What Is Social Informatics and Why Does It Matter?

By Rob Kling. D-Lib Magazine, 2007

594 citations recorded by the source corpus.

It is a field that is defined by its topic (and fundamental questions about it) rather than by a family of methods, much like urban studies or gerontology. Social informatics has been a subject of systematic analytical and critical research for the last 25 years. This body of research has developed theories and findings that are pertinent to understanding the design, development, and operation of usable information systems, including intranets, electronic forums, digital libraries and electronic journals.

Subfields: Communication, Computer Science Applications, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e8680112385c23aaf84d820d23db5794c0b201e7

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Citations in the corpus

STUDENT DISTRESS IN A WEB-BASED DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSE (2000, methodology): “Part of the theoretical analysis would have to examine the socio-technical complexity of the communication and computational support for the courses, and faculty and student abilities to work with and through them (Star and Ruhleder 1996; Kling 1999).”
The internet for empowerment of minority and marginalized users (2004, background): “Based primarily on research in interpersonal communication and organizational settings (Kling 1999; Orlikowski and Yates, 1994), extensions of this argument contend that online interaction substitutes, enlarges (Fischer, 1992; Malone and Rockart, 1991) or compensates for deficiencies in offline…”
The challenges of redressing the digital divide: a tale of two US cities (2006, background): “Rather, there are both beneficial and detrimental, intended and unintended consequences (Kling, 1998; 1999; Sawyer & Eschenfelder, 2002).”
Assessing the Potential of Internet Political Participation in the United States (2002, background): “A growing literature in human-computer-mediated interaction suggests that the resources necessary to participate in an online environment, properly conceived, differ significantly compared to the resources necessary to engage in traditional interactions (Kiesler, Zdaniuk, Lundmark, & Kraut, 2000; Kl”
Students’ Distress with a Web-based Distance Education Course: An Ethnographic Study of Participants' Experiences (2003, background): “Part of the theoretical analysis would have to examine the socio-technical complexity of the communication and computational support for the courses, and faculty and students’ abilities to work with and through them (Star and Ruhleder, 1996; Kling, 1999).”