A slightly updated version of this is published as:

Jacques Berleur, Markku I. Nurminen, and John Impagliazzo,

Eds (2006) Social Informatics: An Information Society for all?
In remembrance of Rob King. Proceedings of the 7th
International Conference 'Human Choice and Computers',
IFIP-TC9 'Relationship between Computers and Society',
Springer: London, pp. 49-62.

Social Informatics: Principles, Theory,

and Practice
Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth
College of Information Sciences & Technology
The Pennsylvania State University, USA,
[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. Through this paper we make two contributions to social informatics:

the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, uses and consequences
of information and communication technologies that takes into account their
interaction with institutional and cultural contexts. Our first contribution is to
make a connection from social informatics to general principles of socio-
technical theories. We do this to both connect social informatics scholarship
more directly to the large and growing literature(s) that engage socio-technical
theorizing and to advance these principles more directly through social
informatics. Our second contribution to social informatics is to engage two
contemporary theoretical approaches that draw on social informatics
principles: socio-technical interaction networks and principles of social actors
and apply them to current practice. We do so to demonstrate that these analytic
approaches are the needed tools to help scholars and reflective professionals in
practice engage social informatics analyses. By doing this we highlight the
potential of social informatics while honouring Rob Kling’s legacy in helping
to establish this transdiscipline.

Keywords: social informatics, socio-technical principles, social actors, socio-

technical interaction networks, integrated criminal justice information systems

1 Introduction

In this paper we advance the work of Rob Kling and in doing so continue the
empirical, theoretical, and critical engagement of social informatics. By social
informatics we mean “…the interdisciplinary study of the design uses and
consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction
with institutional and cultural contexts [Kling, 1999].” Through this paper we make
two contributions to the ongoing efforts to engage social informatics principles,
concepts and analyses. First, we make a direct connection between social informatics
50 Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth

and general principles of socio-technical theories. We do this to both connect social

informatics scholarship more directly to the large and growing literature(s) that
engage socio-technical theorizing and to advance these principles more directly
through social informatics.
Our second contribution is to identify nascent theories that draw on social
informatics principles. We do so because these theories present an opportunity for
scholars and reflective professionals in practice engage social informatics analyses
(e.g., Lamb and Sawyer, 2005). Pursuing this second contribution we contrast two
emerging theories – socio-technical interaction networks (STIN) and social actor
approaches – that reflect these socio-technical principles and build on social
informaticsi. The STIN approach provides a system-level framework for analyzing
socio-technical networks / systems that views the social and the technological as
fundamentally inseparable components of the system [Kling, McKim, & King,
2003]. The social actor approach models users as social beings, embedded within an
enabling and constraining social context but with individual agency to shape that
context [Lamb & Kling, 2003]. Both the STIN and social actor approaches represent
current theorizing activities within social informatics. In our study of integrated
criminal justice systems (ICJS), we have found that these theoretical frameworks
inform our understanding of design, deployment, and use of ICJS. More importantly,
STIN and social actor theories point us to relevant issues in the design of
technologically and socially complex interorganizational ICT.
This paper continues with a discussion of socio-technical principles. Building on
this foundation we then tie the principles to both STIN models and social actor
theory, followed by an application of those theories to the study of ICT in practice.
We conclude by discussing future directions for social informatics research.

2 Socio-technical Principles

Social Informatics is grounded in the principles that guide socio-technical theory.

