Nardi & O'Day Part 1

What follows are some general comments about the second of the two textbooks for LIS 386.13:

As with Hobart & Schiffman’s Information Ages, there will be three, short, informal study guides to the book. As you will see, this book is quite different from Hobart & Schiffman’s – in its contextualizing first chapter, in its disciplinary approaches, in its style and language, and in other characteristics.

Because the readings are distributed over three weeks in the semester, the study guides will follow that division as well:

Overall, Nardi & O’Day (N&O) want to help catalyze and contribute to a more critical, reflective look at information technologies as they are adopted and adapted by communities of all kinds. In fact, they call themselves “critical friends of technology” (ix). Their focus is on specific localized situations or habitations, e.g., homes, libraries, churches, hospitals, and schools – what they call information ecologies.

Since the authors are anthropologists, the majority of the grist for their mill is stories – the descriptions that their respondents give about how they think, feel, and use information technologies in their professional and personal lives. Such dependence inevitably brings accusations of ungeneralizability, lack of reliability and validity, and methodological weakness from those more used to a strictly quantitative and logical empiricist approach to research. Whether you fall into one camp or the other, or if you are (peaceably!) agnostic, it is worth considering the question of how to ensure the trustworthiness and credibility of information gathered and analyzed in the ways that characterize N&O’s book. This question animates much of the research debate in the social sciences.

Images of technology imply theories about human beings and society, especially what they are and what they should be. N&O especially criticize the reductionist theories of human thinking as simple computation. As many of you are aware, this computational reductionism, and the companion reductionism of “human-beings-as-gene-expressers,” are valorized in our society. While the sources of evidence for such an assertion are many, the recent Nobel Prize awards and the rhetoric/ideology of the Information Society are prime examples.

In this context, please recall the STS material and the critiques of the Information Society. Further, please contrast this kind of reflection with some of the weaknesses I see in Hobart & Schiffman’s teleological and Whiggish approach.

Nardi & O’Day’s goal is to look closely at the specific ways that we use technologies and to incite their readers to do the same. By the end of the book, they hope that the reader should be able to look closely at various information ecologies, avoiding both sense of technological inevitability and utopian/dystopian fantasies.

As with all serious works, when reading Nardi & O’Day, be an engaged, critical reader, neither gullible nor dismissive.

