Barry, If I put my computer scientist hat on, ICT is to the point, understandable and sufficiently descriptive but at the same time vague enough to cover a large area of computer science, it's a catch all, that really does not work well in the world of the social scientist. As a social scientist I don't like Information and Communication Technology because each of these three is a huge area in its own right, and I would also argue that ICT has always been about supporting economic activities which always involves exchange. So I would agree that a dis-aggregation is required, but I have no clue how to go about it (sorry not much help). On 7/10/07, Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca> wrote:
The last Aoir digest suggests that the response to my ICE-T proposal has run its course. As you may recall, I suggested Exchange be added to Information and Communication.
I haven't archived or done heavy analysis, but the response on This List was unenthusiastic. More interesting to me were the reasons.
Basically, "everything is communication" (Luhmannites), etc, or "everything is information:
I wish the proponents of each would duke it out (we could make a YouTube video), but I won't join either camp.
You can expand any definition of information or communciation to include anything. I could as easily as say (as a sociologist) that all is social organization and social relations.
Take for example, sex: certainly, it is communication and social relations, and for the unprotected, all that DNA information is exchanged (after phone numbers). But like Carrie Bradshaw, I think more is gained by keeping sexual relations as a separate category.
Where I made a mistake, by aiming for cute memorability, was the Exchange part for ICE-T. What I was really after was E-Commerce, especially the sending/selling and receiving/buying of Things. So we might call the E: "E-Commerce Technologies" to preserve the ICE-T. And if you think that such behaviour boils down to info or comm, go have it out with the economists.
Which leads me to the larger point: do we need to disaggregate I and C? I work a lot in the C world, and it seems to me that interpersonal communication (on/offline) is different from civic involvement (what social network analysts call 2-mode connectivity -- person:organization).
YMMV Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________
S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman For fun -- updating songs, movies and history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing Return to Sender these days _______________________________________________________________________
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