[comp.groupware] Article: File 2 -- Reading All About Computerization

kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling) (06/16/91)

Note: This is a long article of about 1420 lines. Please address any
comments to the author at the adresses listed below. This second file
of 3 contains the first part of the article.

                                 ------

                 Reading "All About"  Computerization:
                 Five Common Genres of Social Analysis

                               Rob Kling


             Department of Information and Computer Science
                        University of California
                            Irvine, CA 92717
                           kling@ics.uci.edu
                              714-856-5955
                              August 1990

To appear in: Directions in Advanced Computer Systems, 1990. Doug
     Schuler, (Ed.) Norwood, N.J. Ablex Publishing Co.


                          =========================


                DISCOURSES ABOUT COMPUTERIZATION

This paper examines unstated, but critical, assumptions which underlie
social analyses of computerization. I will focus on the popular,
professional and scholarly literatures in which authors claim to
describe the actual nature of computerization, the character of
computer use, and the social choices and changes that result from
computerization. I am not including certain kinds of writing which are
also very important, but which do not claim to literally characterize
the empirical world, now or in the future: ethical studies, normative
policy analyses, analyses of discourse (such as this article), and
works which are self-consciously fictional (e.g., Kurt Vonnegut's
Player Piano, John Brunner's Shockwave Rider).

Every year thousands of articles and dozens of books comment on the
meaning of new computer technologies for people, organiza-tions, and
the larger society. Since computer technologies are likely to improve
significantly over the next few decades, we should expect periodic
accounts of the social meanings of new technologies. Moreover, as we
approach the year 2000, there will be a predictable flood of books and
articles that examine the virtues and problems of computer technologies
in the 21st centu-ry.

A large fraction of the literature about computing describes emerging
technologies and the ways they can expand the limits of the possible.
Faster, tinier computers can make it easier for people to access
information in a wider variety of places. Larger memories can make more
data accessible. Richer display devices can help people communicate
more readily with computerized systems through pictures and text. High
speed networks, such as Usenet and Internet, link thousands of computer
systems together in ways only dreamed of in 1970. The remarkable
improvement in the capabilities of equipment from one decade to the
next gener-ate breathless excitement by researchers, developers, and
entre-preneurs, as well as by the battalions of journalists who docu-
ment these events in the daily newspapers and weekly magazines.

Accounts of the powerful information processing capabilities of
computer systems are usually central to many stories of comput-
erization and social change. Authors write about these changes in
technology and social life with different analytical and rhetori-cal
strategies. Some authors enchant us with images of new technologies
that offer exciting possibilities of manipulating large amounts of
information rapidly with little effort -- to enhance control, to create
insights, to search for information, and to facilitate cooperative work
between people. Much less frequently, some authors examine a darker
social vision in which any likely form of computerization will amplify
human misery --people sacrificing their freedom to businesses and
government agencies, people becoming very dependent on complex
technologies that they don't comprehend, and sometimes the image of
inadver-tent global thermonuclear war. Both kinds of stories often
reflect utopian and anti-utopian themes -- genres of social analysis
which are about 500 years old, and which predates the social sciences
by about 350 years.  A different kind of investigative strategy and
genres of reporting one's insights are based on examining existing
computerized systems as they are actually used in real social settings.
These investigations and genres of writing which communicate them rest
on the empiricist's faith that by examining the world as it is, we can
learn something important of the worlds that might be.  I will examine
three major genres which rest on empirical observation: social realism,
social theory, and analytical reduction. I am concerned with the
strengths and limits of inquiries conceived and reported within these
five genres: the two utopian genres and the three empirical genres. I
will first examine utopian and anti-utopian analyses of
computerization.



          TECHNOLOGICAL UTOPIANISM AND ANTI-UTOPIANISM

Technological Utopianism

Utopian thinkers  portray societies in which people live ideal lives.
The first such description appeared in Plato's Republic written some
2500 years ago. But the name Utopia derives from Thomas More, who
published a story of an ideal society named Utopia in 1516. In Utopia
people lived harmoniously and free of privation. His fanciful name,
which meant "nowhere," has been picked up and applied to a whole
tradition of writing and think-ing about the forms of society that
would make many people happiest. There have been hundreds of utopian
blueprints. They differ substantially in their details: some have
focused on material abundance as the key to human happiness while other
have advanced visions of happiness based on austere and simple ways of
life. Some utopians advocate private property as a central social
institution, while many place a primacy on shared property.

