Editing Social informatics

{{short description|Subfield between informatics and sociology}}
'''Social informatics''' is the study of [[Information technology|information and communication tools]] in [[cultural]] or [[institutional]] contexts.<ref name="KlingRosenbaumSawyer2005">{{cite book|last1=Kling|first1=Rob|last2=Rosenbaum|first2=Howard|last3=Sawyer|first3=Steve|title=Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics: A Framework for Studying and Teaching the Human Contexts of Information and Communications Technologies|date=2005|publisher=Information Today, Inc.|location=Medford, New Jersey|isbn=978-1-57387-228-7}}</ref> Another definition is the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts.<ref name="Kling2007">{{cite journal|last1=Kling|first1=Rob|title=What Is Social Informatics and Why Does It Matter?|journal=The Information Society|date=2007|volume=23|issue=4|pages=205–220|doi=10.1080/01972240701441556|s2cid=41866775}}</ref> A [[transdisciplinary]] field,<ref name="SawyerRosenbaum2000">{{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|issue=2|pages=89–95|url=http://www.inform.nu/Articles/Vol3/v3n2p89-96r.pdf|accessdate=15 August 2016|doi=10.28945/583|doi-access=free}}</ref> social informatics is part of a larger body of socio-economic research that examines the ways in which the technological artifact and human social context mutually constitute the [[information and communications technology]] (ICT) ensemble.<ref name=":0">Sawyer, S. and Jarrahi, M.H. (2014) ''The Sociotechnical Perspective: Information Systems and Information Technology'', Volume 2 (Computing Handbook Set, Third Edition,) edited by Heikki Topi and Allen Tucker. Chapman and Hall/CRC. | http://sawyer.syr.edu/publications/2013/sociotechnical%20chapter.pdf</ref> Some proponents of social informatics use the relationship of a [[Biology|biological]] [[community]] to its [[Ecology|environment]] as an [[analogy]] for the relationship of tools to [[person|people]] who use them. The [http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/ Center for Social Informatics] founded by the late Dr. [[Rob Kling]], an early champion of the field's ideas, defines the field thus:

:Social Informatics (SI) 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 name="rkcsi">{{cite web|last1=Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics|title=Homepage of Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics|url=http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/|website=Indiana University|publisher=Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics|accessdate=22 August 2016|date=2016}}</ref>

==Research==
Historically, Western European concepts of social informatics research has been strong in the Scandinavian countries and the UK.<ref name="WilliamsEdge1996">{{cite journal|last1=Williams|first1=Robin|last2=Edge|first2=David|title=The social shaping of technology|journal=Research Policy|date=1996|volume=25|issue=6|pages=865–899|doi=10.1016/0048-7333(96)00885-2|s2cid=17412694 |url=http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28638/1/Introductory%20essay%20%28LSERO%29.pdf}}</ref> The beginnings can be traced to the 1980s in Norway and Slovenia.<ref name="FichmanRosenbaum2014">{{cite book|last1=Fichman|first1=Pnina|last2=Rosenbaum|first2=Howard|title=Social Informatics: Past, Present and Future|date=2014|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|location=Newcastle upon Tyne|isbn=978-1443855761}}</ref> The fundamentals of social informatics in the USA were laid by Kling in 1996 with his colleagues and students from Indiana University.<ref name="FichmanRosenbaum2014" /> Within North America, the field is represented largely through independent research efforts at a number of diverse institutions.<ref name="SawyerRosenbaum2000" /> There are several approaches, which were historically named or classified as social informatics: American, Russian, British, Norwegian, Slovenian, German and Japanese.<ref name="Smutny2016">{{cite journal|last1=Smutny|first1=Zdenek|title=Social informatics as a concept: Widening the discourse|journal=Journal of Information Science|date=2016|volume=42|issue=5|pages=681–710|doi=10.1177/0165551515608731|s2cid=9355999}}</ref> The oldest concept of social informatics was founded in the USSR by A.V. Sokolov and his colleagues in the 1970s.<ref name="Smutny2016" /><ref name="Chugunov2012">{{cite book|last1=Chugunov|first1=Andrey Vladimirovich|title=Социальная информатика: Учебное пособие|date=2012|publisher=НИУ ИТМО|location=Санкт-Петербургский}}</ref>

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 which are dictated by the technology's stated capabilities.<ref name="WilliamsEdge1996" />  Similarly, the socially [[Determinism|deterministic theory]] represented by some proponents of the [[social construction of technology|social construction of technology (SCOT)]] or [[social shaping of technology]] theory as advocated by Williams & Edge (1996)<ref name="WilliamsEdge1996" /> see technology the product of human social forces.  In contrast, some social informatics methodologies consider the context surrounding technology and the material properties of the technology to be equally important:  the people who will interact with a system, the organizational policies governing work practice, and support resources.<ref name=":0" />  This contextual inquiry produces "nuanced [[concept]]ual understanding" of systems that can be used to examine issues like access to technology, [[Telecommunication|electronic forms of communication]], and large-scale [[Computer networking|networks]].<ref name="Kling2000a">{{cite journal|last1=Kling|first1=Rob|title=Learning about information technologies and social change: The contribution of social informatics|journal=The Information Society|date=2000|volume=16|issue=3|pages=217–232|doi=10.1080/01972240050133661|s2cid=17184442}}</ref>

