Final accepted manuscript – please cite as:

Smutny, Zdenek. Social informatics as a concept: Widening the discourse.

Journal of Information Science, 2016, 42(5), 681-710. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551515608731

© 2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Social Informatics as a Concept:

Widening the Discourse

Zdenek Smutny Journal of Information Science

1–33
Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic © The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/1550059413486272
Abstract jis.sagepub.com
This contribution examines the different concepts known as social informatics that have historically been separate. The paradigm
that is preferred worldwide (based on Kling) is well described and often promoted, with a strong base both in the USA and Europe.
This article, however, introduces lesser-known paradigms (based on Sokolov and later Ursul) that originated in the era of the USSR
and have so far been employed chiefly in post-Soviet countries, including Russia. These paradigms have been neglected in
English-written scientific literature, mainly because of the limited number of articles available in English. Other approaches are also
introduced and related, which were historically named or classified as social informatics (American, British, Norwegian, Slovenian,
German and Japanese). The present article introduces and further discusses the origin, historical development, and basic
methodological grounding of these approaches. All the approaches are then discussed and their differences as well as their
similarities are pointed out. The aim is to create connections across the current generation of researchers, which includes the
formation and conceptualization of different approaches and an exploration of possible areas for future cooperation.

Keywords
comparison; conceptualization; information society; review; Russia; social informatics; sociotechnical studies; Soviet Union

1. Introduction
The main reason for writing an article that provides an overview of approaches to social informatics is the fact that the
entirety of the Soviet/Russian concept is not well-known in English-language literature. Although in the most recent
book [1] on the subject (2014) Howard Rosenbaum maps out the historical background of the emergence of social
informatics as a scientific and intellectual movement in various countries across the world, his discussion is limited in
scope. The author does mention the Soviet or Russian concept of social informatics, but only in fragments. The
discussion does not extend beyond the 1980s and he only refers to articles by Arkady D. Ursul [2] and Konstantin K.
Kolin [3]. He adds that other versions of social informatics (Norwegian, Slovenian, Russian, and Japanese) and their
outputs are not widely accessible in English, which puts them at a disadvantage in the international intellectual arena.
This article aims to describe the historical background of the emergence and grounding of social informatics in the
USSR, starting in the 1970s, and the development of that concept up to the present day. Other sections compare this
concept with other known perspectives on social informatics and their development. Finally, various opportunities for
future cooperation are outlined. Relevant literature which reflects that development has been selected for the purposes of
this article: Soviet/Russian (or translated into Czech), Czechoslovak/Czech literature and available English literature1.
The majority of original Russian publications used here have not hitherto been used in any other contribution written in
English that is related to social informatics.
In order to discuss (and possibly to connect) the current Russian concept of social informatics on a broader level with
other, more widely-known concepts, it is useful to make a basic comparison of these approaches and their historical
backgrounds. Thus, this article compares and discusses the current or well-known (sometimes already dated) concepts
from the USA, the USSR/Russia, the UK, Norway, Slovenia, and also the lesser-known Japanese and German concepts.
Common ground for cooperation is then introduced, followed by an outline of possible convergence with or divergence
from those different concepts.

Corresponding author:
Zdenek Smutny, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, University of Economics, Prague, W. Churchill Sq. 4, 130 67 Prague 3, Czech Republic.
Email: zdenek.smutny@vse.cz
Smutny 2

The article is then divided into four additional parts. Section 2 introduces the background on which the current
concept of social informatics in the USSR was formed, by considering the differences and the overall content of the
discipline called informatics in Western and Eastern Europe. Section 3 presents the individual concepts of social
informatics, with an emphasis on the Soviet/Russian concept. Section 4 offers a discussion of the Soviet/Russian
concept and its comparison with other known concepts. Conclusions are drawn in Section 5.

