Social Science Computer Review

Representations of cyberspace as a new social and world order fostered by a new technology replay familiar understandings of industrial society and its issues of liberation and constraint. A more comprehensive approach to the social organization of advanced information technologies needs to include their origins in the social and communicative practices as well as in the technology of science and engineering and the practical Creolization of migrating discourses, techniques of knowledge, and communication. This forges a firm link between micro- and macrosociological levels of analysis. Internationalizing more parochial before-and-after comparisons of futurists highlights the significance of "new Creoles" in the emerging postindustrial world order comparable with those who were part of its creation.

American culture is shifting from a mass culture toward increasing specialization and diversification. The growth of communication in cyberspace is consistent with this trend inasmuch as it supports the proliferation of interest and affinity groups. Socioeconomic, demographic, and cultural factors affect access to, use of, and behavior within this communication space. Other forms of regulation of the use of cyberspace include the emerging norms of on-line discussion groups and political attempts to regulate the content of the Internet.

The National Information Infrastructure (NII) is having a great impact on communities and culture, although in ways not well understood. Increasing isolation of individuals, changing conceptions of privacy, and a breakdown in face-to-face relationships are but a few of the far-reaching social consequences of the NII. The massive federal investment in the NII requires a proportional effort to understand its human aspects and consequences.

New information and communications technologies are rapidly changing work practices and work sites throughout the world. In the development of these technologies, the perspectives and concerns of workers need to be heard. Work-oriented design, based on field studies, can contribute to technologies that provide improved opportunities and conditions for workers. In so doing, however, work-oriented design necessarily confronts the reality of power struggles over the design of work.

Computers and computer interfaces form the critical access points to the National Information Infrastructure. Recent polls reveal that as much as 30% of the American population feels intimidated by computers. The design of new interfaces adding three-dimensional worlds, models, and visualizations to text-based interfaces will not necessarily encourage broader use of the Internet among certain groups in the population. Other issues, such as navigational difficulties and the social dimensions of learning (including learning about computers), suggest nontechnical, social-science-oriented solutions.

The study of the Internet challenges the anthropologist on many fronts. It demands a robust theoretical engagement with the technologies and semiotics of digital information and their relation to material and social realities. It calls for a redefinition of many core methodological touchstones such as "fieldwork" and "participant observation." Finally, the study of the Internet requires the analyst to engage self-reflexively in the study of and accountability to politics "close to home" and entailing relations of "studying up." While anthropological notions of "the field" and "culture" are being destabilized at the core of the discipline, ethnographic approaches to new domains of media, science, and technology exhibit a resilient anthropological attention to embodied contexts of practice and everyday experience. This brief statement addresses the study of the Internet from the point of view of an anthropologist engaged with the field.

Massive investments in office technology during the 1980s had little impact on business productivity. One of the key issues for productivity is the usability of the technology; relatively small changes in usability, considered as both ease of use and utility, can have large effects on the adoption of a technology. One challenge for human factors activities supporting the National Information Infrastructure is that the question "Who is the user?" is too broad, and another is that current technological constraints are rapidly evolving and dissolving. Market research and anthropological and social psychological techniques are required to identify groups with similar characteristics and needs and to understand the daily lives of those groups.

The emerging information networks raise profound issues of participation and power in their definition and design by the diverse population that will use them. This brief position article considers some of those issues from perspectives of participatory design and ethnocentrism and suggests design methods that can integrate the interests of diverse constituencies in the information networks.

The embeddedness of advanced information technology in daily experience and human routines is often overlooked in objectified or romanticized characterizations of cyberspace and on-line interaction. To understand the human context of advanced information technology, studying the full scope of related activities is necessary. Anthropologists must be adequately trained in technical areas to affect system design. They need a strong theoretical framework such as activity theory for studying technology usage.

Information systems contain within them assumptions about how people work and think. Effective use of information technology in work settings requires a full understanding of the specialized knowledge of the work being supported. As the National Information Infrastructure is developed and deployed, there is needed a similar understanding of how its various user communities function in their work and daily lives.

The possible emergence of a new technology-related way of life implied by the interest in cyberspace raises a variety of issues that demand social research. Understanding the social correlates of advanced technology involves investigating the several specific areas of research described in this article, but it also means seeing how each specific area relates to the broader sweep of possible cultural changes.

Four critical concerns for the development of a social research agenda on advanced information technology are (a) defining a theoretically and comparatively driven research program, (b) initially emphasizing exploratory and descriptive research, (c) treating technologies as both dependent and independent variables in a social context, and (d) avoiding reductionism. Some guidance on each of these concerns is offered.

