Humanities Scholars Turn An Eye To The Many Implications Of Information Technologies

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- In our collective exuberance over the astonishing explosion in the field of information technology during the past two decades, we may overlook something just as important -- the investigation of its meaning.

This observation by the faculty and graduate students who comprise the University at Buffalo's 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 a cross-disciplinary array of graduate courses that explore the forces shaping technology and its uses.

Its formation was spurred by two faculty members who have published and lectured widely on these issues: Hank Bromley, associate professor and associate director of the Center for Education and Research in Technology in the Graduate School of Education, and Thomas Jacobson, chair of the Department of Communication in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"Massive investment in science -- any science -- without thoughtful consideration of its long-term effects has produced enormous environmental damage, suburban sprawl that is decimating our rural areas, and other consequences that we regret but have great difficulty controlling," Jacobson said. "If we seriously question the meaning and consequences of new technologies now, we may be able to manage their outcomes in significant and meaningful ways."

The CCSIT group includes affiliated faculty 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. Through such courses as "Technology as a Social Practice," "Cybertheory and Technoculture," "Digital Storytelling," "Video Analysis," "International Telecommunication" and "Sociology of Communities," students will analyze critically social, cultural and economic meanings assigned to information technology and investigate who benefits from its development and how.

"The phrase 'critical and cultural studies,'" said Jacobson, "was chosen to signal a coherent program built around the questioning of assumptions. It will examine what is conventionally unexamined and unchallenged from the point of view of several disciplines.

"Communication theorists tell us that our methods of communication and other technologies go a long way to form our cultural values," he added "and it is important to examine those values and their long-term consequences.

"When we refer to this as an 'information society,' for instance, we signal that the information sector defines what we are," Jacobson said. "The term suggests that these technologies should and must be treated in a particular way by everyone. But who says it is the most important sector? Who answers that question? And what are the implications of the answer?

"Technologies are not just 'things' that technologists use," he explained. "They're not just 'devices' likes chips, networks, search engines and such. 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 and investments.

"We want to emphasize here that only in the modern age do we have the ability to reflect collectively on questions like this and decide how to change what we're doing so as to craft our future and the choices it offers us," Jacobson added.

"If we don't pay attention to these issues, we will not get the best out of our technologies. We also may blindly assign scarce resources to technology that are needed by other sectors of our society, with serious consequences."

Bromley holds that 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 need to do more than listen to the industry itself. According to Jacobson, we need new kinds of civic organizations that will represent different perspectives on technology production, distribution and use -- those of minorities, environmentalists, feminists groups, consumer-protection groups, professional organizations and educators, to name a few.

The perspectives or schools of thought represented by affiliated CCDIT faculty range from feminist analysis to critical race studies, post-colonial studies, Foucauldian-discourse analysis, Marxist and traditional liberal methods of inquiry. Methodological orientations vary as well. Bromley said qualitative, historical, quantitative, ethnographic and philosophical perspectives are among those that will be considered in various courses.