Foundations of Social Informatics Wiki



Welcome to the Foundations of Social Informatics Wiki
Resources and readings related to IST 530 taught at Penn State by Dr. Andrea Tapia

What is Social Informatics?
Social informatics is the study of information and communication tools in cultural or institutional contexts.[1]  Another definition is the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts.[2]  A transdisciplinary field,[3]  social informatics is part of a larger body of socio-economic research that examines the ways in which the technological artifact and human social context mutually constitute the information and communications technology (ICT) ensemble. Some proponents of social informatics use the relationship of a biological community to its environment as an analogy for the relationship of tools to people who use them. The Center for Social Informatics founded by the late Dr. Rob Kling, an early champion of the field’s ideas, defines the field thus:




 * Social Informatics (SI) refers to the body of research and study that examines social aspects of computerization – including the roles of information technology in social and organizational change, the uses of information technologies in social contexts, and the ways that the social organization of information technologies is influenced by social forces and social practices.


 * -- Excerpt from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_informatics )

Table of Contents

 * 1) Week2 - What is Theory ? Theorizing ?
 * 2) Week3 - Marx and Technological Determinism
 * 3) Week 4 - Power and Foucault
 * 4) Week 5 - Do Artifacts have Politics?
 * 5) Week 6 - Critical theory
 * 6) Week 7 - Social Informatics
 * 7) Week 8 - SCOT and SST
 * 8) Week 9 - Institutional Theory
 * 9) Week 10 - Structuration Theory
 * 10) Week11 - Actor Network Theory
 * 11) Week12 - Boundary Objects
 * 12) Week13 - Grounded Theory