Readings Week 11
0Sunday, November 18, 2012 by Unknown
One idea I gleaned from the Susan Leigh Star reading “The
Ethnography of Infrastructure” is that an information infrastructure (with its
associated platforms, hardware and devices) is not a culturally neutral
framework. Embedded within these
infrastructures are cultural norms, ideas and values that are often overlooked
as part of any given information system.
Another idea gleaned from this reading is that any
information processing unit, no matter how sophisticated its programming in
processing information, will not work if such a unit, fails to take into account
the infrastructural components of information devices (e.g. Hardware) within its
epistemological paradigm for managing information.
The TTC system is one example of an information system. This system is composed of trains, subway
stations, train tracks, buses, street cars, street car lines, street car rails
and roadways. Suppose the head of the
ministry of transportation decides to acquire new bullet trains for the TTC
subway system. Though these trains are
super fast and feature many passenger friendly accommodations such as improved
seating arrangements, these trains might not be able to run on the current
subway tracks in place within the Metro Toronto subway system. For such a new technology to be successfully
integrated within the Metro Toronto subway system would potentially require a
subway system overall to build new electrically powered train tracks complete
with overhead wiring to help facilitate the travel of these trains.
Accordingly, issues of interoperability between older
delivery systems and newer information processing units could result in an
information system that may not work. When
you add cultural norms, ideas and values into this mix (Maybe Torontonians aren’t
lukewarm to the idea of bullet trains because they think they are dangerous), then
this could provide some perspective as to why some information systems fail to materialize
in certain societies.