The most obvious utopian sources are discourses which the authors
identify as fictional accounts with traditional devices such as made up
characters and fanciful dialogue. We are concerned with discourses
about computerization which authors present as primar-ily realistic or
factual accounts (and which are cataloged as non-fiction in bookstores
and libraries). We will show how some these discourses are shaped by
the conventions of utopianism and anti-utopianism.

Edward Feigenbaum and Pamela McCorduck explicitly identify with utopian
ideals when they close their book about the social virtues of expert
systems with this observation:

       ... "utopian" also means something we have said many
       times and in many ways that we desire as a human
       good.... all this ... corresponds to Adam Smith's
       vision in The Wealth of Nations of a universal opulent
       society, a condition of plenty that frees the people
       from dependence and subordination to exercise true
       independence of spirit in autonomous actions (Feigen-
       baum and McCorduck, 1984:292).

Tom Stonier (1983) also illustrates the utopian tradition in writing
about information technology. He ends his book about the way that
information technologies can transform societies with this observation:

       To sum up, everyone an aristocrat, everyone a philoso-
       pher. A massively expanded education system to provide
       not only training and information about how to make a
       living, but also on how to live. In late industrial
       society, we stopped worrying about food. In late commu-
       nicative society, we will stop worrying about material
       resources. And just as the industrial economy elimi-
       nated slavery, famine, and pestilence, so will the
       post-industrial economy eliminate authoritarianism,
       war, and strife. For the first time in history, the
       rate at which we will solve problems will exceed the
       rate at which they will appear. This will leave us to
       get on with the real business of the next century. To
       take care of each other. To fathom what it means to be
       human. To explore intelligence. To move out into space
       (Stonier, 1983:214)."

Utopian images are common in many books and articles about
computerization in society written by technologists and journal-ists. I
am particularly interested in what can be learned, and how we can be
misled, by a particular brand of utopian thought --technological
utopianism. This line of analysis places the use of some specific
technology, such as computers, nuclear energy, or low-energy low-impact
technologies, as key enabling elements of a utopian vision. Sometimes
people will casually refer to exotic technologies -- like pocket
computers which understand spoken language -- as "utopian gadgets."
Technological utopianism does not refer to these technologies with
amazing capabilities. It refers to analyses in which the use of
specific technologies plays a key role in shaping a benign social
vision. In contrast, technological anti-utopianism examines how certain
broad families of technology facilitates a social order which is
relentlessly harsh, destructive and miserable. George Orwell's novel
1984 is a representative of the genre.



Utopian Elements in Technological Blueprints

Technologists who characterize new or future technologies often rest on
utopian imagery when they examine their social meanings or
implications. In 1948, before there were any working electron-ic
computers, Vannevar Bush set forth a vision of a fast, flexi-ble,
remotely accessible desk-sized computer, called "memex" which would
allow a researcher to electronically search through vast archives of
articles, books, and notes electronically (Bush, 1988). He wrote:


       Wholly new forms of encyclopedia will appear,
       ready-made with a mesh of
       associative trails running through them, ready to be
       dropped into the memex, and there amplified. The lawyer
       has at his touch the associated opinions and decisions
       of his whole experience. The patent attorney has on
       call millions of issued patents, with familiar trails
       to every point of his client's interest. The physician,
       puzzled by a patient's reaction, strikes the trail
       established in studying an earlier similar case, and
       runs rapidly through analogous case histories, with
       side references to the classics for the pertinent
       anatomy and histology. The chemist, struggling with the
       synthesis of an organic compound, has all the chemical
       literature before him in his laboratory, with trails
       following the analogies of compounds, the side trails
       to their physical and chemical behavior.

