social informatics?

Question

any good issues to delve into (besides the ones noted and the productivity paradox) or any good scholarly articles to site for this paper i have to write?

You are an employee at a large commercial organization which has decided to cut back on its expenditures on travel for meetings by investing in a series of videoconferencing technologies. A new coordinating committee is formed to discuss how to alter organizational procedures to take advantage of this new technology.

Sample issues to investigate:
- should meetings be permanently archived and referenced for promotion/firing decisions by HR?
- should companies be allowed to monitor employee's use of videoconferencing as they do Internet and e-mail?
- what kinds of unanticipated problems and opportunities might arise from the use of this technology?
- how might the introduction and deployment of new technologies impact their adoption and use

Answer 1

I would recommend looking into the Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) literature. This is an interdisciplinary field covering psychology, social psychology, sociology, human-computer interaction, social networks and other areas. Take a look at a google scholar search for "CSCW video conferencing" :

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=CSCW+video+conferencing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Search

Or "social informatics CSCW" :

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=CSCW+social+informatics&btnG=Search


It appears that your paper is supposed to be directed at privacy-related issues. It's a pretty open question, so I would suggest focusing on a particular dimension, e.g. the effects of this new system on the informal social relationships/friendships of employees.