Research in social informatics can be categorized into three orientations.<ref name="SawyerRosenbaum2000" />  [[Norm (sociology)|Normative]] research focuses on the development of theories based on [[empirical]] analysis that may be used to develop organizational policies and work practices.<ref name="Kling2000a" /> The heart of such analyses lies in socio-technical interaction networks,<ref name="Kling2000a" /> a framework built around the idea that humans and the technologies they build are "[[Coconstitutionalism|co-constitutive]]", bound together, and that any examination of one must necessarily consider the other. Studies of the analytical orientation develop theory or define methodologies to contribute to theorizing in institutional settings.<ref name="Kling2000a" />  Critical analysis, like [[Lucy Suchman]]’s examination of articulation work,<ref name="Suchman1994">{{cite conference|first1=Lucy|last1=Suchman|title=Supporting articulation work: Aspects of a feminist practice of office technology production|conference=Proceedings of the 5th IFIP WG9.1 Conference on Women, Work and Computerization|date=1994|publisher=Elsevier|location=New York|pages=7–21}}</ref> examine technological solutions from non-traditional perspectives in order to influence design and implementation.<ref name="SawyerRosenbaum2000" /><ref name="Kling2000a" />

==Future==
Social informatics is a young intellectual movement and its future is still being defined.  However, because SST theorists such as [[Robin Williams (academic)|Williams]] and Edge suggest that the [[amorphous]] boundaries between humans and technology that emerge in social shaping technology research indicate that technology is not a distinct social endeavor worthy of individual study,<ref name="WilliamsEdge1996" /> indicating that there is a need for social informatics research that bridges the gap between technological and social [[determinism]].  This observation, coupled with the many fields that contribute research, suggest a future in which social informatics theories and concepts settle to form a substrate, an "indispensable analytical foundation"<ref name="Kling2000a" /> for work in other disciplines. Such foundations can be found in social informatics frameworks such as The Web of Computing perspective or Socio-Technical Interaction Networks.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kling|first=Rob|date=2003|title=A bit more to it: scholarly communication forums as socio-technical interaction networks.|journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology|volume=54|pages=47–67|doi=10.1002/asi.10154}}</ref>

Relevant topics about future direction of social informatics are discussed in the book by Fichman and Rosenbaum.<ref name="FichmanRosenbaum2014" /> Conceptualization of international discourse, including current trends in research and direction of social informatics development is presented in an article by Smutny.<ref name="Smutny2016" /> This article discusses current possibilities of development of social informatics within the international discourse of various concepts including possible areas for future cooperation. Other topical article by Marcinkowski<ref name="Marcinkowski2016">{{cite journal|last1=Marcinkowski|first1=Michael|title=Data, Ideology, and the Developing Critical Program of Social Informatics|journal=Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology|date=2016|volume=67|issue=5|pages=1266–1275|doi=10.1002/asi.23483|s2cid=22109515|url=http://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/7592/1/7592.pdf}}</ref> presents a perspective shift from studying only the effects of the implementation and use of technology to the primary discussion of what are the ideological implications of empirical work in social informatics connected with data analytics approach.

==In education==
Social informatics is also about teaching social issues of computing to computer science students.<ref name="KlingJewett1996">{{cite book|last1=Kling|first1=Rob|last2=Jewett|first2=Tom|title=The Social Design of Worklife with Computers and Networks: An Open Natural Systems Perspective|journal=Advances in Computers|date=1994|volume=39|pages=239–293|doi=10.1016/S0065-2458(08)60381-2|url=http://escholarship.org/uc/item/13m1k4jg|accessdate=1 September 2016|isbn=9780120121397}}</ref> Depending on educational traditions, social informatics is scattered in the curriculum of different disciplines, as well as in [[computer science]], information science, [[informatics (academic field)|informatics]] (Europe) and web sociology.<ref name="Kling2007" /> In some instances there might be a lack of understanding of why teaching social issues of computing is important, both by individual lecturers and students, resulting in a view that social informatics is boring and without importance.<ref name="Godejord2007">{{cite journal|last1=Godejord|first1=Per Arne|title=Fighting child pornography: Exploring didactics and student engagement in social informatics|journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology|date=2007|volume=58|issue=3|pages=446–451|doi=10.1002/asi.20522}}</ref> 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 name="Godejord2007" />

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
*[[Community informatics]]
*[[Computational social science]]
*[[Computer-mediated communication]]
*[[E-social science]]
*[[Hyperpersonal model]]
*[[Information policy]]
*[[Social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE)]]
*[[Social information processing theory]]
*[[Social Study of Information Systems]]
*[[Sociology of the Internet]]
*[[Urban informatics]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/ Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics], Indiana University, USA
*[http://www.social-informatics.org/ Social Informatics.org], University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
*[http://samfinfo.pbwiki.com/ Social Informatics Resources] [[Digital object identifier|doi]]: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314094426_The_Social_Informatics_Resources_Wiki 10.13140/RG.2.2.36055.68003], Nord University, Norway
*[http://www.irpps.cnr.it/en/research-activities/social-informatics-and-computing/ Social Informatics and Computing], CNR-IRPPS, Italy
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100129045236/http://www.informatics.sun.ac.za/SI/ Centre for Knowledge Dynamics and Decision Making], University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

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[[Category:Library science]]
[[Category:Interdisciplinary subfields of sociology]]
[[Category:Information science by discipline]]