Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 The Web as a Techno-Social System
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C HAPTER 2: L ITERATURE R EVIEW
2.1 T HE W EB AS A T ECHNO -S OCIAL S YSTEM
Since the initiation of the concept of the Web, Tim Burners-Lee have pointed out that the key construct of the Web is to “connect.” Indeed, the Web’s ongoing technical evolution and progression over the years have centered on the notion of connecting machines and more importantly, people. Therefore, from a social perspective, the Web can be viewed as a techno-social system (Vespignani 2009) that supports and enhances the processes of cognition, communication, co-operation and collaboration (Fuchs, Hofkirchner et al. 2010). In essence, this techno-social system represents a community that is integrated by the Web (Vespignani 2009). To understand how the Web functions and influences collaborative practices such as co-creation and co-service, it is crucial to establish an understanding on cognition, communication, co-operation and collaboration as well as the relationship among them from the perspectives of the Web.
2.1.1. Cognition
Cognition is a mental process that enables humans to understand and process information (Blomberg 2011). This process enables mental functions, mental processes or thoughts, as well as serves as the foundation of intelligent entities, including humans, collaborative groups, human organizations, highly autonomous machines, and artificial intelligences (Blomberg 2011). From this perspective, it is evident that cognition is the necessary prerequisite for activities involving understanding and processing of information in a techno-social framework. In other words, cognition is the necessary prerequisite for communication, which, when combined with cognition, could form the precondition for the emergence of cooperation (Raffl, Hofkirchner et al. 2009) and possibly collaboration.
The Web is a complex system that links, receives and accesses information (Aghaei, Nematbakhsh et al. 2012). This indicates and implies that the Web’s features and constructs are closely related to cognition. Specifically, the Web both
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enhances cognition and is enhanced by cognition (Fuchs, Hofkirchner et al. 2010).
Specifically, the Web provides its user easily accessible information, which would enhancement its users’ cognition via convenience and accessibility (Smart 2010). In addition, the Web could also organize the information that it has received from its users to create automations that enhances its ability to process information, in other words, its own cognitive process (Verizon 2010). As a techno-social system that enhances cognition, it is evident that the Web would greatly influence and impact other fundamental techno-social processes such as communication, cooperation and collaboration.
2.1.2. Communication
Communication is the process of exchanging meaningful information between groups or individuals participants through the exchange of thoughts or information via linguistic and/or nonlinguistic means including speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior (Keyton 2010). This process requires a sender, a message, and a recipient (Cheney 2011). The sender encodes the idea into a message by selecting the method and medium of communication then sends the message via various mediums that are independent or dependent of space and time (Lunenburg 2010).
Such mediums include paper, social media, television, telephone, e-mail, the Web, face-to-face interaction, etc. (Lunenburg 2010). For instance, if writing was chosen to be the method and papers were chosen to be the medium of communication, the sender would encode the message in words and send the message through the medium, paper. The recipient then decodes the received message into meaningful information. Since communication is a process of exchanging information, effective interaction between the sender and the recipient is strongly dependent on feedback, which enables the participants to determine whether the desired the information is received via the message (Lunenburg 2010). “Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the information society” (ITU 2003) thus, it is apparent that communication is the prerequisite for social processes such as cooperation and
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collaboration (Elliott 2006). Furthermore, the efficiency and effectiveness of cooperation and collaboration is strongly dependent on the efficiency and effectiveness of communication (Elliott 2006).
The ideology behind the Web was to create a common information space in which people could communicate by sharing information (Berners-Lee 1998), thus it is a system designed and built to enhance and facilitate communication. The Web not only enabled and supported the communication between its massive user populations; it has also introduced different communication methods that enhanced and facilitated indirect communications independent of space and time. Thus, the Internet, including the Web not only enhanced and facilitated communication, but has also changed it (Cicso 1998). Such changes in communication introduced by the Web would then impact and introduce changes in social processes such as cooperation and collaboration (Elliott 2006).
2.1.3. Cooperation
Cooperation, also referred to as Coordination is the process of participating agents working together solely to accomplish common goals (Johnson and Johnson 2007). The common goal is a representation and agreement based on mutual benefits of the participating agents (Johnson and Johnson 2007). Cooperation also a process that is dependent on communication; in other words, communication is the necessary condition for cooperation (Fuchs, Hofkirchner et al. 2010). This would then imply that process and outcome of cooperation is dependent on the methods and medium chosen for communication (Fuchs, Hofkirchner et al. 2010). In addition, since communication is dependent on cognition, thus, cooperation is also dependent on cognition. However, although the quality of cooperation is dependent on cognition and cooperation, since the purpose of cooperation is solely to accomplish common goals, it would not enhance the process of cognition and communication (Moll and Tomasello 2007).
