Untitled - socium.ge

Reflexive Internet? The British experience 129Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), ran from 1997 to 2002. The22 projects in the program were commissioned in 1997 and came on streambetween October 1997 and February 1998. These 22 projects involved 76researchers located at 25 universities throughout the UK (and, subsequently, atthree overseas). 2The Virtual Society? program was set up to research the implications of thecontinued massive growth in new electronic technologies. It was felt that,although this growth is widely regarded as the impetus for radical changes, thesocial context of the development and use of the new technologies was stillinsufficiently understood. Accordingly, the program was organized around twokey questions. First, are fundamental shifts taking place in how people behave,organize themselves, and interact as a result of the new technologies? Second,are electronic technologies bringing about significant changes in the natureand experience of interpersonal relations, in communications, social control,participation, inclusion and exclusion, social cohesion, trust, and identity?It is important to note that these questions were not articulated as disinterested,solely academic matters of concern. They emerged and were articulatedand organized in relation to a complex context of presumed relevance andinterests. For example, it was recognized that answers to these questions wereincreasingly central to the policy agenda, and have a crucial bearing oncommercial and business success, on the quality of life, and on the future ofsociety. Whereas in the past the pursuit of answers to these questions hadlargely drawn upon technological expertise, it was clear we also needed asophisticated appreciation of their social and human dimensions. In particular,it became clear, especially in communication with the varied range of potential“users” of this research (see below), that these core research questionsneeded careful articulation. For example, a common first response to thesequestions was “of course the technologies are making a difference” where thisseemed to refer narrowly to the changed use of means of technical communication.Thus, for example, it was frequently pointed out that “people” wereusing e-mail massively more than they had done five years previously. It hadto be explained that increases in technological use were not per se the interestingissue. The objective of the research was instead to find out if and towhat extent such increases had made a significant difference to social andorganizational features of our lives.Although some social science researchers were already working in thisarea, much of the effort was spread across disciplines and deployed differingtheoretical perspectives and methodologies. The Virtual Society? programaimed to draw together the disparate research efforts to form a UK sector inthe strategic field of the social context of new electronic technologies. Muchdiscussion about impacts was under way in initiatives such as the UK governmentTechnology Foresight (later just Foresight) exercises but, especially in