       The historian, with a vast chronological account of
       people, parallels it with a skip trail which stops only
       at the salient items, and can follow at any time,
       contemporary trails which lead him all over civiliza-
       tion at a particular epoch. There is a  new profession
       of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of
       establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of
       the common record. The inheritance from the master
       becomes not only his additions to the world's record,
       but for his disciples, the entire scaffolding by which
       they were erected.

       Thus science may implement the ways in which man pro-
       duces, stores, and consults the records of the race.
       (Bush, 1988:32).

Bush continued by describing the ways in which the users' ability to
associate items, gather together the useful clusters of infor-mation
that showed up during the search, and "instantly" project any or all of
them onto displays for selective review, fast or slow.

       Presumably, man's spirit should be elevated if he can
       better review his shady past and analyze more completely
       and objectively his present problems." (Bush 1988:34).

Bush envisioned a flexible, compliant research assistant able to
artfully fish through vast archives of textual information and gather
the useful stuff embodied in an uncomplaining ever-ready machine. A
seductive image indeed! This vision was ever more remarkable because
the image of digital computers that dominated scientific writing at the
time -- and even dominates scientific thinking in today's talk about
supercomputers -- was high speed calculation of numerical data.

I could have examined any number of other technological visions -- of
computer based instruction to transform education (Papert, 1980), or of
information systems which would enable managers to more tightly control
their business enterprises, etc. In part, these visions, like Bush's,
rest on descriptions of computer-based devices and their information
processing capabilities. In Fifth Generation , Edward Feigenbaum and
Pamela McCorduck specu-late about several possible applications of
artificial intel-ligence to medicine, library searches, life at home,
and help for the elderly. Feigenbaum and McCorduck speculate in terms
similar to Bush -- by describing how these technologies might work
under ideal conditions to help a person carry out socially useful actions.
But they ignore key social conditions under which these
technologies would be likely to be used.

A remarkably talented engineer, Douglas Engelbart, was inspired by
Bush's vision. About 15 years later, he assembled a brilliant research
team at the Stanford Research Institute to build comput-er systems
which resembled Bush's Memex. At the time, computer technology had
advanced to the point where room-sized computers could be "time-shared"
by dozens of people and accessed through video displays in their
offices. Engelbart described his project "to augment human intellect"
in these terms:

       By 'augmenting human intellect' we mean increasing the
       capability of a man to approach a complex problem
       situation, gain comprehension to suit his particular
       needs, and to derive solutions to his problems.... we
       include the professional problems of diplomats, executives,
       social scientists, life scientists, physical
       scientists, attorneys, designers .... We refer to a way
       of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-
       try, intangibles, and the human 'feel for the situation'
       usefully coexist with powerful concepts, streamlined
       terminology and notation, sophisticated methods       ,
       and high powered electronic aids." (Engelbart, 1963).

Engelbart's team designed a novel system which included technologies
which began to appear in the marketplace in the mid-1980s, such as the
mouse, hypertext, and context-sensitive help available with function
keys. Engelbart's team focussed on computer systems which would enhance
the performance of groups of people working together.  They developed
text systems which allowed different group members to have their own
views of the same body of text. They built an electronic mail system
which enabled people to track messages sent about various topics within
their group. Today, there are some commercial "groupware" systems to
facilitate the functioning of groups by allowing many people to work
with common bodies of text, schedules, etc. Visions like Bush's and
Engelbart's, from which I have drawn tiny excerpts, serve as an
inspiration for many technologists and affectionados of new
technologies.

Visions like Bush's and Engelbart's are also flawed in the way they
characterize technologies, people, and social life. They emphasize the
ways that a technology should work ideally, under conditions where all
the participants are highly cooperative to make things work their best.
Some people call the field which researches and develops computer
systems to support groups activities "computer supported cooperative
work (CSCW)." In this label, the work of groups is implied to be
cooperative by definition. Other kinds of social relationships in work
groups -- such as those marked by  conflict, competition, coercion, and
even combat, are denied to exist by definition.

