Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!limbo!taylor From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling) Newsgroups: comp.society Subject: Article, part 2: Reading 'All About' Computerization Message-ID: <2078@limbo.Intuitive.Com> Date: 17 Jun 91 06:14:49 GMT Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com Lines: 787 Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com Note: This is a long article of about 1420 lines total. 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. -- continues in following article --