Social Informatics

Social Informatics (SI) is an interdisciplinary study to explore a function of information in a social system, and to design a system for information exchange in a society. The social informatics aims to promote welfare of human beings in a society.
Focusing on information, SI researchers observe various aspects of human behavior and social systems, and examine various information networks in the society, including an economic information system, a management information system, a political information system, an administrative information system, a life information system, and so on.

1. Auto-Genesis Paradigm

SI proposes an auto-genesis or self-genesis as a paradigm, and employs an operational organization as a fundamental methodology. The auto-genesis paradigm is a new perspective to describe an organizing mode in a society. Supported by the Internet, actors in a society can submit and receive much information and knowledge ever than before. We have to observe such phenomena with respect to human behavior and social systems from a new stand point of view.
The auto-genesis paradigm may provide a proper perspective to observe them. The methodology of operational organization provides SI a visibility and a connectivity among a data structure, an information structure, a knowledge structure, an organizational structure, a societal structure, and moreover a paradigm espoused by actors.

2. Three Major Areas in SI

SI consists of three major theories; i.e. a theory of social system, a theory of information system, and a theory of semantics of social information, as is illustrated in the Figure 1.
In order to provide a basis for social information systems, SI refines these theories and also integrates them into SI. SI discusses the theory of social system derived from the auto-genesis or self-genesis aspect of organizing entity in a society, and on a property of society as a complex evolutional system, referring the theory of information system. For SI, the theory of social system contributes to explore necessity of information systems in promoting social welfare based on the social situation.
SI discusses the theory of information system with respect to distribution and cooperation, or integration and coordination of actors in a society, referring the theory of social system. SI examines the theory of semantics of social information, referring the theory of social system and the theory of information system. In order to integrate a concept of information in humanistic and social sciences with that of natural sciences, SI attaches an importance on a social theoretic semantics of information and on a information theoretic semantics of information. Of the promising approaches are a development of cyber commons, a computational organization theory (Carley & Prietula, 1994), and an engineering of organizational intelligence (Ohta, 1999b).

Fig. 1. A Framework of Social Information Systems (Ohta & Yamamoto, 1995)

3. Characterization of the Social Informatics

(From Ohta, Ishida, & Okada, 2001a)

SI can be characterized in the Table 1. It tentatively illustrates problems and contribution of social informatics.
A digital society is the contents of phenomena to be explored in SI. The digital society has virtuality that is contrasted with reality of society. The virtuality and reality of society, however, are interactively connected for human behavior in the information rich environment. The cyber commons would mediate the connection between them.
How SI can approach the digital society? Simulation and gaming can be a powerful method to explore it. In the simulation and gaming, rules and mechanism of interaction among participants would bring about an emergent rule in the digital society.
How SI can understand the digital society? The digital society can be described as a complex system and organized in a process of constant becoming. Emergence and boundary formulation can be observed as a result of interaction among participants in the digital society.
What is a benefit of SI. SI would provide an institutional design and a systems design. The design can be rooted in the cyber commons, in that it may play a role as a repository of information and knowledge to be developed by participants.

Table 1. A Characterization of the Social Informatics (Ohta, 1999a)

4. References

1. Carley, K.M. and M.J. Prietula (eds.), "Computational Organization Theory," Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1994.
   
2. Ohta, T., "A Cyber Commons: An Exploration of Social Information Systems in a Digital Society," Technical Report of Information Processing Society of Japan, Vol. 99, No. 60, pp. 17-22, 1999a. (in Japanese)
   
3. Ohta, T., "The Japanese Way of Management: A Reminiscence of Professor Takehiko Matsuda," Invited Paper at the Meeting of the International Federation of Operations Research Societies (IFORS'99), Beijing, China, 1999b.
   
4. Ohta, T. and T. Yamamoto, "A Theory of Social Information Systems and its Basic Models," Journal of the Japan Society for Management Information, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 85-98, 1995. (in Japanese)
   
5. Ohta, Toshizumi, Kazunari Ishida, and Isamu Okada, "Cyber Commons and Social Informatics," Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS2001), ISBN 09664183-6-0 (CD-ROM), Paper No. 01-067, Asilomar, CA., USA, 2001a.
   
6. Ohta, Toshizumi, Kazunari Ishida, and Isamu Okada, "A Viable Cyber Commons: An Auto-Genesis World," Proceedings of the 5th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI 2001), Vol. VIII, pp. 376-381, 2001b.