In a recent issue of PC Magazine, Frank Derfler Jr. (1989) argued that
group scheduling or calendaring software was a critical module of
"workgroup productivity software," although other modules, such as text
processing and electronic mail, are important to make a more usable
system. Derfler goes on to say:

       Scheduling three or more busy people for a meeting,
       along with arranging for a conference room and a slide
       projector, can be a frustrating and time-consuming
       task, requiring at least three phone calls. If one
       person or facility isn't available at the time the
       other people or facilities are, a whole series of
       negotiations begins. Mathematicians refer to it as
       progressive approximation; you (or your secretary
       making the arrangements) call it frustration. Before
       the scheduling problem is resolved, the number of
       people involved and phone calls made may have increased
       dramatically.

       Scheduling programs ... vary in how they confirm
       proposed events. The simpler packages assume that if the
       event fits on the calendar, that the people scheduled
       to attend will be there. Other programs ask for confirmation,
       while some go as far as to tie into electronic mail
       modules for notification.

       .... The best scheduling software is utterly useless if
       people aren't willing to play the game by keeping their
       personal calendars current. Obviously, these personal
       calendars are at the heart of the group scheduling
       process-- calendars that aren't readily available or
       easy to use will never be maintained by group participants.
       With this in mind, it seems imperative that
       these programs allow you to run the personal calendar
       module (interactively while running other programs) and
       make it easy to use (Derfler, 1989:248).

Derfler describes and critically evaluates key features of some major
programs, and describes the best of these packages as dreams come true
for busy professionals and managers. Like Vannevar Bush, Feigenbaum and
McCorduck, he describes how these programs can facilitate various kids
of group activities, such as scheduling, under the best of conditions:
machines are up and running properly; people have immediate access to
the shared system to keep their calendars up-to-date; people actually
keep their calendars up-to-date. Unfortunately, like many journalists,
he does not explain what social conditions make these packages most
effective -- or even usable at all. Derfler's article is titled
"Imposing Efficiency," but he never describes why or how efficiency
would be imposed by anyone involved with the systems he reviews. In
discussing meeting scheduling, he observes, "The best scheduling
software is utterly useless if people aren't willing to play the game
by keeping their personal calendars current." However, he immediately
moves from this central observation to a technical point: that the
scheduling software should be designed so that it can "pop-up" whenever
a person is running some other application. That way, if a person
schedules a meeting by telephone when he is doing something else, like
writing a memo, he can promptly update his electronic calendars with a
minimum of interruption. That's a valid point. But Derfler never goes
beyond the technical observation to examine the social practices of
"imposed efficiencies," specifically the requirement that users accept
and cooperate with the demands of managers who are trying to improve
productivity through computerized systems.



Utopian Visions of Computerized Societies

So far, our examples focus on computer-based systems used by relatively
small groups. But powerful images that link computerization and larger
scale social change have entered ordinary language through newspapers,
popular books, and advertisements. Terms like "computer revolution,"
"information society," "knowledge worker," "computer-mediated work,"
"intelligent machine". These catch phrases have strong metaphorical
associations. They are often introduced by authors to advance positive
exciting images of computerization.

These new terms are often worked into common usage by journalists and
authors who write for popular audiences. We live in a period of
tremendous social changes. And sometimes new terms can help better
capture emerging social patterns or new kinds of technologies, than can
our conventional language. But the way that many authors casually use
these terms often reflects important unexamined and often questionable
social assumptions.

Alvin Toffler, helped stimulate enthusiasm for computerization in these
popular terms in his best seller The Third Wave. He characterized major
social transformations in terms of large shifts in the organization of
society -- driven by technological change. The "Second Wave" was the
shift from agricultural societies to industrial societies. He contrasts
industrial ways of organizing societies with new social trends that he
links to computer and microelectronic technologies. Toffler is
masterful in succinctly suggesting major social changes in succinct
breathless prose. He also invented some of his own terminology to help
characterize key social changes -- terms like second wave, third wave,
electronic cottage, infosphere, technosphere, prosumer, intelligent
environment, etc. Many of his new terms did not become commonly
accepted. Even so, they help frame a seductive description of social
change, as this excerpt from his chapter, "The Intelligent Environment"
illustrates his approach:


       Today, as we construct a new info-sphere for a Third
       Wave civilization, we are
       imparting to the "dead" environment around us, not
       life, but intelligence. A key to this revolutionary
       advances, of course, the computer (Toffler,
       1980:168)....

