Information Technology

SOIN8412 Social informatics:

Lecture 2 – What is technology?
Learning Objectives
• LO1: Explain the meaning of
technology.
• LO2: Investigate the factors that
contribute towards an Information
Society.
• LO3: Present how ICT changes the
relationship between information and
society.
• Activity

https://me.me/i/how-technology-changed-our-lives-15-years-ago-ding-youve-2007266
Readings

• E. Bernard (1991) Technological Change and Skills Development.

Geelong: Deakin University Press.
• A. Gefter (2010) ‘Artificial ape man: How technology created
humans’,
• M. Godwin (2010) ‘Disruptive Technology: What Is It? How Can It
Work for Professional Writing?’,

https://me.me/i/how-technology-changed-our-lives-15-
years-ago-ding-youve-2007266
 But first … what we addressed last week

▪ Various administrative matters

▪ Social informatics as an approach for

studying the use of ICT

▪ Zuboff’s notions of ‘informating’ and

‘automating’

https://www.spokeo.com/reverse-address-search
Presentation Schedule
▪ Week 3 – LU3 (Wamashudu & Ayanda)
▪ Week 4 – LU4 (Evashan & Stephanos & Ian)
▪ Week 5 – LU5 (Peter & Brilliant)
▪ Week 6 – LU6 (Yastiv & Michael S)
▪ Week 7 – LU7 (Michael K & Stuart)
▪ Week 8 – LU8 (Ross & Thaveshan)
▪ Week 9 – LU9 (Karabo & Shannon)
▪ Week 10 – LU10 (part 1) (Musa & Thabang &)
▪ Week 11 – LU10 (part 2) (Vhutshilo & Tlhalefo)
Any questions so far?

6
What is technology?

The word was first

popularised 200 years ago
by Jacob Bigelow, who
understood it as ‘the
practical applications of
science’ in pursuit of ‘the
benefit of society’

(in Noble 1977: 3-4)

https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/c
ommonwealth-oai:fq978x80p
 So how about this?

▪ Science is ‘pure’ knowledge –e.g. the

science of computers and computing
(Computer Science as a discipline)

▪ Technology is the application of

science to specific problems – e.g.
engineering as a technological
discipline

▪ Tools are an aspect of technology –

specific devices created to perform
specific tasks, such as (with ICT):
– hardware
– software
What distinctive activity makes us human?

Let’s think about this

https://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/being_human_slice_01.jpg
 Technology changes us as we develop and use tools

‘Technology allows us to accumulate

biological deficits: we lost our sharp
fingernails because we had cutting
tools, we lost our heavy jaw
musculature thanks to stone tools.
These changes reduced our basic
aggression, increased manual
dexterity and made males and
females more similar. Biological
deficits continue today. For example,
modern human eyesight is on
average worse than that of humans
10,000 years ago’

(Timothy Taylor in Gefter 2010)

Exploring the application of technology

One possible starting point

is to follow Marx in
examining the shift within
modern society once
machines began to replace
workers and their tools at
the centre of the production
process

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/
thumb/8/86/Ford_Motor_Company_assembly_li
ne.jpg/800px-
Ford_Motor_Company_assembly_line.jpg
 Marx (1867) on tools and machines

‘The machine proper is … a

mechanism that, after being set
in motion, performs with its
tools the same operations that
were formerly done by the
workman (sic) with similar tools’

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/NR/r
donlyres/3031291F-7A38-4595-
BD1F-
2AF69DA0B58B/108035/12.jpg
Marx (1867) on tools and machines

‘Along with the tool,

the skill of the
workman in handling
it passes over to the
machine’
x

http://www.gagogeek.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/11/motoman-sda10-
robots.jpg
 In a classic study from 1992, Wanda Orlikowski

argued that two different kinds of definition of

technology were common in academic debates:

– as ‘hardware’

– as not just hardware, but something else as

well
Technology as hardware

‘the equipment, machines, and

instruments that humans use in
productive activities, whether industrial
or informational’ (Orlikowski 1992: 399)
Technology as hardware, yet also more:

‘technology is much more than

hardware, machines and
artifacts (things we can kick) …
It is the ways in which we, as a
society, organise ourselves in
productive enterprise … a
human process with human
choices and decision-making
at the centre’

(Bernard 1991: 16)

https://imgflip.com/i/mw4j2
For Orlikowski (1992: 405), technology is

▪ ‘created and changed by human action, yet it is also

used by humans to accomplish some action’

▪ ‘interpretively flexible … the interaction of technology

and organizations is a function of the different actors
and socio-historical contexts implicated in its
development and use’

What changes first? Society or technology ?