I: Information Ecologies: Concepts and Reflections
Preface and Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (pp. 1-75)
•	Preface
ix	the self-identified goal of the authors is helping to catalyze a “more balanced and nuanced” public conversation about technologies; they say that too many commentators and ordinary citizens are at either extreme – overwhelmingly optimistic and unreflective or obsessively and fearfully pessimistic
	N&O’s primary allies in this quest are their willingness to explore, and listen to their respondents, and their methodological sophistication
	Another foundation of their approach is their disciplinary backgrounds as anthropologists familiar with the process of understanding behavior and the creation of meaning in social contexts. Such contexts are as holistically imagined as possible.
•	Chapter 1: “Rotwang the Inventor”
	In a sense, the differences in approach between this book and Hobart & Schiffman’s Information Ages could not be plainer than in Nardi & O’Day’s choice of their opening chapter motif: a discussion of Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis. This movie was and remains a stunning cinematic achievement (even more so in the restored and revised version of it released in 2002), if a more than a bit melodramatic and disjoint for some tastes. What are the strengths and weaknesses of their beginning their book this way? What are their intentions? Does this approach in the first chapter help or hinder their argument? How? Why?
•	Chapter 2: “Framing Conversations about Technology”
	you may want to pay special attention to two words in the title of the chapter: “framing” for its emphasis on use- and meaning-in-context and “conversations” for its emphasis on the shared process of talk and meaning making
13	their caveat is pointed: “As long as we think we do not have enough expertise to engage in substantive discussions about technology, we are effectively prevented from having an impact on the directions it may take.” As information professionals, no matter what our individual strengths and weaknesses, we are all called on to be part of this conversation about IT.
15	historically-based understanding of the intentions and accountability implicated with technologies of all kinds is key to taking part in the IT conversation in an informed way
	I admit to being more than a bit confused about their term “technological tools” – like many others, I hold the position that tools are de facto technologies and that technology is instantiated in tools. Some people strongly disagree.
	Remember that among N&O’s goals is helping the reader change what s/he attends to – what we’re prepared to see and understand
16	informal practices and unobtrusive work styles are among the most important of the “new” things that N&O want the reader to notice
	these two characteristics of work and other settings are commonly not captured or even suggested by such rationalized documents as job descriptions, project planning and execution documents, and training materials
17	they are especially concerned about “the ascendance of a rhetoric of inevitability.” This rhetoric characterizes most of the strongest defenses of technologies as well as their strongest critics. Overcoming the “temptation to inevitability” is among the chief aims of this course.
18	here is one of their strongest critiques of theories of people as computational beings. Where do you stand on this question? Why? What are the arguments in support of those who disagree with you?
19-20	their short go at genetic reductionism
20	they mention the technophoric Nicholas Negroponte’s being digital [you’ll often see the title written in lower case à la e e cummings] – I love to hate this book! But it is definitely worth reading, but please do so, if you have not already read it, with a skeptical but not dismissive eye.
21	the same goes for the techno-dystopian Clifford Stoll’s Silicon Snake Oil
23	By the way, do not think for a moment that the only “choices” are between mindless pessimism or optimism – many commentators suggest a number of “third ways.”
•	Chapter 3: “A Matter of Metaphor: Technology as Tool, Text, System, Ecology”
	in this chapter, N&O examine four metaphors about technology. The authors take their place among the many social commentators who remind us that metaphors and thinking are mutually determinative – how we think conditions how we talk, and how we talk conditions how we think. The four metaphors that this chapter examines are technology as tool, text, system, and ecology.
25	just as metaphors are mind-expanding and liberating, they are also limiting – Donald Schön’s “Generative Metaphor” in Ortony’s 1994 edition of Metaphor and Thought is a very useful example of work that shows how this is so.
28	let me remind you that there is a huge literature of interest to us here – both the more applied and specific in studies of material culture and the more theoretic in Science and Technology Studies
	J. J. Gibson’s concept of affordances is a very useful (but, as always!, a limited) concept – this concept appears again throughout the book, e.g., “handles” (p. 30), and has some interesting implications for LIS practice and understanding. What do you think?
30	their move “beyond the human-machine dyad” is crucial and a key to their project of looking at the larger contexts in which technologies are designed and used
31	one of the advantages of technology as text is that a text’s meaning is constantly redefined and negotiated, across time, across uses, across readers, and so on. This metaphor also reminds us of the significant contribution that literary studies has made to the analysis of IT.
32	another strength of the text metaphor is its reminder that texts make certain kinds of claims to our attention and also demand that we engage texts to co-create meaning in context
33	their mention of Jacques Ellul is useful – if you are not familiar with his curmudgeonly, European approach to technology critique, you are encouraged to gain a bit of familiarity with it
36	similarly with the work of Langdon Winner, especially his critique of claims that technology is “neutral”
38	Please give close attention to Winner’s arguments (shared with many others, of course) about (1) how technology conditions our imaginations and choices, (2) the concept of reverse adaptation, (and (3) technological drift (p. 41)
