Ole Hanseth, Department of informatics, University of Oslo: From Control to Risk. Information Systems as Risk Societies.

The presentation will focus on the motivation and ideas behind an ongoing project (collaboration between LSE and Oslo) and some preliminary results. The project is a follow-up on a previous one whose results are published in "From Control to Drift." The new project looks at information systems design, implementation and use from the perspective of theories about globalization, and in particular Ulrich Beck's and Anthony Giddens' theories about Risk Society and Reflexive. The core of these theories says that up to now modernity (science and technology) has increased our control over processes in nature and society. Currently, however, society modernization has reached a level where side-effects of our actions dominate over the intended effects. This can in a rather simple way be explained by seeing modernization and globalization as integration. The more we integrate, the faster and longer side-effects are propagation. Further, side-effects are unpredictable, accordingly a world dominated by side-effects is an unpredictable one - a risk society. The project that will be presented aims at exploring the side-effects and risks created through the design and use of large-scale integrated information systems.

Välkomna!
Mikael Wiberg