On 13/04/2010, at 10:16 AM, Katherine Hepworth wrote:
> Governments and organisations are not motivated to 'show they care' without functional outcomes.
It might help to think about this in a more subtle way. RK Merton's concept of latent and manifest functions could be useful. There is no doubt that many who undertake ritual activity believe in its capacity to bring about functional outcomes. We have deeply rooted social beliefs in many societies that atest to this: rain making ceremonies, sympathetic magic, and prayer are obvious examples. The idea that displayed symbols can do real work in the world is not confined to government information campaigns.
One thing to look at in relation to government information campaigns is the relative weakness in methods of evaluating effectiveness of such campaigns. Why is this so?
> Politically motivated use of design in everyday situations…is seldom discussed by design researchers, but is nevertheless a significant aspect of design use and practise.
I agree. I don't know about design researchers in general, but most of our work (CRI) has been about exactly this issue. For example, we have published a lot of research on document design in government and private sector bureaucracies over the last twenty years. Also, quite a bit about public information campaigns. You will find many papers addressing these issues in Information Design Journal written by researchers in this area.
But, there is a lot more that needs to be done in this area.
David
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