Session 4 What is Social Informatics and why does it matter? I

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Session 4What is Social Informatics and why does
it matter? I

• I cant understand why people are frightened of
  new ideas. Im frightened of the old ones
• John Cage, US Composer, 1912-1995

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Cognitive Authority
Church vs State Death vs Life Plants vs
Animals Parts vs Persons Julius Lekics vs ITI103
class
Nature vs Nurture God vs Scientists Genes vs
Environment Technically Mastered Humans vs Nature
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Review of Learning

• Technological Determinism vs Social Construction
  of Technology
• A kind of invisible hand guides technology ever
  onward and upward, using individuals and
  organizations as vessels for its purposes but
  guided by a sort of divine plan for bringing the
  greatest good to the greatest number. Purcell,
  Carroll (1994) White Heat. London BBC, p. p. 38
• Interaction between society and technology is
  primarily seen as one in which social conditions
  are the primary impetus for the convergence of
  existing technologies and their use.

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• Session Objectives
• To examine a case study of genetics research
  using IT, and to identify human issues involved
• To begin to understand the nature of the field of
  study labeled Social Informatics
• To identify key areas of the social impacts of
  Information Technology

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ControversyKari Stefansson and the Genetic
Database Controversy

• http//www.mannvernd.is/english/articles/kmp_starl
  edger.html

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• Icelandic company focused on genetic research,
  disease and drug development
• Founded by neurologist Kari Stefansson
• Went public in July 2000
• Has a pledge for up to 200 million from
  Hoffmann-LaRoche
• Genetic tracking of 25 specific diseases

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deCODE geneticshttp//www.decode.com/

• Their mission is
• to perform genetic and medical research to
  identify disease genes, and drug and diagnostic
  targets
• to use modern informatics technology to discover
  facts about health and disease through
  data-mining
• to use this knowledge to develop and sell
  products and services for the international
  healthcare industry

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Kari Stefansson, M.D.

• Stefansson has a
• grand vision for Iceland and the people of
  Iceland.
• He plans to crack the genetic mysteries of
  common diseases, from cancer to hypertension.

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Kari Stefansson On deCODE Genetics, Inc.

• I look at this company first and foremost as
  company of Icelanders for
  Icelanders. And the company benefit by having an
  opportunity to do extremely good science and
  contributing to curing diseases
• Economically we will benefit by contracting with
  large pharmaceutical companies that are
  eventually going to develop the medications for
  the treatment that will be derived from the
  discovery of these genes.

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The Project The Deal

• The government of Iceland agreed to create a
  national database containing DNA samples,
  genealogical histories, and medical records of
  all Icelanders to be operated by a private
  company.
• deCODE Genetics, Inc. will pay the government of
  Iceland 12 million per year for 12 years for
  exclusive rights to the database.

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The Population Why Iceland?

• Geographically isolated, 100 literacy
• Relatively homogeneous population genetically
• Availability of large genealogical database
• National health care and healthy population
• Pro-government and pro-technology population

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Iceland Facts

• Area 39, 769 square miles
• Capital Reykjavik (population 164,000)
• Religion Evangelical Lutheran 95, Other
  Protestant denomination 3, Roman Catholic 1 and
  some followers of Asatru, ancient Norse religion
• Government Democratic Republic
• Ethnic Composition Homogeneous mixture of
  descendents of Norwegians and Celts
• Major Industries Fishing, aquaculture, aluminum
  smelting geothermal power

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The Problem

• deCODE Genetics, Inc. sells genetic information
  to insurance companies and offers DNA supplies to
  drug companies in exchange for partnerships.

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The Issues

• POSITIVE
• Possibility of helping humanity to conquer
  disease
• Development of high-level bio-technology jobs in
  a weak economy

• NEGATIVE
• Government selling the privacy of its citizens
• Presumed rather than informed consent
• Possibility of genetic discrimination

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The Opposition
Einar Arnason,Population Geneticist Questions
the genetic homogeneity of Icelanders. They
could just as well do their stuff in Switzerland
or New Jersey

• Skuli Sigurdson, Historian of Science
• Im not against healing the world. Im against
  unregulated research, against megalomania.

