Week 7 - Social Informatics



As defined in  Wikipedia, Social Informatics  “is the study of information and communication tools in cultural or institutional contexts”  (Wikipedia). As per the particular readings done in class, it appears to me as a field of study that helps understand what  social  impact any form of technology has. More precisely, it happens to be the use of information in the context of society. There  have  been primarily two different directions  of determinism  –  social and technological. The primary objective of social informatics is the way the gap between social and technological determinism can be reduced.

Future of Social Informatics
Social informatics is a young intellectual movement and its future is still being defined. However, because SST theorists such as Williams and Edge suggest that the amorphous boundaries between humans and technology that emerge in social shaping technology research indicate that technology is not a distinct social endeavor worthy of individual study, indicating that there is a need for social informatics research that bridges the gap between technological and social determinism. This observation, coupled with the many fields that contribute research, suggest a future in which social informatics theories and concepts settle to form a substrate, an “indispensable analytical foundation”  for work in other disciplines.

[Excerpt from Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_informatics]

Class Readings
1. Kling, R. (1999). What is Social Informatics and Why Does it Matter?

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january99/kling/01kling.html

2. Sawyer and Rosenbaum (2000) Social Informatics in the Information Sciences:  Current Activities and Emerging      Directions, 

http://inform.nu/Articles/Vol3/v3n2p89-96r.pdf

<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin">3. Sawyer and Tapia, From Findings to Theories, (2006) Institutionalizing Social Informatics

<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.93.8836&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Homework
Explain why Social Informatics is not a theory. Explain what Social Informatics actually is. Show how you could adopt a Social Informatics perspective on your own research?

My write-up here

Comments on the homework.

Other Class Resources
1. Resources discussed (Function 4 )