Title: Delivering the Virtual Promise from access to use in the virtual society
1Delivering the Virtual Promise?from access to
use in the virtual society
- Steve Woolgar
- ESRC Virtual Society? Programme
- Brunel University
- www.virtualsociety.org.uk
- QEII Centre, London, 19th June 2000
2Delivering the Virtual Promise?
- The Hype
- The Virtual Society? programme
- Positive Scepticism
- Preliminary Results four rules of virtuality
- Delivering the Virtual Promise
3Delivering the Virtual Promise?
- The Hype
- The Virtual Society? programme
- Positive Scepticism
- Preliminary Results four rules of virtuality
- Delivering the Virtual Promise
4Delivering the Virtual Promise?
- The Hype
- The Virtual Society? programme
- Positive Scepticism
- Preliminary Results four rules of virtuality
- Delivering the Virtual Promise
5Virtual Society? - the problem
- Massive growth of new electronic technologies,
but social context of use poorly understood - Fundamental shifts in how people behave, organise
themselves and interact as a result of new
technologies? - Changes in nature/experience of interpersonal
relations, communications, social control,
participation, cohesion? - Crucial bearing on commercial and business
success, quality of life, future of society
6Virtual Society? - the Programme
- 1997-2001 22 projects in 25 British universities
- 67 academic researchers
- wide range of applications areas
- counter-intuitive initial results interesting
if true - research AND outreach
7Delivering the Virtual Promise?
- The Hype
- The Virtual Society? programme
- Positive Scepticism
- Preliminary Results four rules of virtuality
- Delivering the Virtual Promise
8Positive scepticism
- the ambivalence of new technology
- technology good/bad
- technology love/hate
- technology works/doesnt work
- same technology, different effects
- same effects, different technology...
9- Over the course of a few years a new
communications technology annihilated distance
and shrank the world faster and further than ever
before. A world wide communications network whose
cables spanned continents and oceans, it
revolutionised business practice and gave rise to
new forms of crime. Romances blossomed. Secret
codes were devised by some and cracked by others.
The benefits of the network were relentlessly
hyped by its advocates and dismissed by the
sceptics. Governments and regulators tried and
failed to control the new medium and attitudes to
everything from news gathering to diplomacy had
to be completely rethought.
10- Over the course of a few years a new
communications technology annihilated distance
and shrank the world faster and further than ever
before. A world wide communications network whose
cables spanned continents and oceans, it
revolutionised business practice and gave rise to
new forms of crime. Romances blossomed. Secret
codes were devised by some and cracked by others.
The benefits of the network were relentlessly
hyped by its advocates and dismissed by the
sceptics. Governments and regulators tried and
failed to control the new medium and attitudes to
everything from news gathering to diplomacy had
to be completely rethought. - The telegraph, mid 1840s (Standage, 1998)
11Positive scepticism
- the ambivalence of new technology
- technology good/bad
- technology love/hate
- technology works/doesnt work
- same technology, different effects
- same effects, different technology
- beware cyberbole!
12Delivering the Virtual Promise?
- The Hype
- The Virtual Society? programme
- Positive Scepticism
- Preliminary Results four rules of virtuality
- Delivering the Virtual Promise
13Four Rules of Virtuality
- Current rate of straightforward rapid expansion
may not continue. - New technologies tend to supplement rather than
substitute for existing practices and forms of
organisation - The more virtual the more real!
- The more global the more local! - impact of new
technologies depends crucially on their local
social context
14Delivering the Virtual Promise?
- The Hype
- The Virtual Society? programme
- Positive Scepticism
- Preliminary Results four rules of virtuality
- Delivering the Virtual Promise
15Delivering the Virtual Promise?
- Access for all in five years?
- What kinds of access? For whom? To what?
- How to move from access to meaningful use?
- How to sustain positive scepticism?
16Delivering the Virtual Promise?from access to
use in the virtual society
- Steve Woolgar
- ESRC Virtual Society? Programme
- Brunel University
- www.virtualsociety.org.uk
- QEII Centre, London, 19th June 2000
17The Institutions of the New Economy
- Manuel Castells
- University of California, Berkeley
- Delivering the Virtual Promise? QEII Centre,
London, 19th June 2000