Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics: A Framework for Studying and Teaching the Human Contexts of Information and Communication Technologies

Citation

DM Mason, D. (2006), "Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics: A Framework for Studying and Teaching the Human Contexts of Information and Communication Technologies", Online Information Review, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 321-322. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2006.30.3.321.10

Social informatics (SI) is the name coined by Rob Kling for the study of computer usage in the context of society. Until his death in 2003 Kling worked tirelessly to have SI accepted in mainstream computing research and to have the name “social informatics” adopted by academia and industry. This book is a summary of the ideas and findings of SI to date. It lays out the principles and common elements and shows how the SI perspective can be applied to research and teaching in computing and information management. As such, it is the manifesto for SI.

Kling's main aim was to coordinate relevant research into one discipline and to demonstrate the impact of rigorous research when applied to the organizational and societal effects of computerization. The book's goal is to explain why SI is important for everyone who designs or uses information systems, or is involved in IT education or policy making.

The emphasis of SI is very much on changing the perspectives of educators. The argument is that popular views about robot servants or the demise of brick and mortar retailing are inaccurate and unhelpful, because the research is dispersed across many disciplines and there is no one integrated body of knowledge.

The book introduces the basic principles of SI, and then subsequent chapters outline the consequences of ICTs for organisational and social life, how SI affects designers and implementers, how it affects policy analysts, and how SI should be integrated into the computer studies curriculum. The final chapter discusses how best to communicate the ideals and ethos of SI to IT professionals and to academic research communities. There is an extensive bibliography and glossary of SI terms.

The book talks of SI as a subject whose time has come, but it has to be said that, despite the crusading zeal that Rob Kling brought to it, SI has never really taken off as an academic discipline. One of the main premises is that graduates of computer science and IS courses are over‐focussed on the technology and not sensitive to the human aspects of ICT, but is hard to see why information systems in particular require the creation of a special body of knowledge to prevent its being distorted and misused. The same distortions apply equally to physics or biology and technologies in general. It is also hard to make a case for special humanistic approaches to the teaching of information technologies: all sciences need to be applied with due regard for the human consequences.

The basic premise that knowledge of SI will prevent or ameliorate the consequences of ICT on social and organisational life is no doubt true to an extent, but many of the cases quoted in the book are as much about the mismatch between organizational expectations and the totally new technology of the time as with any intrinsic bias towards technological determinism.

The book was first mooted at a workshop in 1997, and SI's premise is still rooted in that era. Since, then, the world of information technology has gone through a phase shift. Ten years ago the standard IT model was to build custom‐made computer solutions for each organization. Interoperability, interfaces and integration were the major problems. In the intervening period the IT industry has learned how to integrate with other computer software, programs are modular rather than bespoke, and the internet has become the standard interface. ICT today is not without its problems, but they are of a different kind. While there are examples of bad design everywhere, the social aspects of ICT are well recognized. Microsoft, for example, expends thousands of hours on research into the usability of its software. There is not the same gulf between computer users and computer designers as there was: computing has been part of everyone's life in the past 20 years or so, and the basic lessons have been learned on both sides.

This book is no doubt a landmark event in the development of SI, but whether it turns out to be the foundation stone of a new era or a tombstone marking its demise remains to be seen.