Information Systems and Technologies are Political - Essay Example

Introduction: In the social life of an organization technology plays immense role. Technology influneces the way of living the life, the way of getting information, way of working, even all basic features of social life. The administration of technologies, decisions related developments and designs have long lasting impact on lives and overall society. Technological advancements bring advantages for some groups and serve some communities with disadvantages; some may do not enjoy these advancements, but some have power and control. Technologies can expose the risk, and hazardous situations to some and some are free from this. The policy of technology is associated with the political problems such as social equality, distributive justice and other considerations. With the passage of time several advancement in technologies has been encountered the reason that has been analyzed behind the advancements is ease and profitability (Grint, & Woolgar, 2013). It has never been considered that technologies are political. To explore this fact is hard and has never find an easy topic. This is a very broad concern, and multiple people are favored by technology (McCarthy 2004). There is no doubt that technology has politics in it and in order to recognize that politics one have to think in the experimental way or have to reveal by the classification of their fittings. In this paper, the concept that technologies are political has been exposed by exposing that fact that technological artifacts have political qualities. This paper has been divided into four sections; the first sections deal with the demonstration of idea that technologies are political, and they have political qualities embedded in them. Second section of the paper includes two technologies and how and in what way these technologies are political have been explained. The third section of the paper consists of the views that users and designers of technologies contain the statement that technologies are political. In fourth section, that is the conclusion, major findings have been presented. Technologies are political: It is the fact that technology is political it does not mean that technology thinks and behave like human, but the behavior of technologies and their nature repeatedly has a similar role. Technologies are utilized to gain the political goals and values. Technology is advantageous for some and brings disadvantages for other groups standing opposite to who are taking advantage.. The political dimension is essential in the production and utilization of technology like ethical dimension. The political effects of technological utilization and political dimension itself are the challenging questions. It is about the politics of technology; it has been encountered that technologies in them have political designs. There are two ways in which the objective can have qualities of politics. One example is in which information systems or technologies are used in order to settle the political and social issues in the community. In such sort of situations, technologies are designed to produce such results that ensure the structuring of engineer human relation, social relations and reinforce vested interests. For example, low-overpass highways are designed to prevent bus traffic. In order to prevent huge crowds from amassing riot-proof campuses are designed; and in order to accommodate people who are on wheelchair inside the walk curb cuts have been designed. These cases are the evidence of political and social interest of technology (Kaplan 2009 & Winner 1999). According to Williams, & Edge, (1996) the second object in which an object contains some qualities of politics is when these artifacts are “intrinsically or essentially political technologies” . Such types of technologies are not flexible and rigid, and these technologies require specific political relationship. These technologies pattern and shape the political relationship such as liberating or repressive, decentralized or centralized, unegalitarian or egalitarian. The strong version of ideas holds that objectives (artifacts) have need of some particular social conditions themselves in order to operate. There are some examples that clarify the concepts that technologies are political, and these political examples include transportation, system of energy, and communication. All of these organizations are hierarchical, had large-scale and centralized and administered by skilled managers (Winner 1980). Technologies do not end up at accomplishing the goals of the organization, but they define possibilities, set limits on practices, condition priorities, comprise environment and infrastructure, and meditate relationship between the natural world, people, and individuals. Due to shared social understanding that structure a wide range of social, human, economic, and political practices and priorities; technologies are stated as political and due to the facts that power is embedded in them and exercised through them. The technical priorities of technologies that are digital communication technologies demands minimal regulation and competition and these technological changes are deeply political themselves and in the way and at the extent they are being accepted reflects the political power’s distribution (Barney 2011). The design of technology does not determine the technological outcomes. It has been encountered that the technological practices and instruments are positioned in economic, social and political environment. The focus is not given in this domain; very limited work has been done. Moreover, researchers have not made enough efforts to demonstrate the political dimension of technology; in order to do detailed elaboration and demonstration of the concept more researches should be conducted The ways in which technologies are political Technologies are built deliberately in a way that they can replace the actions and constraint of humans. These technologies are designed to shape the humans actions. Technology has always been political in a way that it has a lasting impact on societies. It helps in shaping the lives of people and therefore is bound up in the question of democracy, vision of the good life, social justice and freedom. The policies of technology are bound up with the problems of politics such as social equality and distributive justice. Political designs are built into technologies, and these qualities of politics exemplify some particular forms of authorities and powers. It has been determined that technologies in mass societies mediate the bulk of major political communication. The first technology that is considered political is Information System because the production and the flow of information are political processes. Political in the sense is that they are filled with the implication of politics, since decision making is based on relevant information or held accountable to the information that is relevant