How is ICT different according to Zuboff?

‘As information technology is

used to reproduce, extend, and
improve upon the process of
substituting machines for human
agency, it simultaneously
accomplishes something quite
different. The devices that
automate by translating
information into action also
register data about those
automated activities, thus
generating new streams of
information’
x
https://medium.com/@blakeir/shortening-feedback-loops-
bc9da680883e
Is this definition of a computer useful?

‘a general purpose device

that can be programmed to
carry out a finite set of
arithmetic or logical
operations. Since a
sequence of operations
can be readily changed,
the computer can solve
more than one kind of
problem.’
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/1825580
7/ms-dostm-is-a-general-purpose-disk-operating-
system-for-dvqcom
Information Technology
The first computers — humans

‘The women of the Computer Department at NACA

High-Speed Flight Research Station are shown busy
with test flight calculations. The computers under the
direction of Roxanah Yancey were responsible for
accurate calculations on the research test flights
made at the Station. There were no mechanical
computers at the station in 1949, but data was
reduced by human computers.’

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/People/HTML/E49-0053.html
‘When computers were human’ (Grier 2001)

‘Human computers borrowed the

methods of the office and the
factory in order to attack ever-
larger problems. A single human
computer, no matter how talented,
could not easily compete the
complete orbit of a comet, the
adjustments to a large survey or
the full trajectory of an anti-aircraft
shell. However, a room of
computers could do such work,
provided the task was
appropriately prepared.’
 ‘When computers were human’ (Grier 2001)

▪ Human computers were used to solve complex

mathematical problems that were too difficult or time-
consuming for a single individual to complete on their own.

▪ They borrowed methods from both offices and factories to

tackle these larger problems, organizing themselves into
teams and using standardized procedures to ensure
accuracy and efficiency.

▪ Collaboration and teamwork in the process of using human

computers to solve complex problems was VERY important
 Factor’s contributing towards on IS

▪ Technological Advancements - digital tools that facilitate

the creation, storage, and dissemination of information.
▪ Increased Access to Information - availability of
information in digital formats,
▪ Economic and Political Factors - e.g government
policies that promote the growth of the digital economy
▪ Social and Cultural Factors - the changing social norms
and values around the use of digital technologies
Class activity

▪ Activity: Analysing Disruptive Technology in Professional Writing

▪ Objective: To understand the concept of disruptive technology and
its impact on professional writing.
▪ Materials: Godwin (2010) Disruptive Technology: What Is It? How
Can It Work for Professional Writing?
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ890600.pdf
▪ Assessment: You will be assessed based on your understanding
through your group presentations.
 Further reading
E. Bernard (1991) Technological Change and Skills Development. Geelong: Deakin University Press.

A. Gefter (2010) ‘Artificial ape man: How technology created humans’,

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/08/artificial-ape-man-how-technology-created-
humans.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

M. Godwin (2010) ‘Disruptive Technology: What Is It? How Can It Work for Professional Writing?’, The Writing
Instructor, May, http://www.writinginstructor.com/godwin2

D. Grier (2001) ‘The Human Computer and the Birth of the Information Age’,
http://www.philsoc.org/2001Spring/2132transcript.html

K. Marx (1867) Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 15. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm

D. Noble (1977) America by Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

W. Orlikowski (1992) ‘The Duality of Technology’, Organization Science 3(3), August.

K. Sumption (2006) ‘In Search Of The Ubiquitous Museum: Reflections Of Ten Years Of Museums And The Web’,
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/sumption/sumption.html

L. Vygotsky (1997) The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions, New York: Springer

S. Zuboff (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine, now in Bernard (1991).