Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age


Book Description

Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age puts the theoretical discussion of computer systems and information technology on a new footing. Shifting the discourse from its usual rationalistic framework, Richard Coyne shows how the conception, development, and application of computer systems is challenged and enhanced by postmodern philosophical thought. He places particular emphasis on the theory of metaphor, showing how it has more to offer than notions of method and models appropriated from science. Coyne examines the entire range of contemporary philosophical thinking including logical positivism, analytic philosophy, pragmatism, phenomenology, critical theory, hermeneutics, and deconstruction - comparing them and showing how they differ in their consequences for design and development issues in electronic communications, computer representation, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and multimedia. He also probes the claims made of information technology, including its presumptions of control, its so-called radicality, even its ability to make virtual worlds, and shows that many of these claims are poorly founded.




Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age


Book Description

Coyne examines the entire range of contemporary philosophicalthinking—including logical positivism, analytic philosophy, pragmatism, phenomenology,critical theory, hermeneutics, and deconstruction—comparing them and showing how theydiffer in their consequences for design and development issues in electronic communications,computer representation, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and multimedia.




The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information


Book Description

This Guide provides an ambitious state-of-the-art survey of the fundamental themes, problems, arguments and theories constituting the philosophy of computing. A complete guide to the philosophy of computing and information. Comprises 26 newly-written chapters by leading international experts. Provides a complete, critical introduction to the field. Each chapter combines careful scholarship with an engaging writing style. Includes an exhaustive glossary of technical terms. Ideal as a course text, but also of interest to researchers and general readers.




Designing Information Spaces: The Social Navigation Approach


Book Description

Social navigation is an emerging field which examines how we navigate information or locate services in both real and virtual environments and how we interact with and use others to find our way in information spaces. It has led to new ways of thinking about how we design information spaces and how we address usability issues, particularly in collaborative, web-based systems. This book follows on from Munro et al, Social Navigation of Information Space, which was the first major work in this field. It provides a similar broad overview of the field, but is much more practical in focus.




Design Studies


Book Description

In an age of globalization and connectivity, the idea of "mainstream culture" has become quaint. Websites, magazines, books, and television have all honed in on ever-diversifying subcultures, hoping to carve out niche audiences that grow savvier and more narrowly sliced by the day. Consequently, the discipline of graphic design has undergone a sea change. Where visual communication was once informed by a designer's creative intuition, the proliferation of specialized audiences now calls for more research-based design processes. Designers who ignore research run the risk of becoming mere tools for communication rather than bold voices. Design Studies, a collection of 27 essays from an international cast of top design researchers, sets out to mend this schism between research and practice. The texts presented here make a strong argument for performing rigorous experimentation and analysis. Each author outlines methods in which research has aided their designwhether by investigating how senior citizens react to design aesthetics, how hip hop culture can influence design, or how design for Third World nations is affected by cultural differences. Contributors also outline inspired ways in which design educators can teach research methods to their students. Finally, Design Studies is rounded out by five annotated bibliographies to further aid designers in their research. This comprehensive reader is the definitive reference for this new direction in graphic design, and an essential resource for both students and practitioners.




Designing Culture


Book Description

The cultural theorist and media designer Anne Balsamo calls for transforming learning practices to inspire culturally attuned technological imaginations.




Issues & Trends of Information Technology Management in Contemporary Organizations


Book Description

As the field of information technology continues to grow and expand, it impacts more and more organizations worldwide. The leaders within these organizations are challenged on a continuous basis to develop and implement programs that successfully apply information technology applications. This is a collection of unique perspectives on the issues surrounding IT in organizations and the ways in which these issues are addressed. This valuable book is a compilation of the latest research in the area of IT utilization and management.