at least. Therefore, the ability of information control is a core aspect of the power of organization. Information system is political because the political structure of the organization can be observed through information provided by information systems. The information system represents the collective decisions of organizational members (Contractor & O’Keefe 1997). According to Leiser (1997), companies adopt of information system because of political reasons and these adoptions are the reasons of some factors that are facilitated by the power relation because organizational actors use these information systems in order to achieve their goals (Leiser 1997; Dean, Anderson & Lovink 2013); information system projects are highly political process said by Pann and Flunn (2003). The second technology that is political is enterprise resource planning system. It has been determined that implementation of enterprise resource planning system (an integrated computing system which consists of different applications for example, human resources, logistics, marketing, manufacturing, finance and accounting) is political process. Politics is about when one actor influences others (Livermore & Rippa 2011). Like any other system implementation of enterprise resource planning system comes into application after some life cycle stages that disturb their describing such as planning, selection, diffusion, and upholding and from these each stage involves some political activities because each stage goals are different and at each stage some political qualities are put into ERP (Livermore 2012). Koch (2001) examined the fact that enterprise resource planning system is a political program that is used in organizations to bring change; it is not the issue of organizational actors only, but this political program is supported by management consultants, IT suppliers and other communities. It argues that the political role of enterprise resource planning system includes not only flexibility, but resources, geographical distance, social distance, and complicated pattern of negotiability (Koch 2001). Political process includes a number of visions such as logistics economics, and information and decisions and enterprise resource planning system is a combination of controlled visions and supplementary practices and schedules are fixed in the software systems. Enterprise resource planning helps organizations in managing the economic flow through providing financial information, smoothen the material flow through serving with the information related to material, and increase the flow of information (Chiang 2013). What it means for users and designers that the technology is political Technologies plays an immense role in building the relationships and societies utilize technologies without understanding the way technologies shape our lives. User utilize technologies for the sack of social values Politics from the user point of view is to make an influence on something, and they use technology to share their point of views (Panagopoulos 2014). Technology must meet the needs of users and from the user point of view technology is something that shape the social environment through view sharing. Technologies can be taken as political and users take it as international politics such as development of railroads, bombs, and other innovations these technologies can be used in favor of human and can be used to destroy the system. Users use technology for Political information, chat, advertising, and monitoring. Technologies are way to order out communities. It has been examined that considering most technologies as politically natural is mistake. For example, people do not relate the television with politics but find much material on television about politics can be seen, and there is unlimited politically motivated programming. Even most of the time communism is communicated through television. Television is not considered political because these political aspects are not considered. To see politics in technology is not an easy task because these politics are enveloped and to expose the fact that technology is hard. Neutral and unbiased are the qualities that people find in the environment. In history a decision was taken that spectrum was allocated through human decision making rather to use the algorithm this was the political decision because attendants, large governing entities, and legitimacy was required for the enforcement of their decision. Internet utilization is also a political decision because big companies are involved in the cold war and need to have some technologies that can boost their operations. The decentralization of computer systems and cities was a political decision because it was taken to prevent from centralized power. Designers built technologies in order to decentralize the resources and organizations, or they can demand the constant existence of bureaucracies that are large. Intrinsic politics of technologies can be revealed only by the classification that how they have been fitted or by involving in the thought experiment (David 2013; Harbers 2005) Conclusion: The idea that technologies are political has been exposed throughout the paper by giving examples and by providing facts. It has been concluded that to find out the politics in technologies is not an easy task and require efforts but this is the fact that technologies have some politics in them. It has been encountered that technologies have an immense impact on society and to think any6 technology politically natural is a mistake. It has been recognized that in history the major decision regarding technology has been taken were based on politics and technology, users and politics have a significant relation with each other. Two technologies such as enterprise resource planning system and information system have been discussed and how these technologies are political have been presented. It has been considered that communities utilize technologies without considering the way in which they affect the lives. It has been examined that very limited researches have been conducted in this domain. Therefore, it is essential to take steps in order to disclose the fact of the statement; further research may reveal other facts that can be helpful in the construction of view. References: Barney, D. (2011). Communication Technology. UBC Press, Canada. Chiang, M. (2013). Organizational Change in ERP Implementation: A dialectical perspective. The Journal of Global Business Management, Vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 175-185. Contractor, S. & O’Keefe, J. (1997). The Politics of Information Systems Rational Designs and David, B. (2013). The Politics of Communications Technology, 2013. The society pages, Available from: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/05/04/the-politics-of-communications-technology/ [Accessed December 6, 2014] Dean, J., Anderson, J. W., & Lovink, G. (Eds.). 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