THE SEMINAR

The social and cultural aspects of Information and Communication Technologies were focused during a seminar in Sweden 28-29 May 2001. The seminar was held at Kärrgruvan Conference Hotel, Norberg.

The idea behind the seminar was to discuss the user aspect of computer development.

From different points of view the discussion concentrated on the effects on the individual of Computer-Mediated Communication Technologies. Another idea was to create a comprehensive and lasting network between researchers, postgraduate and doctoral students, representing different universities in Sweden and abroad, and practitioners of the media- and IT-Industry. Briefly, the general approach was:

- the different aspects of the use of ICT and social consequences of its introduction

- the changes of individuals and the construction of life worlds (age, gender, ethnicity, health related questions)

- the changes in social systems (education, games, learning, distance education, pedagogy, legislation, economy, political life,science, art)

- the effects of ICT on globalization processes

- cyber cultures and identity-making

- the political role of ICT-use

- race, ethnicity and cyberspace

- narratives, rhetoric, art and technology

Papers and discussions pointed out new perspectives on a foreseeable future when the relation man-technology successively will be put into the front zone. The participants found that a development towards a human centred technology is a crucial interest, which might stimulate new fields of investigation. In that perspective, the impact of digital power, cyber cultures and the orientation towards a mediated global community is of great interest.

The program committee welcomed the submission of individual paper presentations. Papers were grouped into sessions around a common topic or theme, moderated by the chair.

The program committee at Uppsala University

Mia Lindegren, Co-director, Uppsala Learning Lab.

Ewert Bengtsson, Prof. Centre for Image Analysis.

Jörgen Nissen, Proj.administrator. Department of Pedagogy

Bengt.Sandblad, Senior Lecturer,Department of Information Technology

Mats Lind, Reseacher, Department of Information Science.

Werner Schneider, Prof. Department of Information Science.

Program Co-ordinator

Paul Agnidakis, Department of Ethnology worked as a program coordinator

Chair
For scientific management of the seminar stood Prof. Gösta Arvastson, and Dr Vessela Misheva, Uppsala University. Gösta Arvastson, PhD, Prof., joined the Uppsala University in 1988 and is professor at the Department of Ethnology and its Research Advisor. He has undertaken research on globalization, urban change, new economy and the culturalization of international corporations. His main interest is postmodern theory. He is the editor of two recent books - Det urbana rummet (The urban space,1999) and Järnbur eller frigörelse - studier i moderniseringen av Sverige (Iron cage or making free - studies on the modernization of Sweden 1999). Vessela Misheva, PhD, obtained her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1981 at the Higher Institute of Economics, Sofia, Bulgaria. Her experience stretches from research at The Queen’s College, Oxford, University of Bielefeld, Germany, and University of Oslo. Vessela Misheva was a Research Fellow at SCASSS (The Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences) in the 1990s. For the first half of 1995 she was also a guest researcher at SCORE (Stockholm Center for Organizational Research, Stockholm School of Economics) and at the Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, where she completed her second thesis, Shame and guilt : sociology as a poetic system (2000) In the beginning of 1997 Vessela Misheva was elected as a vice-president of Thematic Group on Systems and Cybernetics of the International Sociological Association (TG01). Her main interest is the identity of sociology as a science; totalitarianism from a systems perspective; a sociological analysis of classical antiquity; the application of and theoretical problems within the theory of autopoetic systems.

/Prof. Gösta Arvastson