We build here on Bijker’s [1995] argument that socio-technical theories reflect four
principles: (1) the seamless web, (2) the change and continuity, (3) the symmetry,
and (4) action and structure. In doing this we note that in engaging these principles
we are not engaging a particular theory: we are arguing that social informatics
reflects principles seen as common to theories of socio-technical change and action.
The seamless web principle states that any socio-technical theory should not a
priori privilege the technological or material explanation ahead of the social or vice
versa. In the parlance of academic disciplines, neither the computer science nor the
sociology views should be privileged. In social informatics, we focus on the web of
computing, treating the material artefacts and social practices as bound up together in
situated and mutually-constituted activity.
The principle of change and continuity states that socio-technical theories must
account for both change and stability and not one to the exclusion of the other.
Socio-technical phenomena are at once both continuous and evolving, retaining an
inherent structure while adapting over timeii. In social informatics, the temporal and
 Social Informatics: Principles, Theory, and Practice 51

historical trajectories of both human activity and technological development are

intertwined and continuously evolving.
The principle of symmetry states that the successful working of technology must
be viewed as a process rather than an end-state (this relates directly to the principle
of change and continuity). Focusing on the workings of technology as a process
rather than an end-state, avoids the trap of technologically deterministic analyses that
are too often found in other perspectives. In social informatics, this principle also
steers us towards engaging situated empirical studies as part of the research.
The principle of action and structure states that socio-technical theories should
address both the agency of the social actor and the structural constraints. In this
view, people have agency in shaping, changing, and enacting their social context and
uses of ICT. But, they are also constrained by social institutions (Scott, 2001). In
social informatics this steers scholars to focus on both the structural and agentic
activities of both people and ICT.
The simply-stated (but difficult to engage conceptually or empirically) premise
underlying these four socio-technical principles is that neither technology nor social
context are isolated, isolatable, or unchanging. Instead the social contexts and
technological artefacts are perpetually interacting and shaping each other.

2.1 Socio-technical Principles and Social Informatics

Some might see social informatics as a subset of socio-technical scholarship: one

focused on particular forms of technology that directly engage information
processing and communications technologies (ICT). This suggests that these ICT
have particular characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of
technologyiii. That is, there must be particular characteristics that distinguish a
computer and its applications from, say, a nuclear reactor, microscopes, or electrical
power grids.
We argue that ICTs configurational nature is one distinguishing characteristic
from other forms of technology. By configurational we mean that that in their design
and use, ICT are interpretively flexible, multiply adaptive in use, and always
evolving [Fleck, 1994; Quintas, 1994; Suchman, 1987, 2003]. Some may argue that
these differential characteristics are but a matter of degree. We defer to other venues
that discussion, and here claim that social informatics is premised on the study of
ICT as a specific and volatile type of socio-technical ensemble.
The practice of social informatics is trans-disciplinary – spanning such diverse
fields as computer science, sociology, communications, education, information
systems, information science, and others. Social informatics is neither a theory nor a
method: it is a perspective in the same way as are human-computer interaction and
family studies. In action, social informatics is an approach to understanding,
theorizing and engaging ICT that reflects five specific principles on social analysis
of computing [Lamb and Sawyer, 2005]:
1. In social informatics ICT are seen as a socio-technical system: a web-like
arrangement of the technological artefacts, people, and the social norms,
practices, and rules. As a result, for the social informaticist the technological
artefact and the social context are inseparable for the purposes of study and
52 Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth

analysis [Kling, McKim, & King, 2003]. It is this principle that most directly
links to socio-technical principles.
2. Social-informatics is problem-oriented. This means that social informatics
research focuses on the ‘real-world’ design, development, and use of ICT. The
purpose of which is to inform the discourse on ICT to help individuals,
organizations, and societies make better use of ICT. There is no correlate for this
in the socio-technical principles.
3. The design, development and use of ICT are contextualised and socially-
situated. The social and historical contexts pervade every element of ICT from
conceptualisation to design to implementation and use.
4. People are social actors [Lamb & Kling, 2003]. People have individual
motivations, interests, practices, values that influence how and why they use
ICT. Though constrained and enabled by the social institutions in which they are
embedded, people have individual agency that both shapes those institutions and
influences their adoption and use of ICT.
5. The social informatics researcher adopts a critical orientation and prioritizes an
empirical view of ICT. By ‘critical orientation’ we don not mean to convey
synonymy with critical theory ands its orientation towards emancipation and
Marxist theory [Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991]. Here, critical denotes an
orientation that challenges the accepted wisdom and taken-for-granted
assumptions regarding ICT. It is through this challenging of assumptions that the
social informaticists avoid simplistic technological determinism and gain deeper
insight into the complexity of ICT’s design, development, deployment and
ongoing uses.
Using these principles, social informatics researchers have over time consistently
revealed in their empirical studies a number of consistent findings (See for example:
Kling, Rosenbaum, & Sawyer, 2005b). These common findings include:
1. The paradoxical effects of ICTs take up and uses,
2. That ICTs uses shape action and thoughts that benefit some over others,
3. That the design and implementation of ICTs have moral and ethical
consequences, and
4. That the phenomenon of interest will vary with level of analysis
Given that these are so commonly found in empirical studies of computing’s
design, development, adoption and use, we argue that these are worthy to report, but
do not constitute new insight. Indeed, the progress of social informatics must be
based both on the constant presentation of these common findings and, more
importantly, the additional detailing that reflects how these common findings are
suppressed or magnified through particular actions, events or arrangements, the
temporal sequencing of engagements, and the contextual differences (and measures)
between better and worse computerization efforts. To do this, we and others have
argued for analytic approaches that are grounded in social informatics principles
[Horton, Davenport, & Wood-Harper, 2005; Lamb & Sawyer, 2005; Sawyer &
Crowston, 2004; Wood-Harper & Wood, 2005].
 Social Informatics: Principles, Theory, and Practice 53

2.2 Socio-technical principles in theory

For social informatics to continue expanding on its potential as an alternative and

insightful approach to studying ICT, scholars in this area must capitalize on the
empirical work done to date, and move into the realm of theorizing more specifically
on the nature and roles of ICT. This does not mean we think the social informatics
researcher should abandon the commitment to empirical work. Rather, we believe
that development and refining of social informatics theories is tied to improved
analytic approaches that will, in turn, better guide the empirical activities of social
informatics research. And, in turn, this work will illuminate issues with the design,
development, take up and uses of ICT that other approaches neglect or misrepresent.
Improved analytical methods will be useful to practicing professionals, will be more
useful in formal education of IT professionals, and will serve as a counterpoint to the
unsupportable but comforting direct effects analytic approaches to understanding
ICT [Kling, Rosenbaum, & Sawyer, 2005b].
As noted earlier, there are number of viable and approaches to engaging social
informatics analyses. For example, one approach is to continue incorporating and
extending concepts and approaches from other domains [Orlikowski & Barley,
2001]. Continuing to ‘borrow’ theories from other disciplines and apply them to ICT
provides social informatics with an opportunity to continue demonstrating the value
of social theories in the study of ICT.
A second approach is the development of ‘native’ social informatics theories,
ones that arise from within the social informatics community. Social informatics
scholars can produce and then demonstrate the utility of social informatics theory,
and then ‘export’ those theories to other fields social informatics establishes itself as
a reference discipline to others [Baskerville & Myers, 2002] iv. By becoming a
reference discipline, social informatics not only communicates its results to other
researchers but also develops a more distinct identity. We see greater intellectual
value in the development and refining of theories native to social informatics.
Theoretical development in social informatics has value beyond communicating
the results of social informatics research to other scholars and establishing identity.
The development of social informatics theory presents the opportunity for social
informatics researchers to benefit people who use ICT through contributing to better
designed ICT that accounts for the social and the technical.