40	in their discussion of controlling technology and the Web, in particular, N&O seem to let their guard down a bit and fall into some technological determinism and seem to ascribe agency to technology
43	they remind us that “[m]etaphors matter because they suggest particular avenues for action and intervention,” and Nardi & O’Day particularly critique the inability of the large-scale system approach to understand and, instead, theorize “local and particular change”
	please note their reference to participatory design, an important movement in design for the past several decades, especially in Scandinavia
45	the concept of breakdowns is central to more phenomenologically-based, user-centric approaches to the study of IT; they are based, in part, on Heidegger and Husserl’s work in philosophy.
47	N&O end the chapter with some idea of what is to come, by listing reasons why they like the ecology metaphor – they especially like its emphasis on local differences and on strong relationships among the “social, economic, and political contexts in which technology is invented and used”
•	Chapter 4: “Information Ecologies”
49	this short chapter is the heart of their book and contains their formal definition of an information ecology: “a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment”
50	successful information ecologies are characterized by the self-conscious, reflective integration of advanced technologies into “existing habits and practices” with an emphasis on individually scaled locales
	this last point underlies the growing body of work that emphasizes communities of practice. This work is based on user-centric, usually ethnographically based methods. Étienne Wenger’s Communities of Practice is a good place to start if you have the interest.
	N&O identify five major characteristics of information ecologies: system, diversity, coevolution, keystone species, and locality
50-51	please read these pages carefully
	remember at least two things about metaphors throughout the book but especially here – metaphors obscure as well as illuminate, and metaphors should never be reified.
52	one of the essential elements of diversity, as they discuss it, is the understanding that human, social interests should be foregrounded in understanding IT
53	they also remind us that the technical and social aspects of environments of all kinds coevolve
54	important roles of keystone species are as mediators and teachers – of course, these characteristics will be quite carefully explored in the latter part of the book, especially about an essential keystone species, librarians.
54-55	While N&O usually are very light-handed about their methodological rigor, one place where the reader is well-served by being aware of it is where they say that “We do not just refer to what the technology is called, but to how people understand the place it fills. . . . [O]nly the participants of an information ecology can establish the identity and place of the technologies that are found there.”
	In other words, please remember that, as (ethnographic) anthropologists, their aim is to let their respondents speak about how they construct meaning, while N&O still evaluate these claims reflectively and in the spirit of critique.
57	in discussing why they prefer the concept of information ecologies, N&O note that they wish to emphasize how it is that people engage and participate in their own information ecologies. This point is an important one and central to the book’s argument.
•	Chapter 5: “Values and Technology”
60	the essence of this chapter is in their assertion that “values are intimately involved in the everyday choices we make in using technology. . . . Technology does not determine our decisions, but it isn’t exactly an innocent bystander.” – please consider this statement and their examples closely
61	for them, one of the premier signs of a healthy information ecology is the integration of technologies and technology decisions with local values
	their self-consciousness about discussing values is also worth thinking about
62	here and elsewhere, their discussion of Postman’s Technopoly (especially in concert with Ellul) brings up the concepts of voyeurism and technique – do you think their argument has merit? If so, what are its implications for LIS?
64	their parting words are worth considering: “There is a complex dance between two nonneutral forces at work here: technology with its texts and affordances, and people with their values and choices.” Let me be rude and ask – so what? How would you reply?
•	Chapter 6: “How to Evolve Information Ecologies”
65	their advice and call to action about how to be involved in information ecologies should sound familiar to our field: work with values essential to the local circumstances, attend to the meanings of technologies and reflect upon them, and be willing to ask strategic questions about the use of technology that are open-ended and thought-provoking. Most of the chapter describes how and why to focus on these elements of the local information ecology.
66-67	striking other familiar chords, N&O emphasize that services, not devices, matter most and that people are the most important elements in any system
68	considering values means that we must reflect on the fit between technologies, their uses, and their meanings with the social values in the ecology
70	N&O emphasize that we must not be too eager to ask “how?” before we ask “why?” when thinking about technologies. As we all know, it is infinitely easier to avoid the second question than to engage it in a productive and self-conscious way.
71	“why?” should, in their opinion, also be accompanied by “what if?” thought experiments
72	the need to recognize and protect local values is an important part of the “know-why” as opposed to the “know-how” approach to IT
72-74	their examples of the kinds of probing questions we might ask are useful, if not particularly acute at times – what do you think of them? Can such questions help us develop the kinds of services and technologies to help our clients succeed? Why or why not?
75	their reminder about the “powerful synergy” between changing tools and practices is important – why?

Some preliminary thoughts