Multiculturalism and Information and Communication Technology

Pnina Fichman · Madelyn Sanfilippo

May 2022 · Springer Nature

About this ebook

Research on multiculturalism and information and communication technology (ICT) has been important to understanding recent history, planning for future large-scale initiatives, and understanding unrealized expectations for social and technological change. This interdisciplinary area of research has examined interactions between ICT and culture at the group and society levels. However, there is debate within the literature as to the nature of the relationship between culture and technology. In this synthesis, we suggest that the tensions result from the competing ideologies that drive researchers, allowing us to conceptualize the relationship between culture and ICT under three primary models, each with its own assumptions: 1) Social informatics, 2) Social determinism, and 3) Technological determinism. Social informatics views the relationship to be one of sociotechnical interaction, in which culture and ICTs affect each other mutually and iteratively, rather than linearly; the vast majority of the literature approach the relationships between ICT and culture under the assumptions of social informatics. From a socially deterministic perspective, ICTs are viewed as the dependent variable in the equation, whereas, from a technologically deterministic perspective, ICTs are an independent variable. The issues of multiculturalism and ICTs attracted much scholarly attention and have been explored under a myriad of contexts, with substantial literature on global development, social and political issues, business and public administration as well as education and scholarly collaboration. We synthesize here research in the areas of global development, social and political issues, and business collaboration. Finally we conclude by proposing under-explored areas for future research directions.

About the author

Pnina Fichman is an Associate Professor in the School of Informatics and Computing and the Director of the Rob Kling Center of Social Informatics. Her research in social informatics focuses on the relationships be tween information technologies and cultural diversity, and the consequences and impacts of this interaction on group process and outcomes. She studies processes and outcomes of crowds, online communities, virtual teams, and information intermediation. In addition, her research addresses motivation for, perception of, and reaction to online deviant behaviors, such as trolling and discrimination. She has published articles in such publications as Information and Management, Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, and Journal of Information Science. She earned her Ph.D. from SILS UNC in 2003 Madelyn Sanfilippo is a second-year doctoral stu dent in Information Science at Indiana University, Bloomington’s School of Informatics and Computing. Madelyn is interested in the relationship between so cial inequality and information inequality. Her work addresses social and political issues surrounding in formation and information technology access. She plans to specifically consider the interaction between information policy and information technology in the domain of government information, from a social informatics perspective, in her doctoral research