Social informatics in information science: An introduction

Kling, Rob; Rosenbaum, Howard; Hert, Carol A.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(1998)49:12<1047::aid-asi1>3.3.co;2-o

Cited by 21 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Articulating a more developed and intellectually satisfying counter-position may involve the difficult and painful effort at theory. Relevant disciplinary perspectives on information technology, which both inherit, and, particularly in the social construction of technology (Stewart and Williams, 1998;Kling, Rosenbaum, and Hert, 1998;Bowker and Star, 2000;Bowker, 2005), begin to transform and depart from the elements of repression identified here, will need to be considered, with a full counter-position developed from critiques of Platonism which insist on logical and mathematical axioms as human constructions and from Marx's conception of technology as 'created by the human hand'.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organs of the human brain, created by the human hand?

Warner

2008

Journal of Documentation

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Organs of the human brain, created by the human hand? The social epistemology of information technology Warner, J. (2008 Abstract. Purpose. Information science has been conceptualized as a partly unreflexive response to developments in information and computer technology, and, most powerfully, as part of the gestalt of the computer. The computer was viewed as an historical accident in the original formulation of the gestalt. An alternative, and timely, approach to understanding, and then dissolving, the gestalt would be to address the motivating technology directly, fully recognizing it as a radical human construction.Methodology / Approach. The paper adopts a social epistemological perspective and is concerned with collective, rather than primarily individual, ways of knowing.Findings. Information technology tends to be received as objectively given, autonomously developing, and causing but not itself caused, by the language of discussions in information science. It has also been characterized as artificial, in the sense of unnatural, and sometimes as threatening. Attitudes to technology are implied, rather than explicit, and can appear weak when articulated, corresponding to collective repression.Research implications. Receiving technology as objectively given has an analogy with the Platonist view of mathematical propositions as discovered, in its exclusion of human activity, opening up the possibility of a comparable critique which insists on human agency.Originality / value of paper. Apprehensions of information technology have been raised to consciousness, exposing their limitations.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organs of the human brain, created by the human hand?

Warner

2008

Journal of Documentation

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“…Social informatics research focuses upon the relationships between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the larger social context they exist within [6]. The definition of social informatics provided by the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science defines Social Informatics as [7]:…”

Section: Definition Of Social Informaticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using a social informatics framework to study the effects of location-based social networking on relationships between people: A review of literature

Fusco

Michael

2010

2010 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society

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Location based social networking (LBSN) applications are part of a new suite of emerging social networking tools that run on the Web 2.0 platform. LBSN is the convergence between location based services (LBS) and online social networking (OSN). LBSN applications offer users the ability to look up the location of another "friend" remotely using a smart phone, desktop or other device, anytime and anywhere. Users invite their friends to participate in LBSN and there is a process of consent that follows. Friends have the ability to alter their privacy settings to allow their location to be monitored by another at differing levels of accuracy (e.g. suburb, pinpoint at the street address level, or manual location entry). This paper explores the impact of LBSN upon society, especially upon trust between friends. The study used focus groups to collect data, and a qualitative approach towards analysis. The paper concludes that while there are a great many positive uses of LBSN, there are some significant problems with current applications, and that better design is required to ensure that these technologies are not exploited against a user to commit harm.

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“…There is increasing recognition in evaluation research that many different disciplines can contribute to evaluation efforts and to addressing different questions in technology assessment [135]. Social scientists, computer scientists, and information scientists all are exploring the complexities of people, social, and organizational issues, while individuals from disciplines as diverse as anthropology, communications, computer science, history, library and information science, management information systems, science and technology studies, and sociology are examining implications of the idea that technologies are embedded in social contexts [2].…”

Section: New Interdisciplinary Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future Directions in Evaluation Research: People, Organizational, and Social Issues

Kaplan

Shaw

2004

Methods Inf Med

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Evaluation research is key in identifying how people, organizational, and social issues - all crucial to system design, development, implementation, and use - interplay with informatics projects. Building on a long history of contributions and using a variety of methods, researchers continue developing evaluation theories and methods while producing significant interesting studies. We recommend that future research: 1) Address concerns of the many individuals involved in or affected by informatics applications. 2) Conduct studies in different type and size sites, and with different scopes of systems and different groups of users. Do multi-site or multi-system comparative studies. 3) Incorporate evaluation into all phases of a project. 4) Study failures, partial successes, and changes in project definition or outcome. 5) Employ evaluation approaches that take account of the shifting nature of health care and project environments, and do formative evaluations. 6) Incorporate people, social, organizational, cultural, and concomitant ethical issues into the mainstream of medical informatics. 7) Diversify research approaches and continue to develop new approaches. 8) Conduct investigations at different levels of analysis. 9) Integrate findings from different applications and contextual settings, different areas of health care, studies in other disciplines, and also work that is not published in traditional research outlets. 10) Develop and test theory to inform both further evaluation research and informatics practice.

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Social informatics in information science: An introduction

Cited by 21 publications

References 22 publications

Organs of the human brain, created by the human hand?

Organs of the human brain, created by the human hand?

Using a social informatics framework to study the effects of location-based social networking on relationships between people: A review of literature

Future Directions in Evaluation Research: People, Organizational, and Social Issues

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