Editing Community informatics (section)

===Social informatics beyond an immediate concern for a community===
{{main|Social informatics}}

Social informatics 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/ |title=Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics |publisher=Rkcsi.indiana.edu |accessdate=2012-06-08}}</ref> Historically, social informatics research has been strong in the Scandinavian countries, the UK and Northern Europe.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sawyer|first1=Steve|last2=Rosenbaum|first2=Howard|title=Social Informatics in the Information Sciences: Current Activities and Emerging Directions|journal=Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline|date=2000|volume=3|pages=89–96|url=http://www.inform.nu/Articles/Vol3/v3n2p89-96r.pdf|accessdate=9 June 2014|issn=1521-4672|doi=10.28945/583|doi-access=free}}</ref> In Europe some researchers have pointed out that in order to create awareness of the importance of social issues of computing, one has to focus on [[didactics]] of social informatics.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Godejord|first1=Per A|title=Fighting child pornography: Exploring didactics and student engagement in social informatics|journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology|volume=58|issue=3|pages=446–451|doi=10.1002/asi.20522|year=2007}}</ref>
Within North America, the field is represented largely through independent research efforts at a number of diverse institutions. Social informatics research diverges from earlier, deterministic (both social and technological) models for measuring the social impacts of technology. Such technological deterministic models characterized information technologies as tools to be installed and used with a pre-determined set of impacts on society dictated by the technology's stated capabilities.  Similarly, the socially deterministic theory represented by some proponents of the [[social construction of technology|social construction of technology (SCOT)]] or [[social shaping of technology]] theory see technology as the product of human social forces.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Williams|first1=Robin|last2=Edge|first2=David|title=The social shaping of technology|journal=Research Policy|volume=25|issue=6|pages=865–899|doi=10.1016/0048-7333(96)00885-2|year=1996|s2cid=17412694 |url=http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28638/1/Introductory%20essay%20%28LSERO%29.pdf}}</ref>