       As miniaturization advanced with lightening rapidity,
       as computer capacity soared and prices per function
       plunged, small cheap powerful minicomputers began to
       sprout everywhere. Every branch factory, laboratory,
       sales office, or engineering department claimed its
       own.... The brainpower of the computer ... was "distributed."
       This dispersion of computer intelligence is
       now moving ahead at high speed (Toffler, 1980:169).

       The dispersal of computers in the home, not to mention
       their interconnection in ramified networks, represents
       another advance in the construction of an intelligent
       environment. Yet even this is not all. The spread of
       machine intelligence reaches another level altogether
       with the arrival of microprocessors and microcomputers,
       those tiny chips of congealed intelligence that are
       about to become a part, it seems, of nearly all the
       things we make and use (Toffler, 1980:170)....

       What is inescapably clear, however, whatever we choose
       to believe, is that we are altering our info-sphere
       fundamentally.... we are adding  a whole new strata of
       communication to the social system. The emerging Third
       Wave info-sphere makes that of the Second Wave era dominated
       by its mass media, the post office, and the
       telephone - seem hopelessly primitive by contrast.
       (Toffler, 1980:172)....

       In all previous societies, the infosphere provided
       the means for communication between human beings. The
       Third Wave multiplies  these means. But it also provides
       powerful facilities, for the first time in history, for
       machine-to-machine communication, and, even
       more astonishing, for conversation between humans and
       the intelligent environment around them. When we stand
       back and look at the larger picture, it becomes clear
       that the revolution in the info-sphere is at least as
       dramatic as that of the technosphere -- in the energy
       system and the technological base of society. The work
       of constructing a new civilization is racing forward on
       many levels at once (Toffler, 1980:177-178)."

Toffler's breathless enthusiasm can be contagious -- but also stymies
critical thought. Like Derfler, he assumes that key people -- e.g.,
administrators and purchasing agents -- will share his enthusiasm for
the new technologies.  Toffler also ignores cost constraints:  today,
for example, many small colleges and universities are unable to provide
adequate computer support for faculty and students; community groups
and poorer organizations also have trouble affording adequate computer
systems.

Toffler illustrates changes in the infosphere with a large commercial
computer-communication and messaging system which has thousands of
individual and corporate subscribers: the Source (Toffler 1980:169).
Today, he could multiply that example manifold with the emergence of
competing commercial systems, such as Compuserve and Genie, as well as
tens of thousands of individually owned computerized bulletin boards
that people have set up in hundreds of cities and towns.

However, there have been a myriad of other changes in the information
environment in the United States which are not quite as exciting to
people who would like to see a more thoughtful culture. For example,
television has become a major source of information about world events
for many children and adults. The popular television shows include soap
operas, sitcoms, and rock video television networks like MTV.
Television news, the most popular "factual" kind of television
programming, slices stories into salami-thin 30-90 second segments.
Moreover, there is some evidence that functional illiteracy is rising
in the United States. The problems of literacy in the United States are
probably not a byproduct of television's popularity. But it is hard to
take Toffler's optimistic account seriously when a large fraction of
the population has trouble understanding key parts of the instruction
manuals for automobiles and for commonplace home appliances, like
refrigerators and televisions.

Toffler opens up important questions about the way that information
technologies alter the ways that people perceive information, the kinds
of information they can get easily, and how they handle the information
they get. But his account -- like many popular accounts -- caricatures
the answers by using only illustrations which support his generally
buoyant theses. And he skillfully sidesteps tough questions while
creating excitement (such as, "The work of constructing a new
civilization is racing forward on many levels at once.").