2. Different concepts of informatics

The field of study now called informatics has developed differently in Europe, the USA, and Russia due to the state of
computer technology in different parts of the world in the 1960s. That disparity was caused by the bipolar division of
the world in the Soviet Union era as well as the heterogeneous development of computer technology across the world
and the different rates of acceptance of information and communication technologies (ICT) by society in the past fifty
years caused that disparity. As a result of new technologies (computer) and new views of the world (cybernetics,
information theory), new fields of science developed and older approaches were reconstituted in the 1950s and 1960s.
These developments caused the confusion that has continued until the present day. For example, a term which means
one thing in Western Europe might have an entirely different meaning in the USA and yet another meaning in the Soviet
Union – as shown below on the example of informatics.
With the advancement of computer technology in the 1950s, the USA supported the development of university
programmes that used that technology and studied computational and information processes [4]. However, the
universities gave those programmes many different names, e.g. Systems and Communication Sciences, Computer and
Information Sciences. It is mainly because of George E. Forsythe that a single name of this discipline – computer
science – was universally accepted [5]. While the USA adopted the term computer science, in 1966 the French academy
of sciences formally established the term l’informatique (informatics), coined from the words l’information
(information) and automatique (automatic). This term, in the sense of automatic information/data processing, spread to
other Western European countries [6, 7]. However, the first use of the term informatics can be found even earlier, for
instance in a book by the German scientist Karl W. Steinbuch (1957) [8] and a paper by the French pioneer Philippe
Dreyfus (1962) [9]. At that time, the Western European concept of informatics was understood to be almost equivalent
to the American concept of computer science. The implementation of the term informatics and the defining of its field of
interest was not consistent in Europe either. The acceptance of the term by scientific communities in individual
countries varied with regard to how its content was defined, as well as to the time when that happened. While in
Norway, for example, the term informatics was already in common use in the 1980s, in Sweden it was established in the
1990s as a more general term, which replaced earlier, more specific terms such as administrative data processing [10]. It
is important to note that the current understanding of informatics in European countries is broad, and there are slight
differences between individual countries. Informatics also overlaps with the following fields: information systems,
information technology, computer science, and information science [9].
In the Eastern Bloc, the establishment of the term informatics had an entirely different history. Beginning in the
1950s, the Soviet Union was tackling the issue of active use of available knowledge (externalised in the form of
documents) in science and in practice. The principal determinant of success was whether the available information
sources could be used to achieve a particular goal (e.g. scientific progress, economic growth of state companies, or
successful implementation of the five-year plan). The traditional bibliographical methods of storing, searching, and
processing information sources (documents) had proven to be ineffective for the socialist organization of society.
According to the calculations of Soviet scientists [11], each year in the 1960s saw the inflow of 7 billion pages of text
into the information stream, which made processing such a great amount of data extremely problematic. Under such
circumstances, a researcher was able to peruse only a tenth of the literature published worldwide in his or her field. The
accessibility of sources of information and the possibility of their use, whether for scientific research or socio-economic
areas (e.g. centrally-planned economy), was then a problem that concerned the whole Eastern Bloc. With the increasing
volume of potential information sources (information explosion), the problems of processing, accessibility, and
searchability hit Western countries as well [11, 12]. From the perspective of Soviet scientists, the way these countries,
headed by the USA, tackled the problem was unsatisfactory. If a project (which solved a problem) in the 1960s USA
cost less than fifty thousand dollars, it would be carried out again, as it was more profitable than finding the existing
information related to that particular problem [11]. The question remains, to what extent is this example from a Soviet
book distorted by propaganda? From the viewpoint of a socialist society, however, it seemed as though resources were
being wasted, and what had already been invented was being re-invented, which was inadmissible in a socialist society.
Smutny 3

