The Social Design of Information Systems

1 Introduction This panel focuses on issues of designing information systems to both account for, and better support, the increasingly social functions that computer-based technologies play. The goal of this panel is to serve as a forum to advance and discuss initial principles for what we are calling the social design of information systems. By social design we mean to emphasize that the presence and uses of information systems play an often significant role in supporting the reshaping social relations, social structures, social boundaries, and social norms. Many such aspects of this reshaping are highlighted in the scholarship of IFIP 8.2 members, and with this panel we seek to focus the collective attention of the assembled scholars to shift attention from Aproblematizing@ the issues with designing information systems toward advancing socially relevant design principles (e.g., Iivari et al. 1998). Issues with information systems design and development have always been a core concern of the IFIP 8.2 community. Since the 1970s, much of the IFIP 8.2 scholarship has focused on illuminating issues and the assumption of organizationally oriented information systems designCoften with a critical stance (e.g., Hedberg 1975). This critical stance is certainly embodied in the rich tradition of critical theoretic