Toffler's vision is not dated, however. This is an excerpt from a
recent article by two respected information systems scholars:

       "The office of the late 1990s can now be envisioned.
       Its staff of professionals and managers are surrounded
       by intelligent devices that speak, listen, or interact
       with them to determine what is to be accomplished and
       how it is to be done.  Contacts with other departments,
       other divisions, customers, vendors, and other organizations
       are made with little effort and without human
       intervention.  Behind the scenes, systems are being
       developed by system developers equipped with versatile
       and highly integrated software." (Straub and Wetherbe,
       1989:1338)

This vision is similar to Toffler's, but less poetic. It portrays
computerized information systems and offices similar to a spaceship in
which the crew is highly automated and staffed with robots.  John
Sculley, Chairman of the Board of the Apple Computer Corporation,
recently published an article in Communications of the ACM  which
advocates the development of simulation, hypermedia and artificial
intelligence to strengthen the United States economy and educational
systems (Sculley, 1989). He argued by analogy with the role of print in
the Renaissance. Sculley claims that print technology catalyzed the
Renaissance which broke the stranglehold of the church and feudal
interests on the population of Europe. He argues that computer systems
based on hypermedia, simulation, and artificial intelligence applied to
education are the appropriate means for a similar transformation today.
Sculley's article is typical of some which try to excite a positive
sense of purpose for developers and users of new computer technologies
by referring to big historical changes such as the Renaissance or the
Industrial Revolution. They excite hope for computerization by linking
it to positive social ideals which they anchor in oversimplified and
sometimes distorted historical accounts.

I have spent substantial space examining technological utopianism
because it is a common genre for exploring the social meaning of new
and future technologies. And it is the genre which I believe is most
influential in the technological communities.



                  TECHNOLOGICAL ANTI-UTOPIANISM

There is a relatively small literature criticizing some of the claims
made about the social virtues of different computerization strategies.
The anti-utopian critiques portray computerization -in almost any form
the analyst can conceive -- as likely to degrade social life. (eg.,
Reinecke, 1984; Weizenbaum, 1976; Buesmans and Wieckert, 1989). I will
illustrate this genre with two examples. Weizenbaum's Computer Power
and Human Reason is a complex critique of computerized decision systems
which their users and managers do not or cannot understand. He
amplifies the underside of every computerized system which he
discusses. For example, he criticizes visions of computerized databases
which record historical data (like Vannevar Bush's Memex, which I
described earlier), because they usually elliminate important
information which is too complex or costly to include:

       .... The computer has thus begun to be an instrument
       for the destruction of history. For when society legitimates
       only those "data" that are in one standard
       format, then history, memory itself, is annihilated.
       The New York Times has already begun to build a "data
       bank" of current events. Of course, only those data
       that are easily derivable as by-products of typesetting
       machines are admissible to the system. As the number of
       subscribers to this system grows, as they learn to rely
       more and more upon "all the news that [was once] fit to
       print," as The Times proudly identifies its editorial
       policy, how long will it be before what counts as fact
       is determined by the system, before all other knowledge,
       all memory, is simply declared illegitimate? Soon
       a supersystem will be built, based on the New York
       Times' data bank (or one very much like it), from which
       "historians" will make inferences about what "really"
       happened, about who is connected to whom, and about the
       "real" logic of events (Weizenbaum, 1976:238) ....

Weizenbaum's observations gain more force when one realizes that
journalists don't simply report "the facts." They often rely upon
standard kinds of sources, voices of publicly legitimate authority, in
framing stories. For example, when a university alters a curriculum,
deans and professors are more likely to have a voice in the resulting
news story than are students. Gaye Tuchman characterized reporters in
search of a story as casting a selective "newsnet" around their
favorite kinds of sources. Journalists rarely cast their nets to give
equal voice to all kinds of informed parties. While reporters are much
more likely to go to "the grass roots" today than they were in the days
of Vannevar Bush, each newspaper prints a mix of stories in a style
which reflects a relatively stable character. Usually, Even if the
mastheads were interchanged, one would not confuse the New York Times
with a small town weekly newspaper. Without special design, nothing in
the database technology would be likely to give a user a clue about its
real limitations in representing a narrow range of perspectives. And,
yet, its convenience might make it very tempting for a busy
professional to rely on it as a primary source, without appreciating
its limitations. That is the cautionary note that one might draw from
Weizenbaum's bitter observations. But Weizenbaum's argument is
primarily polemical. He doesn't discuss any virtues of news databases
or conditions under which they might not have the deleterious problems
he identifies. News databases can also substantially assist in useful
research as long as they do not become a sole source of information.
Professional historians who have developed strong criteria for
verifying events with original sources may be less likely to become
their prisoners than many professionals (and students) who find them
efficacious and seductive, despite their limitations. Moreover,
Weizenbaum speaks with authority about future events ("soon a
supersystem will be built...")

