Social Study Of Information And Communication

Description:
This book is a useful text for advanced students of MIS and ICT courses, and for those studying ICT in related areas: Management and Organization Studies, Cultural Studies, and Technology and Innovation. As ICTs permeate every sphere of society - business, education, leisure, government, etc. - it is important to reflect the character and complexity of the interaction between people and computers, between society and technology. For example, the user may represent a much broader set of actors than 'the user' conventionally found in many texts: the operator, the customer, the citizen, the gendered individual, the entrepreneur, the 'poor', the student. Each actor uses ICT in different ways. This book examines these issues, deploying a number of methods such as Actor Network Theory, Socio-Technical Systems, and phenomenological approaches. Management concerns about strategy and productivity are covered together with issues of power, politics, and globalization. Topics range from long-standing themes in the study of IT in organizations such as implementation, strategy, and evaluation, to general analysis of IT as socio-economic change A distinguished group of contributors, including Bruno Latour, Saskia Sassen, Robert Galliers, Frank Land, Ian Angel, and Richard Boland, offer the reader a rich set of perspectives and ideas on the relationship between ICT and society, organizational knowledge and innovation.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; PART I: FOUNDATIONS; 1. Encountering Information Systems as a Phenomenon; 2. Solution is the Problem: A Story of Transitions and Opportunities; 3. On Using ANT for Studying Information Systems: A (Somewhat) Socratic Dialogue; 4. Towards a Sociology of Information Technology; PART II: THEORIES AT WORK; 5. Knowledge as Infrastructure; 6. An Ecology of Distributed Practice Involving Knowledge Work; 7. Actor Network Theory and Cultural Aspects of Interpretive Studies; 8. Farewell to Constructivism: Technology and Context-Embedded Action; 9. Framing IS Studies: Understanding the Context of IS Innovation; PART III: SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS; 10. Bridging the Digital Divide: New Route to Development or New Form of Dependency; 11. Re-Constructing Information Systems Evaluation; 12. Reflections on Information Systems Strategizing; 13. Socially Self-Destructing Systems