Dear Victor,
Your post this morning addresses two issues. One involves a broad
field of inquiry - "data capture, sorting, and organization." the
other involves a specific use of data, surveillance.
Over the years, I have given serious thought to issues in data
capture, sorting, and organization. This is a core question in
several fields, including social informatics and information
economics. (While surveillance technology concerns me as a citizen, I
have not given it much thought as research problem.)
Several excellent books give a large-scale overview of how human
beings developed and design different kinds of information systems to
capture, sort, and organize data.
The best broad historical survey with a focus on what we now call
information systems is probably James Beniger's (1986) The Control
Revolution. Beniger explores the relations between technology and
economics, showing how specific forms of technology brought about and
evolved from specific social and economic problems, situations, and
contexts.
Michael Hobart and Zachary Schiffman (1998) wrote a book with far
broader scope, spanning human time from Homer's Troy and Mesopotamian
accounting to the modern age of digital computing.
One great feature of this book is a useful bibliographic essay that
traces topics and themes book by book for the reader who wishes to go
deeper.
Two of the best writers on these issues were economists, Harold Innis
and Fritz Machlup. Innis (1951, 1980, 1995) examined many aspects of
the relations between information, geography, technology, and social
economics. He also helped to inspire Marshall McLuhan's work on
communication and culture.
Machlup (1982a, 1982b, 1984) was a pioneer of information economics.
He was writing a comprehensive, several-volume study of information
economics when he died in 1983.
There are some extraordinarily good books that investigate specific
aspects of these topics. One of my favorites is a book by Patrice
Flichy (1995) that shows how the way we organize information and the
ways we organize social life and work life are always related in
intimate and often surprising ways. He starts with the first proposal
for a telegraph in the 1600s through the semaphore telegraph up to
the telephone and television of our own era.
This topic is filled with interesting angles. A study on early
Mesopotamian accounting by Hans Nissen, Peter Damerow, and Robert
Englund (1993) is a typical example of this. It shows how accounting
practices and organization of data helped to structure societies and
their economies.
This has always been evident to reflective political leaders. I
recall some fascinating discussions in Winston Churchill's history of
England in which Churchill discussed the role of the exchequer and
accounting practices in the organization and formation of the early
modern English nation as a political unit.
Then there was the Domesday Book. Of course, that brings us back to
surveillance.
A tour through Beniger's Control Revolution and Hobart and
Schiffman's Information Ages will be especially rewarding for anyone
who wishes to get a broad overview of these issues. From there, one
can drill down to how these intersect with design and design research.
Yours,
Ken
--
References
Beniger, James R. 1986. The Control Revolution. Technological and
Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Nissen, Hans J., Peter Damerow, and Robert K. Englund. 1993. Archaic
Bookkeeping: Early Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration
in the Ancient Near East. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Flichy, Patrice. 1995. Dynamics of Modern Communication. The Shaping
and Impact of New Communication Technologies. London: Sage
Publications.
Hobart, Michael E., and Zachary S. Schiffman. 1998. Information Ages.
Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Innis, Harold. 1951. The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press. (Reprinted with an introduction by Paul Heyer and
David Crowley. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.)
Innis, Harold. 1980. The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis. William
Christian, editor. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Innis, Harold. 1995. Staples, Markets, and Cultural Change. D.
Drache, editor. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University
Press.
Machlup, Fritz. 1982a. Knowledge, Its Creation, Distribution, and
Economic Significance. Vol. 1. Knowledge and Knowledge Production.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Machlup, Fritz. 1982b. Knowledge, Its Creation, Distribution, and
Economic Significance. Vol. 2. The Branches of Learning. Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Machlup, Fritz. 1984. Knowledge, Its Creation, Distribution, and
Economic Significance. Vol. 3. The Economics of Information and Human
Capital. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
--
Victor Margolin wrote:
i would like to introduce a new copy to the list: the design of
equipment for surveillance and data capture, sorting, and
organization. I am interested in exploring the history of a host of
devices that have been invented for producing and organizing data:
these include credit card machines, fingerprinting machines, facial
technology machines, credit cards, swipe cards, toll booth machines
that register swipe cards, chip implants, identity cards, airport
scanning machines. I'd be interested to know of any other machines
that anyone can think of and where one might find information about
them. Along with the machines,
I'd like to begin to chronicle the history of software programs that
relate to data capture, data protection etc. This would include the
history of cookies, spyware, firewalls, and in general the whole
world of electronic data security. Any books or articles on this
subject would be helpful. My long term project is a complex diagram
of data production and data use, including ways that data is bought
and sold and then reused for commercial or surveillance purposes. I'd
like to suggest that the design of data devices and data collection,
documentation, and storage systems is a useful product for design
researchers. Is anyone interested in this topic?
--
Ken Friedman
Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management
Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
+47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat
email: [log in to unmask]
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