2.3 Socio-technical Interaction Networks

Conceptually, a socio-technical network is a view of a system as a network of people

and technologies which are inseparable when trying to examine and understand the
system [Kling, McKim, & King, 2003]. Socio-technical interaction network models
(STINs) present a method for understanding the interactions between individual
socio-technical networks (nodes) that comprise the socio-technical interaction
networks [Kling, McKim, & King, 2003]. This is accomplished through the mapping
of relationships between people, people and technology, and technologies [Kling,
McKim, & King, 2003].
54 Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth

Four assumptions that echo both the socio-technical principles and social
informatics bases serve as the foundation for STIN [Kling, McKim, & King, 2003]:
• the social and technical are not meaningfully separable,
• social theories should influence design,
• system participants (people) are embedded in multiple social relationships,
• sustainability and routine are critical elements of design.
These assumptions are what separate STIN from those theories that focus on
either the social or the technological to the exclusion of the other.

2.4 Users as Social Actors

Roberta Lamb and Rob Kling [Lamb & Kling, 2003] published their theory of users
as social actors as way of conceptualizing users of ICTs to get beyond the simple
abstract models that populate much of the human-computer literature. Their
conceptualization of the user is more socially-rich and situated. According to concept
of a social actor, people are not simply users of ICT, but are socially-complex
individuals who are engaging uses of ICT as members of one or more organizations
that make use of ICTs to engage in mediated social interactions. Social actors are
both enabled and constrained in their uses of ICTs by the social milieus in which
they exist. The constraints of their social environment means that social actors are
often limited in what they can do. However, social actors also have active agency in
shaping these milieus. The degree to which structure and action are allowed are
dependent in part on situated contexts and elements such as the task, roles, timing,
nature of interdependencies, particular ICTs being used, and goals.
Lamb & Kling [2003] identify four dimensions of the social actor: affiliations,
environments, interactions, and identities. Affiliations are the social ties the social
actor maintains – for example professional networks – and occur both within and
across organizational boundaries. Environments represent the normative, regulatory,
and cognitive institutions that both enable and constrain social actors use of ICTs.
Interactions are the information, modes of communication, and resources employed
by social actors as they socially engage with other members of the organization or
other organizations. Identities comprise both the identity articulated by the social
actor as well as the identity of the social actor articulated by the organization. These
four dimensions are not entirely discrete; rather there is some overlap between
dimensions. In fact it is the way in which the theoretical dimensions of the social
actor overlap that gives it much of its power.

3 Empirical Work

As an empirical base to support our comparison of these two theories, we draw on

our ongoing work in the development and uses of ICJS. We see ICJS as one area that
presents a significant opportunity for social informaticists to both develop theory and
contribute to practice. E-Government, or digital governance, is both an emerging
area of scholarship and a fast evolving phenomenon in society. This is particularly
true for issues of law enforcement and national defense where there is increasing
 Social Informatics: Principles, Theory, and Practice 55

