The complex imbrications of ICT and society

2016

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have changed our lives significantly over the last few decades, and they will continue to do so. ICTs influence the way we live, work, and organize. These changes we are facing as societies (and as individuals) bear positive and negative side effects that concern academia as well, since science and research serve a function in and for society. What kind of academic field do we need to meet these challenges of the information age? Many different research approaches have emerged over the last decades that aim at explaining, shaping, and forecasting social change related to an increasing penetration, miniaturization, and convergence of ICTs. tripleC suggests the designation of this research area as ICTs-and-Society to indicate its broad perspective. The term ICTs itself is broad enough to capture Internet, Web, Web 2.0, Social Media, Social Networks, new mobile technologies, ambient technologies, etc. Society too, can refer to society at large, or to certain aspects, of society, such as economy, ecology, politics, culture, etc., and includes both individuals and organizations. The fact that "ICTs-and-Society" involves the disciplines of information and computer science, economics, sociology and political science, psychology and philosophy, etc., and additionally transcends the academic boundaries and at least affects, if not integrates, stakeholders from politics, economy, organizations, and individuals, suggests that ICTs-and-Society is a transdisciplinary field of research par excellence.

Triplec Communication Capitalism Critique Open Access Journal For a Global Sustainable Information Society, 2011

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have changed our lives significantly over the last few decades, and they will continue to do so. ICTs influence the way we live, work, and organize. These changes we are facing as societies (and as individuals) bear positive and negative side effects that concern academia as well, since science and research serve a function in and for society. What kind of academic field do we need to meet these challenges of the information age?

2016

The world around us is unpredictably changing at a dramatic pace and technology plays an increasingly important, yet ambiguous, role in these global social changes. Is should actively engage with the phenomena that society is changing with and through ICT. To date IS research is mostly interested in technological artifacts and behavioral aspects associated with ICT. We, as IS scholars, have to find theoretical approaches to help us to make sense of and better understand the broader societal and organizational changes related to ICT. We argue that Ou Yang outlines two relational approaches to sensemaking, extending our conceptual and analytical toolkits through the works of Martin Heidegger and Marshall McLuhan. This paper provides a discussion of her contribution in relation to the current debate on sociomateriality.

2005

Systems scientists in their conceptualization of Information Technology (IT). It shows that both academic fields develop more and more convergent theorizations. The first part is centered on an historical analysis of sociology itself. It shows the great comeback of the Object within the sociological field at the beginning of the 80s. Different models have been developed from the generalized kinds of sociology to those that have been focused on the social construction of the Object. These make up sociological groups, which we call "autonomous". The second part presents the sociological approaches used and worked out in the domain of Information Systems (IS). These are presented by means of three historical moments (causalist, actor-based and processual). For each of these stages the influence of sociologies, notably those that deal with the Object, is obvious and models are more or less "illuminated" by means of broader perspectives. In the third part, there is a discussion of ontological differences between the work of sociologists studying IS objects and the work of IS researchers drawing on sociologists' conceptual contributions. Lastly, it seems that if sociology and Information Systems sometimes diverge in the way they study sociotechnical systems, they converge gradually in their conceptualization of the IT artifact.

Information Systems and Information Technology, 2014

Through this chapter we provide an overview of the sociotechnical premise: the mutual constitution of people and technologies. The sociotechnical premise and its various approaches, including the seminal work of the Tavistock scholars, the Nordic and Scandic approaches, and their evolution, are developed as the historical basis of this work. In the chapter we also cover the role of sociological thinking, the contributions of science and technology studies and social construction/social shaping of technology, actor network theories, and contemporary approaches. The chapter concludes with a cursory review of current debates around economic sociology, multidimensional networks and advancing our current conceptualization of the digital artifact.

tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 2010

How is the relationship between ICTs and society to be conceived of? And how is the relationship to be evaluated? These two questions form the basis upon which an ideal-typical categorisation of different theoretical approaches can be built. The scheme presented here allows to be aware of advantages and disadvantages of certain ways of theorising.

Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, 2010

First …, 2002

Thus far, OECD has identified information and computing technologies (ICTs) as providing an infrastructure necessary to displaying, moving, processing and storing data, information and codified knowledge. The OECD's ongoing work on indicators for the information society ...