Social science research on cyberspace should concentrate on theory development, a national baseline survey of current networking practices, ethnographic case studies of businesses and other networked organizations, the implications of the National Information Infrastructure and multimedia technology for education, and policy options for mitigating socioeconomic and other inequalities that new communication and information technologies exacerbate.

The emerging etherworld of on-line forums, digital shopping malls, and networked coffee klatches is a compelling technological innovation. This innovation raises questions of how the intangible nature of cyberspace will affect people's perceptions of themselves and their role in society as manifested in small-group interaction. Some initial indications of these effects are provided.

This article questions three common assumptions: that (a) electronic forums will necessarily strengthen preexisting face-to-face territorial (and other intact) communities, (b) electronic forums will replace them with comparably prosocial forms, and (c) "market forces" will naturally foster prosocial electronic forums. It proposes a strong research program that examines how the social design/organization of electronic forums strengthens or weakens group life in workplaces and communities.

Inner-city residents confront numerous obstacles when they use advanced information technology. Lack of education and experience are perceived as barriers to the use of computers. Information available on computer networks is stratified by race, class, and gender and rarely provides the full range of information of interest to inner-city residents.

Communication in cyberspace creates the possibility of forming communities of interest that can either compete with or reinforce communities in place. For some individuals, computer networks offer opportunities for greater participation in public life; for others, participation in on-line groups has the potential to diminish commitment to local communities. On-line communities contain unique forms of immediacy, asynchronicity, and anonymity that give them dynamics not shared by communities based on physical presence and face-to-face interaction. These new forms of community, and the technological and cultural resources required for participation in them, have the potential for creating new forms of stratification and hence new barriers to universal access.

Current definitions of telecommunications access are antiquated and overly simplistic. They overlook technological alternatives, overlaps, and interdependencies as well as patterns of usage and the integration of usage into daily lives. Ethnographic observation of communication behavior can be used to construct social indicators of telecommunications access and usage that are based on theories about communication and behavior, not technologies.

The technical design of information systems tends to drive the information structure and content of the systems and is not driven by the social and cultural needs of end users. The content, structure, and context of end user communication strategies should be a component of systems design for the National Information Infrastructure (NII). Without such integration of the communication strategies of multiple end user groups and communities, universal access to the NII cannot be guaranteed.

Critically important cultural issues often are submerged topics in policy discussions surrounding the National Information Infrastructure (NII) and its political and economic implications for the 21stcentury United States. Academics, policymakers, and communications industry leaders mustrecognize the importance of profession as well as of gender, class, age, and geography when suggesting models for NII design and implementation. Of particular importance is respect for the multiple identities of potential NII users and the roles played by self-identified affinity groups and institutional culture in decisions regarding technology acceptance or rejection.

This article suggests the importance of studying households as a focus for understanding the consequences of the new information infrastructure. Households represent not only private space but also information environments in which an increasing range of activities is conducted. The variety of experiences in American households cautions against simple generalizations. As households reflect ongoing demographic shifts, the uses of information technologies in households also will change. Social cleavages due to status and working conditions will influence the uses of media and information technologies. The article also proposes a function-based approach to studying media in households.

Communication is an essential part of all political processes. As information technology increases the reach and capability of communication, it has created new political possibilities, including facilitating revolution and defeating congressional incumbents, and has given greater visibility to government activities. The political effects of advanced information technology are potentially dichotomous: inspiring populism based on ignorance, facilitating the expression of public opinion inspired by demagoguery, or engendering community of ethnic, religious, or single-issue interest groups.

Information technology will greatly influence the quality of life in the 21st century. The challenge is to use the technology to help overcome numerous global, regional, and local problems that threaten the quality of life. These problems include global overpopulation, intense and potentially socioeconomically destructive global economic competition, continued pressures on the global environment, increasing levels of regionalized armed conflicts, regional water shortages and other regional environmental problems, and local transportation congestion, poverty, crime, and drug abuse. Social scientists mustbecome aggressively involved and accept leadership roles in the conceptualization, development, and implementation of computer-based systems that have broad social impact.

Information sifting consists of all kinds of differentiation and evaluative actions in response to information overload. Like its alter ego, knowledge construction, it encompasses both social and nonsocial strategies. Research is suggested on what information-sifting mechanisms are used in cyberspace and how increasing use of software mechanisms may affect the pattern of social sifting behavior.

Advanced information technology creates a new context for information, a context in which the investments required to produce and transport information are obscured by the visually stimulating images accompanying the information. Anthropological theory, with its heritage in the expansion of industrial society, may be ill equipped to understand the self-reinforcing constellation of consciousness and productive relationships that constitute digital society.

To understand and/or anticipate potential impacts of emerging communications technology and to develop policy and design responses that will encourage positive outcomes, the impacts must be assessed within macro trends affecting U.S. and other societies. Some examples of trends and questions are given.