The solution was to find a better way of managing and distributing information, mainly in order to make the progress of
socialism more effective (in practice e.g. by surpassing the plan).
That is why a scientific-informatic process arose from within scientific work, with a view to improving the
availability of information contained in documents, at first mainly for scientists and technicians in manufacturing plants.
In 1965, Alexander I. Mikhailov2 et al. published the collected works from their previous years of research called
Fundamentals of Scientific Information [13]. This book was the basis for a revised second edition called Fundamentals
of Informatics (1968) [14], which became the essential book on informatics in the Eastern Bloc in the early 1970. The
book uses the term informatics, meaning a new scientific discipline that studies the structure and characteristics of
scientific information, the laws of scientific information activity, and the theory, history, methodology and organization
of scientific information. The book itself formulates the subject and the methods of this new discipline, describes the
different types of documents which are the sources of scientific information, emphasizes the use of analytic and
synthetic methods for document processing, and deals with the principles of searching information and the possibilities
of its automatization [14]. In practice, this meant that the area focused on scientific and technical information became
detached from the already established fields of library science and bibliography3; any further development was
independent of those fields. According to Mikhailov, libraries and the new (scientific) information centres that were
being founded were qualitatively different institutions, designed to satisfy different requirements [15]. Library science
and bibliography had – in a socialist society – ideologically-educational aspects: unlike scientists and technicians,
librarians were above all ideological workers and teachers [14].
The roots of the content and themes of this scientific discipline (informatics) in the USSR can be traced back to the
year 1952 in connection with the foundation of the All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical Information
(VINITI) [14, 15, 16]. Originally, this scientific discipline was called theory of scientific information. It was only in
1966 that it was renamed, and the term informatics was established [6, 14] in the Soviet environment. Mikhailov’s
memorandum about the theoretical foundations of informatics, which was sent to a number of countries, followed in
1967 [6]. An anthology of texts about the theoretical foundations of informatics, published in 1969, was based on that
memorandum [17]. In connection with Mikhailov’s concept of informatics, which was narrowly focused on working
with scientific and technical information, the name informatics had in later literature the added attribute of “scientific”
[15]. Both terms – theory of scientific information and scientific informatics – tend to be considered synonymous in later
scientific literature.
There is another perspective worth pointing out concerning the establishment of informatics in the USSR or the
Eastern Bloc. A fundamental feature of original (Soviet) scientific literature published in the Eastern Bloc was the fact
that it had to base new theories and approaches on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The effects of that can be seen,
for example, in the rejection of cybernetics as pseudo-science4 in the early 1950s and its subsequent revival on the basis
of Marxism-Leninism towards the end of the decade. For this reason, Soviet academics were trying to link the essence
of informatics with the basics of the teaching of Marxism-Leninism and its principal representatives, mainly for
ideological reasons. In the case of informatics, this connection entails Vladimir I. Lenin’s thoughts on the functioning of
socialist society in the future: the necessity of providing for the information demand for the purpose of party
management and the building of a new society [18, 19]; and reviving the underdeveloped Russia of the early 20th
century with the help of the newly-acquired scientific and technical information. After 1917, Lenin put these thoughts
into practice, both in order to make the management and coordination of activities more efficient in the post-
revolutionary period and to use scientific findings for an economic restructuring of the new Russia [20, 21, 22]. Lenin is
to be understood in this context as the conceptual founder of informatics, who showed the necessity of dealing with
information demand in a socialist country. Soviet literature recognizes a significant contribution of (i.e. glorifies) Lenin
in the extensive field of governing society with the use of social information (i.e. information circulating within society
and used for the control of social processes) [11]. Despite what has been mentioned above, the term informatics in the
USSR was officially considered to have been established in an article by Mikhailov et al. from 1966 [23], which is also
referred to in other available sources [6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 24, 25].
As opposed to the French term l’informatique (informatics), the Soviet term was coined by adding the suffix –ics, as
was then customary for scientific disciplines (e.g. cybernetics, cosmonautics, economics, statistics, semiotics, etc.).
Mikhailov’s notion of informatics contrasts with the American notion of computer science (cf. [26]) or the Western
European notion of informatics of that time (cf. [9]) [27]. However, even in the Soviet Union, informatics underwent
certain development in the 1970s and 1980s. The initial criticism of the narrow focus of Mikhailov’s concept was later
followed by the emergence of social informatics. In 1976, the academic Andrei P. Ershov presented the idea of
information technology in the foreword of the monograph Informatics: An Introduction (Russian edition). He outlined
the whole field of automated information processing, and he saw the future of informatics as a science in the study and
Smutny 4

the use of information technologies [27]. A new, broader understanding of informatics started to be used after the 1978
International Congress on Information Technologies in Japan. Mikhailov’s concept of informatics then became just one
of the branches of the informatics phenomenon, which was at that time understood on a more general level. In the
1980s, informatics was understood as:

a complex social and technical scientific discipline which studies the characteristics, structures, behaviour, as well as the
construction and transformation of information models in society and in machines. It further studies the information process as a
process of transmission, processing and revision of information and information objects in general in both human and artificial
information systems. Informatics is divided into a number of sub-disciplines according to the nature of the studied process. These
are chiefly: mathematical informatics or mathematical theory of information, linguistic informatics, cognitive informatics or
artificial intelligence, technical informatics, social informatics, scientific informatics (Mikhailov’s original definition of
informatics). [25]

For a better understanding of what the individual disciplines of informatics dealt with, Table 1 gives an overview of
the basic disciplines as they were understood in the Eastern Bloc. It should be added that research findings were shared
and used across the individual disciplines, or an area which was being researched was subsumed under a different
discipline. For instance, scientific informatics used technical informatics. A considerable difference can also be seen in
such terms as software and hardware: instead of these wide-spread English terms, the terms program provision and
technical provision were used.

