A close look at technology's meaning

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

In our collective exuberance over the astonishing explosion in the field of information technology during the past two decades, we may be overlooking something important: The thoughtful and sustained investigation of its meaning.

This observation by the faculty members and graduate students who comprise the Critical and Cultural Studies in Information Technologies group has led to the development of a new course of study at UB that is among the first of its kind in the nation. Called Critical and Cultural Studies in Information Technologies (CCSIT), it is not a formal program, but a cross-disciplinary array of graduate courses that explore the forces shaping technology and its use.

The CCSIT group includes affiliated faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the School of Information and Library Studies.

Its formation was spurred by Hank Bromley, associate professor of educational leadership and policy, and associate director of the Center for Education and Research in Technology in the Graduate School of Education, and Thomas Jacobson, associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"Technologies are not just 'things' that technologists use," Jacobson explained. "A more complete understanding of technology recognizes it as a function of social investment; a series of social relationships that, in turn, produce and support specific cultural values. References to an 'information society,' for instance, assume that the information sector is the most important sector in our culture and that it should and must be treated in a particular way by all of us. Is it the most important sector? And if it is, what does that mean for us now and in the future?"

Through such courses as "Technology as a Social Practice" and "Cybertheory and Technoculture," "Digital Storytelling" and "Video Analysis," "International Telecommunication" and "Sociology of Communities," students will engage a variety of issues, explore the meanings attached to information technology and investigate who benefits from its development and who does not.

Postbaccalaureate students may take any of the courses in critical IT studies, and CCSIT is available as an unofficial doctoral concentration in the Graduate School of Education and the Department of Communication, as well as a minor within these and several other participating academic units.

"The phrase 'critical and cultural studies,'" said Jacobson, "was chosen to signal both a coherence built around the questioning of assumptions, the examination of what conventionally goes unexamined and unchallenged, and the plurality of approaches within this shared project."

He added that he hopes the new School of Information Studies, a marriage of the School of Information and Library Studies and the communication department that will begin operation this summer, will reflect consciously on the impact of information technologies. "Communication theorists tell us that our methods of communication and other technologies go a long way to form our cultural values," Jacobson said, "and it is important for us to examine those values and their consequences to us.

"If we're to do more than play catch-up, producing laws after the fact to protect us from the consequences of new information technologies, we'll need new kinds of civic organizations," he added, "those that represent different perspectives-feminist groups, environmental groups, consumer-protection groups, professional organizations, those of educators and others.

"Massive investment in science without...reflection on longterm considerations of its effect is what has produced enormous environmental damage, suburban sprawl that has decimated our countryside, and other consequences that we regret but now have great difficulty controlling," Jacobson said. "If we can begin to question the meaning and consequences of new technologies now, we may be able to manage its outcomes in more significant ways.