Current Topics in Management 2002


Book Description

This annual series presents fundamental research on the theory and practice of management. Volume 7 contains articles presented at the 2001 meeting of the International Conferences on Advances in Management (ICAM), held in Athens, Greece. ICAM's goal is to be truly comparative-in terms of the broad scope of management perspectives, in the broad-ranging locations of its research as well as its application, and in its comparisons of findings, methodologies, and operational definitions. This volume exemplifies ICAM's objectives. Part 1, "Organization Theory, Learning, and Effectiveness," revisits the management theory jungle, reports on the development organizational learning capabilities in Europe, encourages organizational learning through cultural diversity, and reviews the role of corporate parent . Part 2, "Behavior and Attitudes in Organizations," considers the relationships of religion to organizational citizenship and whistle-blowing behaviors, identifies antecedents of misbehavior among nurses and social welfare workers, and uses process framework as a method to depict encroaching processes and change in organizations. Part 3, "International and Cross-Cultural Management," looks at various issues of management abroad. Topics include the dimensions and levels of power bases and their relationships to subordinates' compliance and satisfaction in the U.S. and South Korea, the relationship between empowerment and quality of work life in Mexico, and case studies of organizational intellectual capital in China. Part 4, "Management in the Public Sector," turns attention to efforts to recognize and build on differences in public administration. Part 5, "Managing Human Resources," addresses the nature of researcher values in human resource management and considers recent publications in mainstream human resources in order to isolate the patterns of research. Part 6, "Role of Research in Management," discusses the need for processual thinking. It presents a list of factors contrasting two views of management: the classical view, and the "process view of management." This volume will be of particular interest to corporate executives, economists, and labor studies specialists. M. Afzalur Rahim is founding editor of the International Journal of Organizational Analysis and International Journal of Conflict Management, and is professor of management at Western Kentucky University. Robert T. Golembiewski is distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia, and has authored or edited over seventy-five books. Kenneth D. Mackenzie is the Edmund P. Learned Distinguished Professor and president of Mackenzie and Company. He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and several books.




Playing with the Past


Book Description

How can we increase awareness and understanding of other cultures using interactive digital visualizations of past civilizations? In order to answer the above question, this book first examines the needs and requirements of virtual travelers and virtual tourists. Is there a market for virtual travel? Erik Champion examines the overall success of current virtual environments, especially the phenomenon of computer gaming. Why are computer games and simulations so much more successful than other types of virtual environments? Arguments that virtual environments are impeded by technological constraints or by a paucity of evaluation studies can only be partially correct, for computer games and simulations are also virtual environments. Many of the underlying issues are caused by a lack of engagement with the philosophical underpinnings of culture, presence and inhabitation, and there are few exemplars that engage the public with history and heritage using interactive media in a meaningful and relevant manner. The intention of Playing With the Past is to help designers and critics understand the issues involved in creating virtual environments that promote and disseminate historical learning and cultural heritage through a close study of the interactive design principles at work behind both real and virtual places. Topics discussed include the design of virtual environments, and especially virtual heritage environments, virtual place-making, cultural presence, the pros and cons of game-style interaction, augmented reality projects, and appropriate evaluation methods. Virtual heritage environments discussed in the book include projects from Antarctica, Australia, Mexico, Malta, Egypt, Babylon, the Netherlands, Cambodia, and India.




The Tuning of Place


Book Description

How pervasive digital devices—smartphones, iPods, GPS navigation systems, and their networks—us formulate a sense of place and refine social relationships How do pervasive digital devices—smartphones, iPods, GPS navigation systems, and cameras, among others—influence the way we use spaces? In The Tuning of Place, Richard Coyne argues that these ubiquitous devices and the networks that support them become the means of making incremental adjustments within spaces—of tuning place. Pervasive media help us formulate a sense of place, writes Coyne, through their capacity to introduce small changes, in the same way that tuning a musical instrument invokes the subtle process of recalibration. Places are inhabited spaces, populated by people, their concerns, memories, stories, conversations, encounters, and artifacts. The tuning of place—whereby people use their devices in their interactions with one another—is also a tuning of social relations. The range of ubiquity is vast—from the familiar phones and hand-held devices through RFID tags, smart badges, dynamic signage, microprocessors in cars and kitchen appliances, wearable computing, and prosthetics, to devices still in development. Rather than catalog achievements and predictions, Coyne offers a theoretical framework for discussing pervasive media that can inform developers, designers, and users as they contemplate interventions into the environment. Processes of tuning can lead to consideration of themes highly relevant to pervasive computing: intervention, calibration, wedges, habits, rhythm, tags, taps, tactics, thresholds, aggregation, noise, and interference.