Proceedings STS Conference Graz 2015 Stream: Information and Communication Technologies and Society

Call for Abstracts - Information and Communication Technologies and Society

SESSION 8 : CLOUD COMPUTING AS CRITICAL ICT INFRASTRUCTURE
Daniel Kerpen, Michael Eggert, Institute of Sociology, Sociology of Technology and Organization, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

According to the most relevant literature [1,2], the term „Cloud Computing“ (CC) introductorily describes models in which users no longer maintain IT hard- and software by themselves; instead, they may conveniently access networks, servers, storage, platforms, applications, and services as ubiquitous, shared pools of scalable, rapidly provisioned computing resources [3].

Undoubtedly, CC is important for the allocation and distribution of IT resources. Internet of Things, Big-Data, and Industry-4.0 require a dynamic and efficient management of data storage, transfer capacities, and computational power, and a significant share of everyday communication is realized via cloud technologies as well. Consequently, CC must be considered a relevant technological phenomenon, deeply interwoven with a broad range of social and societal structures and processes.

CC’s grounding vision of providing on-demand computing power with quick implementation, low maintenance, fewer IT staff, and consequently lower costs is not essentially new but stemming from influential 1960s ideas contemplating about computer networks as public utilities [1]; a vision which has spurred momentum again—some might say hype—since the second half of the 2000s. However, whereas utilities like water, gas, telephone, and, especially, electricity have been studied as prime examples for society-wide and societally relevant technostructures, conceptualized as LTS [4], it remains disputable to refer to CC as a fifth utility in such an aforementioned tradition. Instead, we pledge to conceptualize CC as an infrastructure, being not a closed, centrally controlled system but an open, reconfigurable, scalable network coordinated by geographically and organizationally distributed different actors [5,6].

We consider this concept useful to embrace a broad range of cloud-related topics (its open, reconfigurable character, associated expectations, and its social shaping) as illustrated by the subsequent list of just some possible starting points on different levels of analysis:

  • Assessment and regulation of CC (concerns about privacy and data protection, studies of “cloud governance” attempts and their possible shortcomings, as well as frictions within the legal or the political system)
  • Implementation of cloud projects in organizations (e.g., case studies ranging from multinational (MNEs) to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), authorities, etc. and its interference with current/established organizational structures and management styles)
  • Observations of how such a “global” infrastructure might locally affect people’s (work) lives (e.g., actual human-cloud interactivity, handling of personal data)

[1] Yang, H. & M. Tate (2012) A descriptive literature review and classification of cloud computing research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 31, Article 2. Available at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol31/iss1/2
[2] Venters, W. & E. A. Whitley (2012) A critical review of cloud computing: researching desires and realities. Journal of Information Technology, 27, pp. 179-197
[3] Mell, P. & T. Grance (2011) The NIST definition of cloud computing. National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-145, Gaithersburg, MD (September 2011)
[4] Hughes, T. P. (1983) Networks of power. Electrification in western society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press)
[5] Edwards, P. (2003) Infrastructure and modernity: Force, time and social organization in the history of sociotechnical systems. In T. Misa, P. Brey & A. Feenberg (eds) Modernity and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp.185-225
[6] Edwards, P., G. Bowker, S. Jackson & R. Williams (2009) Introduction: An agenda for infrastructure studies. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 10(5), pp. 364-374

 

SESSION 9: STS AND `NEW` MEDIA
Joachim Allgaier, STS - Institute of Science,Technology and Society Studies
Matthias Wieser, Department of Media and Communications at Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt|Vienna|Graz, Austria

There is a growing community within STS and related areas analysing the role of social media and new communication technologies for the public communication of science and also for inner-scientific communications. In addition, a new and increasing interest in overlapping research topics in media research and science & technology studies came to light in the recent years. Media studies discovered STS in order to revitalize discussions about the materiality of media, as well as empirical research into (online) media practices. At about the same time many STS scholars have recognized that information and communication technologies are prevailing technologies today that are having an impact on many areas of society, also on science and technology. Contemporary scientific practices and communication are heavily influenced and may sometimes even dependent on new digital media. Moreover there is a growing body of literature and research on using new media for STS research under the banner of digital methods, which do at the same time contribute to methodological questions in media studies research.

The panel aims to bring together people working on the interface of media research and STS with a focus on digital, social and mobile media. Thereby we think of this interface as being relational between STS-perspectives on new media, and vice versa, as (new) media studies of science and technology. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Empirical and/or conceptual contributions of science and technology in ‘new’ media
  • Contributions that examine and address the use of ‘new’ media in scientific practices and technological innovation processes
  • The harms/dangers or values/uses of ‘new’ media for research and/or scientific communication/collaborations

 

SESSION 10: WHAT IS SO FASCINATING WITH COMPUTER SCIENCE? HOW WE, INFORMATICIANS AND OTHERS, DEAL WITH IT
Dirk Siefkes, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Technische Universität, Berlin, Germany

In fascination we mix both, excitement and anxiety/anger. Something draws us hither, but this very feeling pushes us thither. Information technology fascinates. We communicate, collaborate, organize easier; but it narrows our ways, forms us, we depend on it. IT as the “spider in the net”.
For us, informaticians and others, this fascination leaks from technology into science (Siefkes in SGI98): Through our research we better IT, we help our culture forward. CS has become an important field. But does it not push other fields aside? What type of science is it anyway? It does not deal with technology alone, but neither belongs it to the humanities.
In an interdisciplinary project “Social History of CS” (SGI97ff) we found that early people dealing with computers and later CS follow a pattern of orientation we called hybridisation: As computers take over mental activities, in dealing with them we consider man and machine at the same time, hybridize them.
We cannot deal with IT without hybridisation. But is also dangerous, produces errors (“software crisis”), alters our culture. Through it, our ideas about mental activities influence our technical constructions, and vice versa. How can we use it fruitfully? We must investigate this interdependence. People from CS and the humanities have to collaborate to create a Cultural Theory of CS (Sie07 e.a.), part of a general Theory of CS (TdI09 e.a.).

LITERATURE
(SGI97) Peter Eulenhöfer, Dirk Siefkes et al.: Die Konstruktion von Hybridobjekten als Orientierungsmuster in der Informatik. TU Berlin, FB Informatik, Bericht 97-23.
(SGI98) -”- : Sozialgeschichte der Informatik. FIfF-Kommunikation 2/98, S. 3-4, 28-48.
(Sie07) -”- : Theorie der Informatik zwischen den Stühlen. Gegensätze in der Informatik durchmustern und füreinander fruchtbar machen. TU Berlin, Fak. Elektrotechnik & Informatik, Bericht 07-21.
(Sie13) - „ - : Digital Natives in Symbiosis with IT-systems? Abstract, Conference „Futures Past: Design and the Machine”, MIT, November 21-23, 2013.
(Sie14) -”- : But is it art? Only what has been thought machinelike, can be brought onto the machine. Abstract, Workshop Lev Manovich and Frieder Nake, Lüneburg, July 4-5, 2014.
(TdI09) Andreas Möller, Frieder Nake, Arno Rolf, Dirk Siefkes: Beiträge zu einer Theorie der Informatik. Zum kritischen Selbstverständnis einer Disziplin. E-Journal Communication, Cooperation, Participation, Heft 5 (Sonderausgabe), 08/2009.