pressure to computerize or modernize existing ICT given the recent attention to

international terrorism [National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United
States, 2004]. And, for the United States at least, it may be that there is no other area
where the consequences of adhering to the deterministic view of ICT are as
potentially catastrophic. Simply, and in spite of these risks and evidence against such
a view, the deterministic model continues to be advocated.
For example, in his article on improving intelligence analyzing systems
Strickland [Strickland, 2004] focused exclusively on technological change as the
solution to the problems of information sharing among agencies. For example, he
identifies data disintegration, problems in analytical methodology, and technological
obsolescence as the primary areas of concern. Yet, as Richard Shelby [Shelby, 2002]
noted in his addendum to the Senate Select Committee investigating pre- and post-
9/11 intelligence:
The CIA’s chronic failure, before September 11, to share with other agencies
the names of known Al-Qa’ida terrorists who it knew to be in the country
allowed at least two such terrorists the opportunity to live, move, and prepare for
the attacks without hindrance from the very federal officials whose job it is to
find them. Sadly, the CIA seems to have concluded that the maintenance of its
information monopoly was more important that stopping terrorists from
entering or operating within the United States.
Though Senator Shelby’s language is polemic, the message is clear: without
significant changes to organizational norms of action, simply implementing new
technological systems or updating existing ones will in many instances fail to
achieve policy goals. It is exactly this type of problem for which social informatics is
particularly applicable.
An e-Government policy area directly related to the issue of intelligence sharing
is the problem of integrating information systems among law enforcement and
criminal justice agencies. Prior to, but especially after 9/11, there has been a
significant movement within government to integrate ICT across law enforcement
and criminal justice agency boundaries in order to facilitate cross-agency
communication and information sharing [See for example: General Accountability
Office, 2003].
Criminal justice information systems have historically been developed in an ad
hoc manner, tailored to the needs of the particular agency, and with minimal support
resources (either fiscal or expertise) [Dunworth, 2000, 2005; Sawyer, Tapia,
Pesheck, & Davenport, 2004]. As a result federal and state governments have begun
the process of trying to develop and implement integrated criminal justice systems
that allow agencies to share information across organizational boundaries. Examples
of such systems are Pennsylvania’s Justice Network (JNET), the Washington D.C.
metro area’s Capital Wireless Integration Network (CapWIN), and the San Diego
region’s Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) among others.
We find ICJSs to be ideal opportunities to conduct social informatics research for
three reasons. First, law enforcement is a socially complex domain comprised of and
embedded in multiple social institutions [Sawyer, Tapia, Pesheck, & Davenport,
2004]. Such institutions include organizational practice and culture, societal norms
and values, and regulatory requirements. Second, law enforcement agencies have
56 Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth

long been adopters of ICT to the point where ICT are now so ubiquitous that they are
viewed as integral to policing [Hoey, 1998]. This remains true in spite of a decidedly
mixed record of success [Baird & Barksdale, 2003; Bureau of Justice Assistance,
2002]. Third, the historical practice of ad hoc and siloed systems development
suggests that law enforcement is an area where new systems development
approaches are needed.

3.1 Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS)

Currently we are completing a case study of the ARJIS system in San Diego,
California. The Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) of San
Diego, California is one of the pre-eminent criminal justice information systems
initiatives in the United States. Initially a mainframe records management system
accessible by multiple jurisdictions in the San Diego area, ARJIS has evolved over
the past 20 years both organizationally and technologically. Organizationally ARJIS
has become its own organization embedded in the county government structure.
Technologically ARJIS is in the process of developing wireless communications
systems, global query application, and public safety cable television channel.
We used five forms of data collection. Three focus on gathering primary data:
interviews (face-to-face, by phone, and via email, depending on the point of the
interaction), ride-alongs with – and other direct observation of – users. We also
gathered secondary documents such as reports, memos and locally-relevant material
(we, of course, have done and continue to do extensive web and library research to
support the field work) as well as data about device uses, data transmission, and
ARJIS usage via unobtrusive means (such browser logs, server logs, and telecom
activity logs).
Data from the sources are transcribed into digital format or collected at source in
digital format. Data from the usage logs came in digital format. This supports our
analysis across different data sets and data collection approaches. To do this analysis
we are using traditional qualitative/case study data analysis approaches [See: Miles
& Huberman, 1984]. In particular, we draw on three techniques: (1) interim analysis
of the data to guide data collection and interpretation in the future, (2) explanatory
event matrices, and (3) content analysis of the interview/focus group transcripts and
field notes. When the study is complete we expect to have more than fifteen
interviews (of from one-to-two hours duration, each), notes and details from six
officer ride-alongs, and over 650 pages of documents.

3.2 Socio-technical principles and Social Informatics theory reflected in

practice

Preliminary analysis of our case study data indicates the ARJIS system is very much
a socio-technical network as theorized by Kling et al. [2003]. ARJIS is both a
governmental agency and a technological infrastructure, and both are highly
intertwined. To understand the design and evolution of the ARJIS system, one must
understand the design and evolution of the organization, and vice versa. We find
 Social Informatics: Principles, Theory, and Practice 57

support here for the seamless web principle (that both the technical and the social
have equal standing). This is reflected in the STIN principle of the inseparability of
the technical and social and the social actors principle of use in context.