Table 1. A comparison of the basic disciplines of informatics as they were understood in the Eastern Bloc in the late 1970s and in
the 1980s, after [25] and [28].

Name of discipline Definition of discipline Covered in the following fields

in the West (USA)

Mathematical Studies only quantitative theory of information. Theoretical computer science

informatics (Information theory)

Linguistic informatics Studies the structure of both natural and artificial languages and how Theoretical computer science
they function in the process of communication. (Programming language theory)

Cognitive informatics Studies models of human intellectual and cognitive activities in Applied computer science (Artificial
particular, and their representation in computer programs or intelligence)
systems that imitate intelligent human behaviour.

Technical informatics Studies machine communication, technological aspects of Applied computer science
information modelling, and manipulating information models by (Computer architecture and
means of computer technology. engineering)

Social informatics See section 3.2. – Sokolov’s concept Library and information science,
media and communication studies,
knowledge management

Scientific informatics Studies information communication (transmission, processing, and Library and information science
revision) of special scientific and technical information, develops
methodology and applies those technologies from technical
informatics, which are applicable to individual and social information
processes.

It comes as no surprise that in the 1990s Russian scientists tried to legitimize and promote their understanding of
informatics and its disciplines (including social informatics) at an international level (e.g. at the 2nd International
Congress on Education and Informatics organized by UNESCO, which focused on the foundations of teaching basic
informatics) [3]. The most recent division of informatics took place in Russia in the mid 1990s, and as a result, five
Smutny 5

areas were recognized [27]: theoretical informatics, technical informatics, social informatics, biological informatics,
physical informatics. Informatics thus became a general science concerned with the representation, processing, and
communication of information in natural (physiosphere) and artificial (technosphere) systems.
In summary, the boundaries of informatics and its disciplines are still perceived differently throughout the world. The
definition of informatics depends primarily on how it is understood in a given region, which is in turn determined by
historical context. This discrepancy does not only affect the content and definition but also the terminological
conventions in the individual regions (e.g. the content equivalence of theoretical computer science in the USA with
theoretical informatics in the Czech Republic). For the sake of completeness and as a comparison with the above, it is
important to note in [29] a brief definition of what the study of informatics encompasses in the Western-European
approach (2002), emphasizing the basic aspects:

Informatics is the science of information. It studies the representation, processing, and communication of information in natural
and artificial systems. Since computers, individuals and organizations all process information, informatics has computational,
cognitive and social aspects.

3. Development of individual concepts of social informatics

When looking at the historically significant concepts, there appear to be two approaches that can be traced in literature.
While American authors prefer a division according to countries [1, 30, 31] and introduce the development in the
individual areas, Slovenian authors make a division according to tradition into American-Norwegian and Japanese-
Russian tradition [32] with the aim of conveying the broader consequences in which a particular approach originated.
The nature and focus of the present article calls for a bipolar division. It begins with a summary of approaches to social
informatics practiced in Europe, the USA, and Japan (section 3.1), followed by an introduction to the development of
two Soviet/Russian approaches (section 3.2).

