Sproull, Lee, & Kiesler, Sara. (1991). Connections: New ways of working in the networked organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
· They identify first- and second-level effects of communication technologies, in particular, computer networks.
· “Effects” is a useful but reductive idea, e.g.:
1. Makes people seem passive.
2. Ignores material conditions and social practice.
3. But, with these and other caveats, still a useful point of view.
· First-level effects – efficiency or productivity gains:
1. This criterion has been emphasized above all others, especially to “legitimate” massive investments in information technologies and to support the commercial hyperbole that surrounds these technologies.
2. A bit ironic, given the so-called “productivity paradox.”
3. Recall that such emphasis is part of the narrative of progress that characterizes Western, especially American, culture and its view of technology broadly construed.
· Second-level effects – social systems effects, e.g.:
1. (p. 3) communication technologies, especially computer networks, determine “what and whom people know, what and whom people care about, and system interdependencies.”
2. (p. 4) people pay attention to different things, have contact with different people, and interact in different ways as new technologies as adopted and adapted.
3. New estimates develop of what is important, legitimate, and prestigious.
They make four useful points in summarizing their introduction (pp. 7-8):
1. “[T]he full possibilities of a new technology are hard to foresee.”
2. “[U]nanticipated effects” are usually linked to social system effects.
3. Many second-level effects, positive and negative, are emergent.
4. “[T]echnology interacts with, shapes, and is shaped by the social and policy environment.”