THE QUESTION OF THE CIRCULATION OF AGENCY IN TWO IN JUDICIAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES

The literature on information infrastructures (Ole Hanseth & Lyytinen, 2010) has elaborated principles to be followed for their development. However, according to Aanestad and Jensen (2011), these principles do not emphasize the role of involved stakeholders specifically whether the infrastructures are the result of nation-wide government projects. So, the focus is posed on stakeholders’ mobilization and coordination as further factors to take into account. The analysis of two judicial information infrastructures suggests that a further factor contributes to the development of information infrastructures: the circulation of agency or those conditions that allow to online proceedings to acquire legal validity. The fact that online procedures do not determine legal effects is not fundamental in the business environment where the efficiency rationale prevails. Conversely, this is decisive in the judiciary and in other sectors of the public administration due to the risk to build well functioning online proceedings with no legal valu

A QUESTION OF PROGRESS: FACE-TO-FACE RELATIONSHIPS VERSUS FACE-TO-SCREEN RELATIONSHIPS

Information and communication technology (ICT) is widely considered to be an essential factor in qquiring what is commonly known as ‘progress’. The proliferation of this technology has determined the proliferation of social relationships as space-time bonds have been overcome. Moreover, due to widespread communication devices, individuals are more accessible and we are able to reach whoever we want, whenever we want to – this happens almost seamlessly. Are the dynamics that characterize relationships mediated by ICT the same traditional unmediated relationships? In other words, is the nature of the interaction that characterizes a phone call the same as a face-to-face one? It is in this context that face-to-screen relationships have been identified in contrast to the face-to-face relationships. This contraposition is useful in order to examine the difference between these kinds of relationships. This paper will explore the content of social relationships: everyday life comes to the fore through the perspective endorsed by Heidegger (1962) in his most important work: Being and Time. Through the concepts of idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity it has been possible to emphasise those aspects of every day life in which social relationships constitute a basis in order to question if the spread of mediated relationships supports the dynamics in relation to these three concepts. Finally, the proliferation of mediated relationships and the contextual decrease in importance of face-to-face relationships has led to a scenario whereby the term ‘progress’, introduced in the beginning of this introduction, is not representative. This is an introductory paper in which a series of hypotheses have been posed on the proliferation of social relationships mediated by ICT, but these hypotheses require an empirical validation

The concept of knowledge as a methodological instrument for analysing organizations and information systems

This work focuses of the concept of knowledge as instrument for inquiring into organization and information systems. For this proposal a threefold classification of this concept has been introduced: the individual sphere (the knowledge that is within each subject in the form of skills, values and beliefs), the organizational sphere (procedures, routines, roles and technology) and the interorganizational sphere (opportunities, obligations, utilities and facilities that characterize the environment in which companies do business) of knowledge. Through this classification, a number of theoretical approaches are going to be taken into examination to see, respectively, which sphere of knowledge they cover. Therefore it will emerge that one approach can delineate in detail the interorganizational sphere of knowledge having some limits to render the individual sphere and vice-versa. The examination of organizations and information systems using this concept exhibits these methodological features: a methodology that permits the inspection in an organic way of the different aspects that characterize organizations and information systems; a methodology that evaluates the different theoretical approaches and a methodology that manages the data and information at our disposal. The latter can be directly assigned to one of the three spheres and then analysed according to an appropriate theoretical approach

Can Ontology Lead to New Perspectives in Social Research?

The objective of this paper is not to give a detailed discussion on complicated and sophisticated concepts such as epistemology and ontology but to throw light on the role of ontology in research activity. In order to achieve this objective two approaches will be taken as points of reference: the perspective of critical realism, a philosophical approach to the social and natural world, and in particular Bhaskar’s work (1998), and the perspective of ‘social constructionism’ (Crotty, 1998) and in particular the work of Berger and Luckmann (1966)

Social brokers: looking for new players to support both e-services and e-participation

The role of ontology in social research. Technology and information technology through the lenses of a cognitive approach and a phenomenological approach. Social brokers: players for mediating participation in political and institutional systems. The role of social brokers in three Italian public bodies. Participation: what is it?. E-participation: the Partecipa.net case