3.1. The concepts of social informatics in Europe, the USA, and Japan

3.1.1. European concepts of social informatics

This section summarizes the most frequently presented European concepts (except in post-Soviet countries) that are
important with respect to forming a Western discourse of social informatics. It is important to begin with the long-
standing tradition of sociotechnical research in the United Kingdom. Its origins date back to the post-war era when the
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations was founded in London in 1946. Three years later the first contribution was
published, and it focused on the theory of sociotechnical design based on studies that had been carried out as part of
British coal industry. A restructuring was taking place in the sphere of coal mining, and new technologies were being
introduced, which had a considerable impact on the workers. Sociologists from the University of Liverpool also did
pioneering work in the field of British industrial sociology. The principal goal of this new research area was the
optimization of social and technical systems (as well as business and management research) [33]. This tradition was
connected with similar projects and research carried out in Scandinavia at the same time [33, 34]. A prominent figure of
British sociotechnical research was Enid Mumford, whose work focused on sociotechnical systems. With respect to the
theme of this article, this work was mainly in the area of systems design and needs analysis (see [35, 36]). One of her
major contributions was the methodology called Effective Technical and Human Implementation of Computer-based
Systems (ETHICS) [33, 34, 37], which was then further developed and adapted [38].
In connection with this development, the so-called sociotechnical approach started to gain ground in the USA and
Western Europe in the late 1960s, replacing the technological determinism in the field of information systems that had
been preferred earlier [39]. The basic assumptions of this approach are a mutual constitution of humans and
technologies (the interconnection of these two components) and a contextual grounding of this mutuality (all
technologies are socially embedded, e.g. in an organization). Important in the field of information systems are the
so-called collective activities of social groups, whose different goals create conflict. The aim should therefore lie in
searching for the aims of individual groups as well as common interests, which have to be interconnected with the
(organizational) context and technological elements [40].
The principle of mutual constitution of humans and technologies is what distinguished this approach from the
formerly applied social and technological determinism in particular. The former approach emphasizes the fact that ICT
were created in order to fulfil the needs of an organization, but it refuses the possibility of technologies having any
specific effect attributable to the quality of these technologies: success depends entirely on people’s decisions as to how
Smutny 6

the needs of an organization are to be fulfilled. The latter understands technology as an external or independent variable
which affects the behaviour of an entire organization and creates predictable organizational changes. The principle of
mutual sociotechnical constitution does not emphasize either one of these aspects [41] (see also relevant papers [42,
43]).
Sociotechnical research in the UK (Europe) and social informatics in the USA shared some common interests, such
as information systems design with an emphasis on social/institutional context [1] or the topic of computerization of
movements [44]. Due to the historically related content basis of both approaches, social informatics stirred up so much
interest that the first working group was established at Edinburgh Napier University shortly after the introduction of
social informatics in the USA [31, 44, 45]. An important promoter of social informatics in the UK has been Elisabeth
Davenport, who – shortly after her return from Indiana University, where she had worked with Rob Kling in the early
1990s – founded the aforementioned research group, the present-day Centre for Social Informatics. This centre is
currently lead by Hazel Hall, who has also cooperated with Indiana University since the late 1990s. This cooperation
shows how the UK was influenced by Kling’s perspectives on social informatics and the work of his colleagues (and
vice versa). Current sociotechnical theories in the field of information systems also include social informatics [41].
The main groups and centres of social informatics in the UK are: Centre for Social Informatics (Edinburgh Napier
University), Social Informatics Research Unit (University of Brighton), and Social Informatics Cluster (University of
Edinburgh). The British Computer Society – Sociotechnical Group is also among the relevant interest groups. Besides
these specific centres, further multidisciplinary research takes place at a number of universities in the fields of Science,
Technology, and Society; there is also cooperation with the centres listed above – namely the University of York,
Newcastle University, University of Manchester, and the Oxford Internet Institute [46]. Research activities and studies
often focus on Internet-related phenomena: individual, collective, and institutional behaviour on the Internet; relation to
digital media and social networking; understanding of the social processes shaping the production, consumption, and
use of information in contemporary organisations and society; and other [47].
Nordic countries [31] – especially Norway – have a strong interdisciplinary tradition in the field of sociology,
computer technologies, and later internet studies. The Norwegian School (referred to as the Scandinavian School in
[30]) and its concept of social informatics was first mentioned in the early 1980s at the University of Oslo, where the
subject of communication (including human and computer) was dealt with by the team around the sociologist (and later
also a cognitive psychologist) Stein L. Bråten. In 1983, he published the book Terms of Dialogue in Society Dominated
by Computer [48], which he put – thematically – at the junction of sociology and informatics; for that reason he
introduced the term social informatics (a field which would study the newly-defined area). His book was a collection of
his articles from 1973-1982, and it concerned the relationship between information technology and personal,
organizational, and cultural change. Despite the title, it was the perspective of psychology (personal level) that was
important in his concept of social informatics [49]. The research carried out by Bråten and his colleagues, including
Kristen Nygaard (the creator of the first object-oriented programming language Simula) [50], focused on modelling
interpersonal communication, for which they used computer technology.
Social informatics was recognized by the Norwegian government as a new field of study in 1984 [51]. The concept
of social informatics from the perspective of sociology and communication caught on, evolved (thanks to Ingar Roggen,
for example), and was taught at several Norwegian universities. However, under the pressure of new phenomena, it then
transformed and became limited to individual subjects. In Norway, the current promoter of social informatics is Per A.
Godejord, who has taught social informatics at Nesna University College and Nord-Trondelag University College for
the past 15 years. The only field of study currently taught that bears the original name is Health and Social Informatics
(helse- og sosialinformatikk) at the University of Agder. Recent papers [52, 53] draw attention to the importance and
benefits of cooperation between health and social informatics. In Denmark in 1985, the University of Aalborg created
the study programme humanistic informatics (humanistisk informatik) under the influence of the Norwegian School.
This programme has also undergone a lengthy development, the focus today being on media communication,
information systems, and information science, with an emphasis on the issue of using information technology in the
humanities.
Independent of the development in Northern Europe, a similar development was taking place simultaneously in
Yugoslavia (Slovenia), where, in 1984, the University of Ljubljana set up the study programme social informatics
(družboslovna informatika), also approached from a sociological perspective. Teaching sociology is at the core, and this
is supplemented by courses on mathematics, statistics, informatics, and methodology. Those courses provide the basis
for the study of social aspects of information technologies as well as for the design of information systems. At present, it
is possible to study the subject at the postgraduate level at this university, and this department is considered an important
European centre for social informatics [51, 32]. Since social informatics as a field of study has been taught there for
Smutny 7

