Interpretations of Information

IS481

Half/ full unit

Half

Dr Edgar Whitley           Room tbc
Professor L P Willcocks Room tbc

This course is compulsory for MSc Information Systems and Organisations (Research), MSc Communication, Information and Society and MSc Communication, Information and Society (Research). It is optional for MSc Culture and Society.

Other MSc students may follow this course but a good knowledge of information technology is required.

The course explores the socio-philosophical foundations of information, information systems and new media. It introduces students to the key theoretical principles underlying information systems and new media and applies them to practical issues of information systems development and management.

The course is structured around a number of themes. Each of the themes is introduced and explored in relation to the appropriate critical literature which is then applied to information systems issues.

Lent term

Lectures

20 hours

Lent term

Classes

10 hours

These are indicative readings; a full reading list will be provided at the start of the course.

• WE Bijker, TP Hughes and T Pinch, The Social Construction of Technological Systems: new directions in the sociology and history of technology, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987
• C Ciborra, From Control to Drift, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000
• C Ciborra, The Labyrinths of Information: challenging the wisdom of systems, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002
• H Collins and  R Evans: Rethinking expertise, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007
• M Heidegger, Being and Time (trans. J Macquarrie and E Robinson), Blackwell, London, 1962
• B Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (trans. Catherine Porter), Harvester, New York, 1993
• L Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (trans. GEM Anscombe), Basil Blackwell 1956

A three-hour examination in the Summer term.