Social Informatics: An Emerging Issue (original) (raw)

Learning about Information Technologies and Social Change: The Contribution of Social Informatics

The Information Society, 2000

Social informatics is the body of research that examines the design, uses, and consequences of information and communication technologies in ways that take into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts. This article serves as a brief introduction to social informatics. Examples such as computer networks, scientific communication via electronic journals, and public access to the Internet are used to illustrate key ideas from social informatics research. Some of the key themes include the importance of social contexts and work processes, sociotechnical networks, public access to information, and social infrastructure for computing support. The article draws upon 25 years of systematic analytical and critical research about information technology and social change.

What is Social Informatics from an International Perspective?

Acta Informatica Pragensia, 2022

This editorial aims to summarise the special issue entitled Perspectives of Social Informatics that builds on the current international view of social informatics. The special issue consists of eight scientific articles and one book review.

Social informatics as a concept: Widening the discourse

This contribution examines the different concepts known as social informatics that have historically been separate. The paradigm that is preferred worldwide (based on Kling) is well described and often promoted, with a strong base both in the USA and Europe. This article, however, introduces lesser-known paradigms (based on Sokolov and later Ursul) that originated in the era of the USSR and have so far been employed chiefly in post-Soviet countries, including Russia. These paradigms have been neglected in English-written scientific literature, mainly because of the limited number of articles available in English. Other approaches are also introduced and related, which were historically named or classified as social informatics (American, British, Norwegian, Slovenian, German and Japanese). The present article introduces and further discusses the origin, historical development and basic methodological grounding of these approaches. All the approaches are then discussed and their differences as well as their similarities are pointed out. The aim is to create connections across the current generation of researchers, which includes the formation and conceptualization of different approaches and an exploration of possible areas for future cooperation.

Social Informatics and the Dynamic of Contemporary Society

Proceedings of the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Studies (ICIS 2016) - Interdisciplinarity and Creativity in the Knowledge Society, 2016

As the main engine of social development, education must adapt its new technological advancements to the benefit of the citizens and their needs by taking into account the building of a modern society that is based on knowledge. Computer technology becomes the most appropriate technical support, given the new challenges of the knowledge society. Within this context, the social informatics takes on new dimensions. Nowadays, information security is strongly connected to the investigation area of social informatics. Knowledge society and social informatics are being addressed in the paper in the first two parts. Information security in the contemporary society, within the context of building the knowledge society, is addressed in part three. In the fourth part, we propose the creation of an educational framework for the safe use of online virtual environment. Its purpose is primarily the awareness of the importance of security systems, taking into consideration the new challenges of social informatics in the modern society.