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Back to the future with Bill Joy

• Limit development of technologies that are too
  dangerous by limiting our pursuit of certain
  kinds of knowledge
• Immortality is certainly not the only possible
  utopian dream

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QUESTIONS

• How do we weigh the right to individual privacy
  vs. the possibility of improving life for all
  people?
• Do insurance companies have an obligation / right
  to discriminate against those who probably carry
  genetic defects?
• MacPherson, Kitta. Tapping Icelands Genetic
  Jackpot The Sunday Star-Ledger
• December 17, 2000, pp. 1

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INFORMATICS

• The study of the properties of information, as
  well as the application of technology to the
  organization, storage, retrieval and
  dissemination of information
• The structure of knowledge and its embodiment in
  information-handling systems

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SOCIAL INFORMATICS

• Identifies a body of research that examines the
  social aspects of computerization.
• The interdisciplinary study of the design, uses
  and consequences of information technologies that
  takes into account their interaction with
  institutional and cultural contexts." (Kling)

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SOCIAL INFORMATICS

• Emerged 1996 scholars meeting at UCLA examining
  social aspects of digital libraries
• Diffuse across many fields of study
• Multiplicity of specialist languages
• Major concern rhetoric, over-simplification,
  anecdotal claims of impact of technology on
  social productivity and development
• Research orientation

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Rhetoric or Reality
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Apple computers From the days when paper
replaced slates in schools, our children have
been flag bearers in the onward march of
technology. Today theyre at the forefront of
the computer revolution and taking it all in
their stride

• Apple Computers

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Sony

• "The Internet is a kind of power shift. Now the
  consumer has more power than the company"
• Nobuyuki Idei, Chief Executive

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SHAPING THE INTERNET AGE
BILL GATES

• Today, the Internet is far from obscure--it's the
  center of attention for businesses, governments
  and individuals around the world. It has spawned
  entirely new industries, transformed existing
  ones, and become a global cultural phenomenon.
  We are only at the dawn of the Internet Age.

Bill Gates
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Millions log off internet to join the real
worldVirtual Society (Oxford University)

• Internet might not be as persuasive and
  influential as previously predicted
• Many of social claims associated with the
  Internet were exaggerated by industry to promote
  their products
• Many teenagers using Internet less now than
  previously

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Some research evidence Kiesler et al 1999

• Internet is too hard for ordinary people
• Evidence
• High help desk call rates
• Difficulties with installations
• Software configurations
• Faulty software
• Inexperience with navigation
• Children becoming critical on-site technical
  consultants for their parents

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New Kids on the Box(Todd McNicholas, 1996)

• School students
• Difficulty in defining search terms, creating
  search strings
• Difficulty in interrogating WWW and effectively
  using search engines
• Difficulty in establishing quality, authority of
  information
• Productivity issues time, cost, constructing
  answers

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Are computers stealing our brains?

• Computer-mad generation has a memory crash
• Cherry Norton and Adam Nathan

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Computer-mad generation has a memory crash

• Japanese study of 20-30yr olds suffering memory
  loss because of reliance on computer technology
• diminished use of the brain to work out problems
  and inflict "information overload" that makes it
  difficult to distinguish between important and
  unimportant facts
• "Young people today are becoming stupid."

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• Research Vs Rhetoric
• in the Work Place

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Research Vs Rhetoric in the Work Place

• Paperless office is as much an utopian ideal as
  ever paper consumption 4 times its level of 10
  years ago
• Email not supplanting but adding to communication
  overload
• Reduction of productivity gains that some would
  expect to routinely result from computerization
• Email has increased rather than reduced the
  number of face-to-face meetings since meetings
  are now held to resolve disputes emerging from
  electronic communication

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Research Vs Rhetoric in the Work Place

• Many forms of ICTs, such as groupware,
  instructional computing, and manufacturing
  control systems, are often abandoned or reshaped
  to be used in new ways
• Consequences of ICT use can appear
  contradictory because they can differ across
  the various situations in which the ICTs are
  deployed
• Many business firms using WWW sites to enhance
  markets and increase sales are losing significant
  amounts of money on their efforts at electronic
  commerce
• http//virtualsociety.sbs.ox.ac.uk/intro.htm

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Rhetoric or Reality
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Misguided Assumptions

• ICTs have direct effects upon organizations and
  social life
• these effects depend primarily upon the ICT's
  information processing features and
• the information processing features of new ICTs
  are so powerful relative to preexisting
  technologies that they effectively determine how
  people will use them and with what consequences.

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Failed Predictions

• One reason that many predictions about the social
  effects of specific ICT consequences have proven
  inaccurate is that they are based on
  oversimplified conceptual models of specific
  kinds of ICTs or of the nature of the
  relationship between technology and social change
  

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Direct Effects Theories

• theory of the causal powers that computerized
  systems can exert upon individuals, groups,
  organizations, institutions, social networks,
  social worlds, and other social entities
• Eg use of computer-assisted information
  processing and communication technologies would
  lead to elimination of human nodes in the
  information processing network.