thirty years, it can be considered the world’s oldest social-informatics-related study programme that has continuously
been taught under this name [54]. In their current view, social informatics is a multidisciplinary science that strives to
understand social aspects of information and communication technologies [32, 55], and this concept continuously
develops [32]. In his article, Vasja Vehovar also tried to introduce a unified definition or delineation of social
informatics, bringing together the known approaches, by making a threefold division of the main research areas [45]:

 Interaction between ICT and humans at the personal, organizational (micro), and social (macro) level.
 ICT applications in the social sciences. This means computer modelling of social science data, information
systems and e-business applications in the social sciences, and a structuring and conceptualization of the
information content.
 The use of ICT as a tool for studying social phenomena. This means computer (intensive) methods for the
statistical analysis of social science data, computer-assisted data collection, ICT tools for manipulating,
organizing, analysing, and presenting social science data.

The German concept of social informatics is probably the most recent European concept that has neither influenced
nor been influenced by the above-mentioned approaches applied in Europe or elsewhere (no mutual references at all
were found). This is a geographically limited concept originating in Germany and preferred in German-speaking
countries. Just as the Japanese concept of social informatics mentioned below is interconnected with the Japanese
concept of socioinformatics, so is the German concept interconnected with the German perspective on socioinformatics,
which is discussed in section 3.1.3 in connection with the development of socioinformatics and the approach to social
informatics in Japan. The German paradigm of social informatics is narrowly focused on the use of ICT in social work
and social economy (non-profit organizations, social enterprises and charities) [56]. The origin of this concept can be
traced back to the 1980s, which is when the first studies focused on utilizing computers in social work were carried out
in Germany [57]. The term social informatics (Sozialinformatik) itself only appeared in the mid 1990s [57, 58]. This is a
geographically restricted definition of social informatics which has been used in Austria, Switzerland and particularly in
Germany since 2000. Other countries also responded to the issue of using ICT in social work. The term social
informatics is used in this context in the article [59] from 1995. However, the use of ICT in social work and the
connected issued underwent a development [60-62] and later the term social work informatics [63] arises – using ICT in
social work management and practice.
The study programmes themselves are newly established and not quite unified. This concept of social informatics is
thematically based mainly in the field of social work and the research tradition of this field in Germany [57], which is
focused on the study and the improvement of the quality of life of both individuals and social groups. According to the
German concept, specialists in the field of social informatics should combine a profound knowledge of information
technology management and applications with the knowledge of the social sector and thus help increase the effectivity
and quality of social work and to carry out complex administrative tasks. This includes researching areas such as online
communication, computer and internet addiction, using Web 2.0 applications or e- and b-learning [57]. At the centre of
social informatics research lie phenomena related to humans who are surrounded by technologies that assist them in
their lives and fulfil their needs. One such example could be the proposed systems based on the idea of ambient assisted
living [64], which are supposed to create better living conditions for the elderly and for disadvantaged people. Despite
what has been mentioned, it must be added that Kling’s concept of social informatics is known at some German
workplaces – see [65, 66]. Those workplaces are, however, focused purely on informatics, not concerned with social
work and in this sense do not refer to the German concept of social informatics which is applied mainly in the fied of
social work.
Apart from the above-mentioned significant departments, local initiatives in Europe and elsewhere also contributed
to the spread of social informatics, including, for example, two Central European ventures. Starting in 1992, Budapest
University of Technology and Economics taught a course on social informatics designed especially for electrical
engineers as an important complement to their technical education [67]. The objective of the course was to expand their
knowledge of the social subsystem. This involved mainly the evaluation of social empirical data for the purpose of in-
depth examination at the level of information flow. A book about social informatics [68] was published in 2008 as a
teaching aid. Another venture took place in the Czech Republic, former Czechoslovakia, and in the course of forty
years, it saw the replacement of one concept by an entirely different one, also called social informatics. Social
informatics started to develop there in the 1970s within courses that were part of the library science and bibliography
study programme at Charles University in Prague. A restructuring took place after 1989, which brought about the
emergence of information science as a study programme that subsumed the existing library studies. Teaching of the
Smutny 8