Socio-technical STIN Social Actor ARJIS

Principle
Seamless Web Social and technical Use is socially Embedded in
not meaningfully contextual and role governmental and
separable specific technological
infrastructures.
Contextual setting of
use greatly shapes
user behavior.
Change and Sustainability and Design in use ARJIS is tied to
Continuity routine are critical existing
elements of system technological
design systems, government
agencies which both
constrain and enable
system and agency
design.
Symmetry System participants Relationships are ARJIS designers and
are embedded in dynamic, multilevel, managers engage
multiple social multivalent, and multiple
relationships multi-network relationships both
vertically and
horizontally.
Action and Structure The ways in which People’s actions are ARJIS management
STIN evolve is guided by existing and designers are
through both structures, but they subject to historical
structural adherence retain some amount institutional
and agentic actions. of agency pressures.
ARJIS leaders act as
brokers among and
between individual
agencies. They seek
to find commonality
across individual
normative systems.

Table 1 - Social Informatics Principles, Theories, and Practice – ARJIS

The technological system has been developed in conjunction with the

establishment of ARJIS as an independent Joint Powers Agency. As such, individual
design decisions are fundamentally linked to the manner in which the ARJIS
organization has been established and embedded in the existing government
structure. Similarly, we found that use of the system was very specific to the context
the social actor was engaged in because context had great influence on the actions
58 Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth

available to the actor. This dual nature of ARJIS reflects the socio-technical principle
of a seamless web.
The principle of change and continuity stipulates that both system stability and
evolution must be accounted for. STIN theory reflects this as sustainability and
routine as key to system design. Social actor theory refers this to ‘design in use,’ or
the phenomenon of actors in effect changing the ICT through use in unanticipated
ways. ARJIS current design plan consists of maintaining the legacy system while
developing a parallel system to incorporate new applications and technology is an
example of the principle of change and continuity. Similarly the emergent nature of
the parallel system allows for on-the-go design decisions as long as they are
consistent with the overall development plan. We observed design in use in the use
of the wireless handheld system. In experimenting with the handhelds, agents
discovered they could take photographs and record sound with the devices and
incorporated those uses into their investigatory practices. The critical point here is
that the design of ARJIS is not static, either in development or after deployment; but
continues to be adjusted both in development and use.
The principle of symmetry views the successful working of ICT as a process not
an end-state. This reflects the ongoing evolutionary nature of ICT. STIN theory
articulates this principle as participants embedded in multiple social relationships
that shape their participation in the network and result in a constantly evolving
network. Social actors present the user in a similar manner: as embedded in dynamic,
multilevel, multivalent and multi-network relationships. ARJIS managers have
relations with policymakers, users, developers, and vendors, among many others.
These relationships have had and continue to have a direct impact on the how they
approach the development of ARJIS. For example, the costly failed attempt to
comprehensively upgrade the original ARJIS system through a private vendor
continues a decade ago continues to drive ARJIS’ focus on incremental but focused
initiatives that can demonstrate a return on investment.
The principle of action and structure reflects the role of structure and individual
agency in shaping design and use. Social actor theory articulates this principle as the
environments the actor is embedded in, the affiliations of the actor and organization,
and the interactions available to the actor. The organization of ARJIS is embedded in
the larger institutions of local, regional, state, and federal governance as well as
cultural, technological, and economic institutions. Norms in those institutions
directly shape ARJIS management and design decisions. ARJIS also has agency and
exercises this agency through guiding the ARJIS agenda and acting as a broker
between individual agencies, policymakers, etc. ARJIS management and designers
network nationally, helping to shape national integration initiatives such as data
standards. Similarly, ARJIS mandates the regional data standards and ensures
compliance by requiring it for participation.
In our observations of users we also found that institutional and technological
structure played a large role in their use of the ARJIS system. For example, we found
that officers from one agency rarely used the ARJIS system as part of their normal
routines. They felt the functionality of the ARJIS system was not consistent with
their objectives as patrol officers; the organizational culture was not oriented towards
extensive use of ARJIS by patrol officers, and technological limitations such as
access problems made using ARJIS prohibitive in comparison to competing systems.
 Social Informatics: Principles, Theory, and Practice 59

In contrast, agents in the federal agency we observed used ARJIS extensively

viewing the system as a better resource than other agency resources such as dispatch
which often had long response delays and was resource limited.

