Operationalizing Theory in Technology/ Information STudies

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Operationalizing Theory in Technology/
Information STudies

• INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods
• 9 April 2009

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Outline

1. Operationalizing theory translating from
   theory into methodological procedure
2. Some theories about technology in society
3. Note on Ethnographic Writing

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Semiotic Analysis of Images
Operationalizing Semiotics
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Social Construction of Technology

• Terms
• Relevant Social Groups
• Interpretive Flexibility
• Closure

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Social Construction of Technology
Athletic young men
High wheeled bicycle
Concerned community members

• Bijker on the bicycle

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Operationalizing SCOT

• Subject/Topic a new, unsettled technology under
  development (or from historical archives)
• Who are the relevant social groups?
• Identify the divergent interpretations of the
  artifact held by these groups
• Look for evidence of how interpretive conflicts
  are resolved materially resulting in closure

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Network Approaches

• Cowan on the Consumption Junction

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Operationalizing Network Approaches

• Subject/Topic the consumption junction
• Q how do consumers arrive at the decision to
  choose one technology over its alternatives? How
  do we account for delayed success?
• Approach
• Parallel treatment of failed and successful tech
• Center on the consumer then move through and
  map out other domains -- household, retail,
  wholesale, production, government

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Revisiting Grounded Theory
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What Use for Theory?

• Heres a counter-argument to a grounded theory
  analytical approach
• Theory can sensitize, suggest ways of studying,
  analyzing a case
• Challenge received wisdom, ordinary, habitual
  interpretations
• To transcend our own socialization

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The status of things in society

• In social theory - a new appreciation of the
  material world and the socializing effect of
  things (in contrast to fixation on language,
  discourse, and a dematerialized social structure)
• the performative and integrative capacity of
  things to help make what we call society.
  Pels, pg. 2

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Three theoretical frames for thinking about
(technological) objects
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1) Objects Enforce the Normative Order

• Visible vs. invisible
• The Humility of Objects The less aware of
  things we are, the more powerfully they can
  determine our expectations by setting the scene
  and ensuring normative behavior. Miller,
  Material Culture and Mass Consumption

Research Question what is visible or invisible?
Whos interests are served by this state of
visibility?
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Source Bowker and Star, Sorting Things Out
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2) Objects Form a Semiotic System

• Function, exchange, symbolic, and sign values
• Objects are realized through relations (i.e.
  Actor-Network Theory)
• See Baudrillard, The System of Objects

Research Question what systems of objects exist?
In a home? In an office? How are the social
properties of an object produced through its
relationships?
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3) The Self is Constructed Through Possession of
Objects

• "artifacts as culture derivesfrom their active
  participation in a process of social
  self-creation in which they are directly
  constitutive of our understanding of ourselves
  and others... Miller, Material Culture and
  Mass Consumption
• Identity display, class distinctions

Research Question how is status or identity
accomplished through possessions? see also
Bourdieu, Distinction
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Ethnographic Writing
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Ethnographic Writing

• Woolgar took a position within an IT company to
  study the development of a new technological
  object and a series of usability studies.
• What is his data?
• How does he reference his subjective position?

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Usability vs. Ethnographic Research

• A usability trial vs. ethnographic study of a
  usability trial
• The broader institution within which research
  takes place

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Summary

• How theory can be used to guide site selection,
  suggest novel questions, and define procedures
• A case for embracing existing theory rather than
  eschewing it entirely for grounded theory.
• Ways of thinking about objects/ documents/ info
  as integral to the social
• Ethnography vs. Usability