Soviet concept of informatics was terminated, including Sokolov’s concept of social informatics, which is discussed
below. For the first time after more than twenty years, social informatics (referring to the American concept) was
accredited as a study programme within applied informatics at Masaryk University [69]. It should be added that in Italy
in 1990 was also published a book [70] which uses the term social informatics to mean the information management of
an organization. The most comprehensive survey of study programmes and courses taught at universities across the
world can be found at a website kept by Vehovar and his Slovenian colleagues [71].

3.1.2. Concept of social informatics in the USA

Currently the most widely acclaimed concept of social informatics worldwide was defined in the USA. The
fundamentals of this approach were laid by Kling in 1996 with his colleagues and students from Indiana University and
it was based on research and studies in the field of informatics as recognized in the USA (i.e. computer plus information
science [72]), information systems, and sociology. Until his death, Kling was a great propagator and advocate of this
discipline, which is why this approach is referred to here as Kling’s concept. The beginnings, however, can be traced to
the 1970s and 1980s and the turbulent development of areas related to computers, particularly artificial intelligence and
information management or company information systems [73]. Shortly after receiving his doctorate, in the 1970s,
Kling was already trying to criticize [74] the “positivistic” approach to ICT, as evidenced in his articles [75-77]. This
period in the USA was exemplified by the optimism of Marvin Minsky, who predicted in 1970 that within three to eight
years artificial intelligence would reach human level and would thus be able to read Shakespeare or tell jokes [78]. A
similar view was also seen in the practical use of computer technologies; there prevailed a “naive determinism” in the
sense that the more computers were in place in an organization, the greater the effectivity of work and the greater the
saving of financial resources [78, 79]. Kling’s approach was very critical of this technocratic view, and his empirical
observations revealed a number of problems (mainly the so-called human factor) that often brought about the exact
opposite conclusion – see also his articles [80-85]. This was parallel to the gradual shaping of Kling’s idea of a new
field that would, among other things, analyse sociotechnical interaction with an emphasis on ICT. A pivotal insight of
Kling’s approach was that ICTs do not exist in either social or technological isolation [86]. On the contrary, people
create the technologies in question for their own use, and it is necessary to find an appropriate way of developing and
taking up the new technologies into the social framework of an organization or a society (see also the sociotechnical
approach in section 3.1.1).
Research in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom was also inspirational. In the UK, there has existed a long tradition
of sociotechnical research [87] at a similar level with an emphasis on social constructivism and theories of actor-
networks [30]. In the area of social analyses of computing, there has existed a discourse between scholars from the UK
(UK Association of Information Systems), Scandinavian countries (Information Systems Research in Scandinavia), and
the USA (Urban Research in Information Systems) [30]. In 1989, Kling met Bråten and Roggen at the University of
Oslo [1], and they introduced him to the field of sosialinformatikk (originally called socio-informatics according to [88])
[50]. In 1996, Kling and his colleagues5 discussed the name of the delimited domain of the interdisciplinary research
they had been doing. The name social informatics was among the proposals, and it may have been based on the previous
encounter with and influence of the ideas of the Norwegian School [1]. In the USA in the late 1990s, social informatics
was formed. Among the first significant contributions in which the newly-established concept and the term social
informatics appeared were mainly [89-93]. It still focused mainly on the interactions in the feedback system of an
organization and the information and communication technologies (from the institutional perspective), with an emphasis
on the interrelated changes of their structure in time. The delimitation of social informatics itself, including the content
of research, was further promoted by Kling and his colleagues in a number of publications, which formed a conceptual
framework – e.g. [30, 86, 90, 91, 93-99].

