Social Analyses of Computing: Theoretical Perspectives in Recent Empirical Research

Recent empirical studies of computing use in organizations and in public life are examined. The roles of computer technologies in the workplace, in decision making, in altering power relationships, and in influencing personal privacy are examined. In addition, studies that examine the social accountability of computing arrangements to broad publics are reviewed. All studies of computing in social life make important assumptions about the social world in which computing is embedded. Two broad perspectives are contrasted. Systems rationalism, a collection of approaches including management science, managerial rationalism, and the systems approach, is found to be most helpful in stable settings, when there is considerable consensus over important social values. Segmented-institutionalist analyses, which assume social conflict rather than consensus, are particularly powerful as the social world of computing use becomes more dynamic and as a wider variety of groups is involved.

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