Since the Web is a system designed and built to enhance and facilitate cognition and communication of its massive user population, the changes introduced to
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cognition and communication by the Web would also reverberate to cooperative activities performed by its massive user population. Namely, the Web has enabled mass Cooperation as well as introduced new forms of cooperation while enhancing previous forms of cooperation (Cardon and Aguiton 2007). The Web not only enhanced the previously cooperation process that requires participating agents working closely together by introducing convenience in communication and cognition (Matzat 2004); it has also introduced new forms of cooperation between loosely coupled participating agents (Benkler 2007).
2.1.4. Collaboration
Collaboration is a joint effort of multiple participating agents to accomplish common goals. Specifically, it is a recursive process where two or more participants or organizations interact together to realize shared goals (Marinez-Moyano 2006).
In other words, Collaboration is both a process and an outcome that aims to accomplish common goals (Gardner 2005). The collaborative process is a synthesis of different inputs from participating agents and the collaborative outcome is the development of integrative solutions that exceed an individual participant agent’s vision or ability (Gardner 2005). Different from Cooperation, Collaboration not only aims to accomplish the common goal, but also focuses on elaborating the recursive collaborative process (McInnerney and Roberts 2009). Namely, Collaboration thrives on differences and requires the sparks of dissent to function effectively (Denise 1999) since differences and feedbacks provide an opportunity for participating agents to recursively review, revise and improve on current accomplishments (Kroenke 2008). Though different from Cooperation, Collaboration can be considered the enhanced and expanded version of Cooperation since collaboration not only enabled participating agents to accomplish common goals identical to that of cooperation, but also enabled participating agents to accomplish beyond the initial common goals (Laudon and Laudon 2011). In other words, Cooperation is a subset of Collaboration; thus, whenever Collaboration is apparent, Cooperation must occur but not vice versa. Collaboration is a process
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dependent on communication (Elliott 2006), which, similar to Cooperation would suggest that the process and outcome of Collaboration is dependent on the methods and medium chosen for communication (Laudon and Laudon 2011). In addition, since Communication is dependent on cognition, thus, cooperation is also dependent on cognition. Since Collaboration is a recursive process, it is both dependent and influential on Cognition, Communication and Cooperation, which implies that it could enhance and improve the Cognition, Communication and Cooperation process (Laudon and Laudon 2011). Figure 2.1. shows a summary of the relationship between Cognition, Communication, Cooperation and Collaboration.
Since the Web enhanced and changed recursive processes within Collaboration, namely, Cognition, Communication and Cooperation, it would imply that the changes introduced to cognition, communication and cooperation would also reverberate to Collaboration. Not only did the Web enabled the possibility for mass Collaboration between its users, it has also introduced new forms of Collaboration while enhancing previous forms of Collaboration (Laudon and Laudon 2011).
Specifically, the Web has introduced new forms of collaboration between loosely coupled participating agents, allowing them to Collaborate independent of space and time (Laudon and Laudon 2011). An example of such forms of Collaboration would be Stigmergic Collaboration, a collaborative process that joins multiple smaller recursive nodes of collaborative processes into a targeted Collaboration effort (Elliott 2006).
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2.1.5. Collective versus Connective
When participating agents are working towards common goals, there would arise two different modes of operation, namely, the Collective Mode and the Connective Mode. This idea is referenced from two different modes of intellectual social interaction, namely, Collective Intelligence and Connective Intelligence (Downes 2007). Collective Intelligence is defined to be a form of intelligence that emerges from the joint work of many individuals and is “collected” towards a central institution (Downes 2007). Connective Intelligence on the other hand is a form of intelligence formed by individual creation of information, idea and concepts which are then shared with others, connected and re-created and extended based on the interaction (Downes 2007). Therefore, from the definition of the two modes of intellectual social interaction, the Collective Mode is defined to be a form of joint work that “collects” efforts from participating agents towards a central institution in order to complete the common goal. The Connective Mode is then defined to be a form of joint work that “connects” efforts from participating agents without a central institution in order to complete the common goal.
Cognition Communication
Cooperation
Collaboration
Figure 2.6.: Relationships between the four techno-social processes of the Web.
A blue arrow indicates a necessary condition while a green arrow indicates an influence.
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With reference towards the general definition of Cooperation and Collaboration as participating agents working towards common goals, different modes of operation are available for these two techno-social processes. From the definition of Cooperation, since the process does not extend beyond the common goal and is regarded as a collective action (Collinson 2004), thus, Cooperation would operate under the Collective Mode. However, from the definition of Collaboration, since Cooperation is a subset of Collaboration, and Collaboration accomplishes beyond the common goal, thus, Collaboration can operate under the Collective and/or Connective mode. For instance, the Stigmergic Collaboration model would suggest that the smaller collaboration nodes “Collects” information whilst the overall Collaborative process “Connects” the smaller collaboration nodes (Elliott 2006).