What is social informatics and why does it matter?

From AcaWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

Citation: Rob Kling (1999) What is social informatics and why does it matter?. D-Lib Magazine (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1045/january99-kling
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1045/january99-kling
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1045/january99-kling
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): What is social informatics and why does it matter?
Download: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january99/kling/01kling.html
Tagged: Computer Science (RSS) social informatics (RSS), techno-social systems (RSS), computerization (RSS), socio-technical systems (RSS)

Summary

This paper provides an introduction to social informatics. The study of social interactions is motivated by the productivity paradox (computers have not improved throughput productivity in the dramatic ways promised in the 1960's-1980's hype) and by the failure of technological determinism: different systems are used in different ways (or sometimes not at all), depending in large part on the social motivations.

As the author comments, "The analytical failure of technological determinism is one of the interesting and durable findings from social informatics research." This failure is explained throughout the paper with comparative examples, for instance studies of two Lotus Notes implementations which had different outcomes due to different organizational incentives, and two scientific journals, one successful, the other technologically (but not socially) functional. Other examples include Internet access in the U.S. (where "social access", not just technological access, is needed).

A socio-technical system, according to this paper, is "a complex, interdependent system" which may include

  • People
  • Hardware
  • Software
  • Techniques (voting, ...)
  • Training/support/help
  • Information structures (rules, norms, access controls, content, ...)

In social informatics, analysis relies less on studying the hardware, software, and techniques, and more on studying people, support structures, and information structures. One goal of such studies is to influence system design; designing a system may involve user participation, ethnography, and participatory design.

The article hints at "new social phenomena that emerge when people use information technology" - leaving those for another article.

While the article points to "25 years of systematic analytical and critical research about information technology and social life" it notes that the terminology is not yet stable. It dates the term "social informatics" to 1996, and mentions related terms such as "social analysis of computing", "social impacts of computing", "information systems research", and "behavioral information systems research", "social analysis of computing", "interpretive informatics", "socio-technical systems".

It also distinguishes the analytical (theory-building) and critical (examining/questioning) orientations.

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

Reprinted in The Information Society: An International Journal, 23(4), 2007 DOI:10.1080/01972240701441556

A useful, if possibly dated, introduction to the field. It also points to other pre-1999 studies.

It points to books published between 1994 and 1999 and recommends several journals for social infomatics research:

  • The Information Society
  • Information Systems Research
  • Journal of Communications
  • Journal of Computer-Mediated Communications
  • Journal of the American Society of Information Science (e.g. October 1998 special issue)
  • Communications of the ACM

This was published in an open access journal.

Retrieved from "https://acawiki.org/index.php?title=What_is_social_informatics_and_why_does_it_matter%3F&oldid=4048"