Discussions of computerization and work have been a major topic for
both utopian and anti-utopian analysts (see Iacono and Kling, 1987).
Some authors argue that computerization has systematically degraded
clerical work through a pattern of industrialization (Braverman, 1974).
Some go farther and argue that the computerization of clerical work
sets the stage for the industrialization of professional work as well
(Mowshowitz, 1986; Perrolle, 1986).  Mowshowitz (1986) summarizes his
sharp vision in these concise terms:

       Our principal point is that the lessons of the factory
       are the guiding principles of office automation.  In
       large offices, clerical work has already been transformed
       into factory-like production systems.  The
       latest technology -- office automation -- is simply
       being used to consolidate and further a well-established
       trend.  For most clerical workers, this spells
       an intensification of factory discipline.  For many
       professionals and managers, it signals a gradual loss
       of autonomy, task fragmentation and closer supervision --
       courtesy of computerized monitoring.  Communication and
       interaction will increasingly be mediated
       by computer.  Work will become more abstract ...  and
       opportunities for direct social interaction will diminish.

Like Weizenbaum, Mowshowitz writes authoritatively about distressing
future events. He doesn't examine the possibility that many
professionals will use their occupational power to resist the loss of
autonomy and fragmented jobs that he describes. Nor does he examine how
some professionals have exploited computerization to their advantage --
in making their jobs more interesting and complex.  Elsewhere in his
article, he criticizes studies which examine such variations as
concerned with "minutiae." Mowshowitz follows Braverman's line of
argument that (under capitalism), managers will computerize so as to
enhance their control by degrading working conditions. Braverman's
thesis has been subject to significant discussion and found wanting,
because it doesn't account for other processes that shape
computerization (such as enhancing control over expensive resources
other than labor or improving product quality in the face of
competition). Braverman's thesis is anti-utopian insofar as only one
tragic outcome is likely. It is an important line of argument insofar
as it locates computerization efforts within a logic of managerial
interests, and highlights the importance of controlling labor as a key
managerial interest. Utopian and anti-utopian analysts paint their
portraits of computerization with monochromatic brushes: white or
black. The anti-utopians' characterizations of the tragic possibilities
of computerization provide an essential counterbalance to the giddy-
headed optimism of the utopian accounts. The romances and tragedies are
not all identical. For example, some anti-utopian writings examine the
possibilities of computerized systems for coercion, while others
emphasize alienation. But the utopian and anti-utopian genres have some
important inherent limitations which we now examine.



            STRENGTHS and LIMITS of UTOPIAN ANALYSES

I have illustrated some utopian and anti-utopian analyses of
computerization, and commented on some of their strengths and
weaknesses in passing. To what extent are utopian or anti-utopian
visions helpful in understanding the social possibilities of
computerization?  Despite key limitations which I shall characterize
below, I see utopian and anti-utopian analyses as important and
legitimate forms of speculative inquiry. Questions about the social
consequences of new technologies are central to choices about paths for
development, levels of social investment, and regulatory policies all
merit analysis of future possibilities. All such analyses rest on
theories of the interplay between technological developments and social
life. Utopian and antiutopian themes are the most common in this
culture. I will examine important alternatives to utopian and anti-
utopian analyses in the next section -- social realism, social theory,
and analytical reduction.

Utopian visions are sometimes characterized as "reality transcending"
(Kumar, 1987).  They important roles in stimulating hope and giving
people a positive sense of direction. But they can mislead when their
architects exaggerate the likelihood of easy and desirable social
changes. Writing about technological utopianism in the 1930s, White,
Pilgrim and Tasjian (1986:335) comment:

Belief in the limitless future potential of the machine had both its
positive and negative aspects. During the 1930s this almost blind faith
in the power of the machine to make the world a better place helped
hold a badly shattered nation together. ... These science fiction
fantasies contributed to an almost naive approach to serious problems
and a denial of problems that could already be foreseen.

