http://www.wulrich.com/downloads/ulrich_2001c.pdf

mentions
the use of information systems in the light of Habermas’ theory of communicative action.




re use of information systems in the 

This effort made them recognize that the prevailing description of information systems in technical terms tends to prevent us from fully appreciating their social nature. They refer to communicative practices in organizations which “impose constraints on people’s

Ulrich, W., “Critically Systemic Discourse: A Discursive Approach to Reflective Practice in ISD (Part 2)”, The Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application (JITTA), 3:3, 2001, 85-106.

Werner Ulrich

behavior but which can also be transformed by knowledgeable social actors” (1986, p. 20). The formal and institutionalized nature of IS creates obstacles to such transformations (an observation that fits in nicely with the example of hospital information systems considered at the end of Part 1) Lyytinen and Hirschheim are equally concerned about the fact that “information systems cannot be dissociated from social power as a capacity for getting things done.” (1986, p. 23) As a consequence of these circumstances they diagnose serious “barriers to the use of IS as a discourse” (1988, p. 23f):
The formal nature of communication via an information system ... does not fulfill one of the ground rules for a discourse: the chance to express opinions through argumentation. The institutionalization denies another rule (full symmetry in participation). Finally, the use of IS in organizations does not usually test participants’ opinions as discourse does (except perhaps teleconferencing). Instead, information systems compel their users to act, thus producing particular social relations across time and space. (Lyytinen and Hirschheim 1988, p. 24)
In these barriers they suspect the reason why hardly any IS definition thus far has been based on a discursive concept of action. I understand their paper as an effort to demonstrate how the use of information systems can overcome these barriers. Basically, the authors see two possibilities (1986, p. 24f, italics are mine): IS can serve as “a means of discourse,” that is, provide by themselves discursive opportunities; or IS can be of “use in discourse,” that is, serve as a means for supporting discourses that are going on in their environment independently of their existence.
Information systems may provide discursive opportunities in three ways (1988, p. 24f):

1. They can establish new channels of communication among people across conventional hierarchic and spatial barriers.
   
2. They can render social relationships among those involved more symmetrical, thereby redistributing the social or
   

organizational positions and skills that provide access to information and also allow those who have access to question the rationality of prevailing interpretations.
3. They can produce new information that calls for a critical review of dominant practices and policies and for validating the underlying organizational or social norms and values; at the same time, such new information can support local discourses within the organizational or social environment concerned in criticizing and transforming the practices in question.
Information systems may support ongoing discourses in two ways (1988, pp. 25- 27):

1. The may provide information that can be used as data (in Toulmin’s sense of evidence) or warrant to support argumentation. (The reader may wish to add backings, too.)
   
2. As an indirect consequence of learning to use information systems according to Toulmin’s structure of argumentation, users may also begin to understand information in terms of speech act theory (as communicative or discursive action) rather than in the usual information- theoretic terms (as a reduction of uncertainty) and consequently improve their communicative practices.
   

In conclusion, Lyytinen and Hirschheim (1988, p. 28) postulate that ISD should give more attention to three implications of seeing information systems as related to discourse:
(i) Information systems should facilitate discursive action by the users.
(ii) ISD methodologies should provide “institutional arrangements that approximate the ground rules of rational discourse.” (It remains unclear whether they mean to request this for ISD methodologies only or also for the resulting IS.)
(iii) The implementation of information systems and their acceptance by the users  should be seen as an issue of creating legitimacy with respect to the four validity claims involved, comprehensibility, truthfulness, truth, and rightness.
  


This is not new... what up to date theory?