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The Productivity Paradox

• current strategies of computerization do not
  readily produce expected economic and social
  benefits in a vast number of cases. In
  particular, technology alone, even good
  technology alone, is not sufficient to create
  social or economic value.
• Studies and theorizes about the ways that
  effective computerization depends upon close
  attention to workplace organization and
  practices. (Kling)

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The Productivity Paradox

• Many organizations develop systems in ways that
  lead to a large fraction of implementation
  failures
• Few organizations design systems that effectively
  facilitate peoples work
• We significantly underestimate how much skilled
  work is required to extract value from
  computerized systems
• Taken together, these observations suggest that
  many organizations lose potential value from the
  ways that they computerize. (Kling)

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The Question of Access

• Technological Access
• Physical availability of computers, software and
  cable
• Assumption of ease of access and ease of use
• Add it on

• Social Access
• Human know-how
• Technical skills
• Understand how it enhances professional practice
  and social access
• Ability of people to actually use

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• The Technological Determinists say
• The Web means that the public will get better
  information than ever before.
• The Social Informaticists ask
• When will the Web enable the public to locate
  better information? Under what conditions? Who?
  For what?
• For example Are people seeking information to
  help them make a better choice of doctors, and
  then placing more trust in that doctor. Or are
  people seeking alternatives to doctor-mediated
  medical care?

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Social Informatics ResearchThree Orientations

• Normative explicit goal of influencing practice
  by providing empirical evidence illustrating the
  varied outcomes that occur as people work with
  ICTs in a wide range of organizational and social
  contexts
• Analytical develops concepts and theories to
  help generalize from understanding of ICT use in
  a few particular settings to other ICT uses in
  other settings
• Critical examining ICTs from perspectives that
  do not automatically and uncritically accept the
  goals and beliefs of the groups that commission,
  design, or implement specific ICTs.

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SOCIAL INFORMATICS

• Research is empirically focused
• Problem focused
• Analytical and interpretive
• Contextual

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SOCIAL
CONTEXT OF

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
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• social context of information technology
  development and use plays significant role in
  influencing ways that people use information
  technologies, and thus influences their
  consequences for work, organizations, and other
  social relationships.
• Social context does not refer to some abstracted
  cloud that hovers above people and information
  technology it refers to a specific matrix of
  social relationships

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Context

• ICTs do not exist in social or technological
  isolation. Their cultural and institutional
  contexts influence the ways in which they are
  developed, the kinds of workable configurations
  that are proposed, how they are implemented and
  used, and the range of consequences that occur
  for organizations and other social groupings.

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Social Context informed by

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Information Seeking Behavior
• Communication Processes
• Human Information Processing
• Attitudes, Values, Beliefs
• Attitudes to Technology
• Organizational Behavior

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Goal of Social Informatics

• To understand how peoples behavior,
  interactions, relationships, values and attitudes
  interact with IT.
• To develop empirically-grounded concepts that
  help us to predict (or at least understand)
  variations in the ways that people and groups use
  information technologies.

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Social Context

• Not to treat all or most social behavior as
  separable from the technologies.
• The concept of computerized information systems
  as social technical systems

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Socio-Technical Systems

• Complex interdependent systems comprised of
•   people in various roles and relationships with
  each other and with other system elements
• hardware (computer mainframes, workstations,
  peripherals, telecommunications equipment)
• software (operating systems, utilities and
  application programs)

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Socio-Technical Systems

•   techniques (e.g. management approaches, voting
  schemes)
• support resources (training/support/help)
•   information structures (content and content
  providers, rules/norms/regulations, such as those
  that authorize people to use systems and
  information in specific ways, access controls

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What does this mean for professional practice?

• Working in a design studio far away from the
  people who will use a specific system VS
  understanding which features / tradeoffs most
  appeal to the people who are most likely to use
  the system
• Focus groups, user participation in design teams
• Understanding the contextual richness of work
  environment and culture of workplace, and how
  technology might empower this

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Social design of ICT

• Shadowing managers and workers to determine
  likely uses of the planned system
• Participating in system design efforts to ensure
  the system fits the organizational structure and
  culture
• Facilitating user participation in the design
  activity
• Assessing current work practices / creating new
  ones
• Planning implementation, including education and
  training
• Observing system in use and making appropriate
  changes.

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Why Social Informatics Matters

• Develop reliable knowledge about IT and social
  change based on systematic empirical research
• Inform public policy debates, design, use,
  configuration, education and training
• Intelligently address misplaced hopes about IT
• Understand social relations eg. trust, power,
  transformation, etc
• Adds value performance / outcomes of work place

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THINK and DISCUSS

• Social Informatics examines the social aspects of
  computerization. Some social commentators claim
  that the Internet is enabling a great status
  upheaval and a subversion of all manner of social
  norms. What is your view on this claim? This
  view comes across in a story published in The New
  York Times Magazine on July 15th, 2001, titled
  Faking it about a teenage boy named Marcus
  Arnold who posed as a legal expert on the web
  site AskMe, and who was rated as the No. 1
  legal expert on that website. Read and comment!!

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READ for next class

• Read Andrew Feenbergs paper From Essentialism
  to Constructivism Philosophy of Technology at
  the Crossroads
• http//www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/feenberg/talk4.h
  tml
•