the technicist or

objectivist or formal-rational perspective

Assumes: ICT = collection of equipment, artifacts or

techniques which provide specifiable info processing capabilities & which have identifiable costs, physical characteristics & skills reqmts

ICTs have deterministic social impacts which are uniform across social contexts

Organizations have formal unitary goals, procedures & admin arrangements. Use of ICT resources is best described by formal purposes & features e.g. increasing efficiency

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Criticisms:

ICT is not objects but includes people and their social interactions – the technology is shaped by economic, cultural & political forces

Same ICT may produce contradictory & paradoxical impacts in similar organizations e.g. decentralization in one and re-centralization in another, job de-skilling in one and job enrichment in another

Organizations may have stakeholders with different interests. Stakeholders may use ICTs to achieve different outcomes e.g. ICTs can be used as sources of power and tools for change management

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2.2 Socio-Technical View Main aim was to move away from

limitations of Socio-technical perspective

ST methods incorporate features of ICT, user and organizational context into a socio-technical model of the ICT context

Purpose = to jointly optimize objectives of ICT with the objectives of the social (user and organizational) context i.e. implementation of ICT fulfils both technical and social objectives (consensus assumed)

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Criticisms:

Sometimes no consensus, esp. where there are divergent interests or power games

The social context of ICT is complex – it includes the interactions between people, their knowledge and their skills; technology and its history; processes and practices; products and services; goals and strategies; structures and cultures; etc. The set of assumptions for this context is different from those of ICT and thus joint optimization may be difficult.

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2.3 Social Systems or Social Informatics

Perspective Places ICT social context at the centre of

its conception of ICT Because ICTs are absorbed into a complex

social system & become inextricably entwined with it

Defines ICT social context as (Kling and Dutton) People, their roles & relationships with others

& sub-systems Hardware and software Techniques e.g. development methodology Support resources e.g. training, support, etc. Information structures e.g. content, content

providers, rules/norms, etc.

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ICT social context brings together equipment, vendors, technical specialists, management ICT policies, funding, users etc.

ICT social context elements are dynamic & are interrelated within a matrix of social & technical dependencies

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Assumes:

Technological elements of ICT mix with social context or relationships to form an inseparable ensemble or the ICT social context (ICT is inseparable from its social context)

Impacts of ICT are socially shaped (cf technical perspective where ICT have deterministic impacts).

Thus ICT implementation is often a lengthy socio-technical process

See Table 1 in Bob Kling, The Information Society, 16(3), pp.9-10 for comparison between Technical and Social systems perspectives wrt ICT in organizations/society

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(a) Key Issues of Social Informatics

1. Context of ICT directly affects how ICTs are used ICT is always linked to context of use

and thus cannot be considered independently from the situation it is to be used e.g. my use of UON networked PC is both similar and different from that of the VC

2. ICTs are not value neutral: their use creates winners and losers (or exploited to meet interests) ICTs are designed, implicitly or

explicitly, to support social & organizational structures e.g. on-line banking used to centralize power by ICT literate top management

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3. ICT use leads to multiple, & often

paradoxical effects Similar ICTs can have different

outcomes in similar or different situations e.g. use of e-mail used to decrease paper in one situation and used to increase paper in another

ICTs use have both intended and unintended consequences e.g. use of ICT to increase efficiency & effectiveness (intended), thereby making staff totally reliant on ICT, then due to lack of proper maintenance, systems become unreliable over time, making staff unable to achieve objectives (unintended)

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4. ICTs have moral and ethical

impacts e.g. smart cards being used for

surveillance and control, without informed consent - ethical

automation used to restructure jobs and making people redundant - moral

5. ICTs are configurable Multiple functions and ability to re-

program (alter, extend, etc.) technical systems in a social system (e.g. to meet specific needs) makes each technical system of ICTs highly re-configurable e.g. an HR system may be modified to provide CVs of staff

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6. ICTs follow socio-technical trajectories i.e. any ICT component is an evolving

series of products or versions (i.e. each technology has a history and a future)

e.g.1 the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows O/S was not necessarily a technical decision – it was also shaped by commercial considerations. IBM had similar practices in the 1960’s until US Dept of Justice intervened

e.g. 2 the current UON WAN has been shaped by historical forces that are partly technical and partly social. The future of this network cannot be divorced from this history

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7. Co-evolution of ICT in its life

e.g.1 ICT projects are selected based on a combination of technical criteria and business, political and strategic viewpoints of top mgnt

e.g. 2 software design reflects an ongoing discourse among developers & between developers, users and other stakeholders

e.g. 3 implementation of a new MIS is a social activity that might involve adjustment of work processes around the new system

Thus, ICT system use unfolds over time a mutual adaptation between the ICT and the social system in which it has been implemented

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(b) Value of Social Informatics

In general, helps us to build better computing systems and use them more effectively, efficiently and humanely

In particular, the inseparability of ICT from its social context

is critical in understanding impacts of ICT on society

provides us with a useful framework to analyze the complexities of the computing systems that we find in our societies

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(c) References What is “Social Informatics” and why

should you care? Steve Sawyer, v1.1 (9/2/99), http://www.ist.psu.edu//faculty_pages/sawyer/spring00/92read.htm

Learning about Information Technologies and Social Change: The Contribution of Social Informatics, Bob Kling, The Information Society 16(3), http://www.slis.indiana.edu/TIS/articles/kling16(3).pdf or use google to get The Information Society journal & look for Vol. 16, No. 3

The centre for Social Informatics, http://www.slis.indiana.edu/SI

D-Lib Magazine Article on Social Informatics, http://www.dlib.org/