4 Discussion

Drawing from the ongoing work in ARJIS, as briefly outlined in the previous
section, in comparing STIN and social actor approaches we make note that these
models have different foci and lead to different insights. Both the STIN and social
actor approaches reflect the principles of socio-technical theories and engage social
informatics principles. Yet, in the STIN, the attention is directed towards the ways in
which the technological elements are embedded into the large socio-historical
context. This ensemble approach steers attention to the shape of the network in
which the particular technological elements are embedded. In contrast, the social
actor approach focuses attention towards the ways in which people negotiate among
the structural and agentic forces, with the ICT serving as elements of both. The
social actor model engages the processes of action more directly, while the STIN
engages the structure of the socio-technical network of arrangements.
The differential foci of these two approaches lead to different insights. STIN
analyses highlight the structural engagement of the technological artefacts with the
socio-historical environment. And, in the context of ARJIS, illuminate the ways in
which the RJIS functionality is both shaped and embedded in the larger and smaller
scale institutional trajectories. Conversely, the social actor approach points our
attention to the actions of the ARJIS leadership, the officers using the systems, and
the political pressures both face in negotiating development and use of these
technologies.
What does this say about social informatics? First, in contrasting STIN with the
social actor perspective we note that these differing approaches to engaging the
principles of socio-technical theorizing support the contention that social informatics
is not a singular theory, but rather an analytic perspective and set of principles. The
social informatics lens is neither monocular, nor rigidly focused on one set of
activities and issues. The STIN and social actor approaches help to illustrate the
intellectual opportunity to develop analytic models that reflect socio-technical
principles as they apply to ICT.
We further note that the treatment of ICT demands additional attention. Both the
STIN and social actor model engage ICT but struggle with how best to represent the
particular technological features, functions and behaviors that these systems allow,
support, and defer. The configurational and interpretive nature of ICT suggests that
practice-based approaches (See for example: Orlikowski, 1992; Orlikowski, Yates,
Okamura, & Fujimoto, 1995) are likely to be fruitful vehicles to developing this
added conceptual and empirical depth to social informatics depictions of the design,
development and uses of computing.
60 Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth

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62 Steve Sawyer, Michael Tyworth

Endnotes

i
We further note that these two models reflect a convenience sampling of available
approaches to theorizing in social informatics. The intent here is not to review this large
and growing collection, rather to highlight the intellectual insight and analytic
opportunities that contemporary social informatics scholarship provides.
ii
To continue with the evolution analogy, the penguin evolved over time to become a
flightless bird covered in thick feathers to insulate it from extreme cold and the ability to
swim underwater with great dexterity. Even with these adaptations, the penguin retains
the fundamental structure of a bird in that it has wings, a beak, lays eggs, etc. Similarly
the socio-technical system, for example the personal computer, retains fundamental
components such as the processor, RAM, and monitor, while evolving in its design,
configuration, and use (for example as a game platform or a word processor).
iii
It may also be that the difference reflects more academic field differences than
phenomenological. As philosophers of science and technology note, these field
differences, while socially constructed, serve as boundaries in the practice of science
(Kitcher, 1982; Winner, 1986; Ziman, 1968).
iv
We realize that in practice one discipline does not truly export a theory to another, rather
the latter imports from the former. We use the term export to denote the net effect of the
adoption of a theory from one discipline by another.