Anti-utopian writing are far less popular. They serve as an important
counterbalance to technological utopianism. But they could encourage a
comparably naive sense of despair and inaction.

Utopian and anti-utopian visions embody extreme assumptions about
technology and human behavior. But their simplicity gives them great
clarity and makes them easy to grasp -- to enjoy or to abhor. They can
resonate with our dreams or nightmares. Consequently, they have immense
influence in shaping the discussions (and real directions) of
computerization. Their simplicity is their greatest strength, and also
a point of entry to some disastrous flaws which I examine now. Conflict

Utopian analysts portray a world which is free of substantial conflict.
Anti-utopians usually portray certain fundamental conflicts such as
between social classes (Mowshowitz, 1976 and 1986) or between
government agencies and the public (Burnham, 1983) as almost
unalterably unbalanced. One side virtually dominates while the other
side mounts negligible resistance. Neither extreme characterizes the
world in which social conflicts are important but in which coalitions
draw complex lines and the intensity of conflict varies in place and
time.

The United States was founded premises that were utopian premises in
the 1700s. The Declaration of Independence asserts that "all men were
created equal" and that they  would be should be guaranteed the right
to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This was in
significant contrast to the political cultures of the European
monarchies of the time, where the rule of the king or queen, and her
nobles, most of whom were elected by heredity, determined peoples'
fates. Of course, asserting this right as universal didn't immediately
make it so.

Utopian ideals are hard to realize. Their advocates often have to fight
hard to change social practices to better fit their ideals. The United
States broke free of the English Crown through a four year war. Almost
200 years later, Martin Luther King and others advanced the cause of
improved civil rights in the United States through aggressive
confrontations: marches, rallies, court injunctions and sit ins, as
well as through more quite persuasion. These social changes which
altered the balance of privilege and exploitation did not come quietly
and peacefully. I have suggested how Sculley underplays the level of
conflict between the Catholic Church and other groups during the
Renaissance and thereby transforms a bloody period into one in which a
key technology (the printing press) became an agent of bloodless social
change.



Distribution of Knowledge

In utopian analyses of computerization, people have whatever skills
they need to adequately use systems and to resolve problems as they
arise. Anti-utopian analyses vary in their accounts of technological
skills. Sometimes everyone is adequately skilled, but are using
technologies in ways that undermine important social values. In other
anti-utopian accounts, many people are confused about key social
relationships and the use of technologies. In these later analyses,
either elites control key skills or sometimes no one has key knowledge
(as in Weizenbaum's account of "incomprehensible systems."). These
accounts rarely portray people's technological skills as being
distributed in complex ways: many people as having adequate technical
skills for some of their activities, and muddling through on others
with help from co-workers or consultants, and being confused about a
few technological activities.



Problems Caused by Technological Development

Technological utopians sometimes recognize that new technologies cause
new problems -- but these are to be solved with additional
technologies. Buckminster Fuller argued that it was difficult and
almost pointless to teach people to drive very cautiously and to harass
them with rigid laws. He argued for safer cars rather than for changing
human behavior. Today's discussions about computerized "smart cars"
rather than smart drivers runs along a parallel line. Technological
utopians would usually rather see government funds invested in
stimulating the development of new technologies rather than increasing
the scale and scope of regulatory bureaucracies.

In contrast, anti-utopians often understate the social value of
technological innovations and the way in which all technologies pose
problems. When motor cars first became popular in the early 20th
century, they were viewed as a clean technology.  Some of the larger
cities had annoying pollution problems from another primary
transportation technology -- horses.  On rainy days, large pools of
horse manure would form on busy street corners, and walking was
somewhat hazardous for pedestrians.  By the 1950s, we began to view
cars as a major polluting technology, since smog visibly dirtied the
air of major cities.



Necessity of Technological Effects

Technological utopian and anti-utopian analysts suggest that the
changes they foresee are virtually certain to happen if a technology is
developed and disseminated. Their arguments gain rhetorical force
through linear logics and the absence of important contingencies. This
causal simplification is, in our view, a fatal flaw of utopian and
anti-utopian speculations. They explore the character of possible
social changes as if they were the only likely social changes.