Social informatics (Kling’s concept) – Social informatics is understood as the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and
consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts. [78]

The empirical foundation of social informatics laid the groundwork for the creation of two methodologies for
revealing the conceptual framework of the world – Socio-Technical Interaction Networks (STIN), although Kling calls it
a conceptual model [95], the terms methodology [100], approach [99] or strategy [1] are also used – and a theory of
users as social actors [96]. The conceptual grounding and the creation of research methodology and tools in the final
years of Kling’s life (1996-2003) made possible an unprecedented diversity in terms of areas of application in the study
of sociotechnical systems [1]. This diversity concerns mainly the areas of information systems [101-103], management
[104, 105], education [106], communication studies [107], sociology [108], anthropology [109, 110], and library and
information science [111, 112]. Shortly after Kling’s death came a critical reflection of the existing approach to social
Smutny 9

informatics [78, 113], as well as perspectives for future orientation [100, 114]. What brought together researchers from
different areas was the issue of understanding the complex relations between the design and the use of ICT in a
particular social context, including those social factors that affect where and how a given technology can be used. The
topics using a social informatics approach expanded to other areas in connection with the increasing pervasiveness of
the Internet and the new, ubiquitous technologies. Such view of social informatics deals rather with practical problem-
solving than with creating explanation theories [94, 115]. Research thus includes three main orientations and their
possible combinations according to [94]:

 Normative orientation relates to research which aims to create and recommend alternatives for professionals
who are going to design, implement, use or introduce ICT. The aim is to influence the practice by providing
empirical evidence of various outcomes which occur during the interaction (work) of people with ICT in a
number of organizational and social contexts.
 Analytical orientation refers to studies which produce theories about ICT in an institutional and cultural context
or on the basis of empirical studies designed so that they contribute to theorization
 Critical orientation refers to the study of ICT from multiple perspectives with a view to finding and evaluating
the advantages and disadvantages of the use of a given technology in a certain context. It refers to examining
ICTs from such perspectives that do not automatically and uncritically accept the goals and beliefs of the
groups that commission, design, or implement specific ICTs.

Rosenbaum [1] adds five principle prerequisites that define the knowledge core of the American version of social
informatics:

(1) A sociotechnical system includes both technical artefacts (software, hardware, infrastructure) and social
components (people, organizations, norms, policies, etc.).
(2) ICT does not exist in technical or social isolation, but it is embedded in complex and dynamic social, cultural,
organizational, and institutional structures.
(3) Components of sociotechnical systems are continually re-shaped on the basis of their interaction.
(4) ICTs constantly evolve, are scalable and configurable, and can be in the course of time used in a social or
organizational context different from that for which they were originally designed.
(5) There is a discrepancy between popular and professional statements about the social value and the use of ICT
on the one hand, and the reality on the other, which is based on a critical empirical perspective.

The authors of the article [116] made a visualization of the connections within literature published between 1997 and
2009. According to their research, the largest number of social informatics works was published in Journal of the
Association for Information Science and Technology, while the author co-citation patterns revealed a core group of
scholars commonly cited together. On the basis of this visualization, they reveal a continued coherence of social
informatics as a domain – for this topic, see also [117]. After a period of development and expansion (the 1990s) and of
coherence (2000-2005), during which time social informatics was not only acquiring a concrete shape but was also
becoming robust and unified, there follows a period of diversification (2006-present), according to [1]. In the period of
diversification, researchers use diverse approaches and perspectives when solving similar problems, and they focus on
the particulars of their research (e.g. economic impacts, social aspects) [40]. Thus, they create multi-theoretical
frameworks that define their work. Madelyn Sanfilippo and Pnina Fichman [1] divide current work according to the
basic principles applied into: sociotechnical, original principles of social informatics, critical perspectives, and social
aspects of ICTs. The current definition of the field by American researchers spread to other countries because of the
diversification and the discourse with foreign scholars (mainly from the UK). This change was also reflected in the
formulation of the content of social informatics as a discipline:

Social informatics (the current concept as given on the Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics website) – Social
Informatics refers to the study of social aspects of computerization, including the role of information technology in social and
organizational change, the use of information technologies in social contexts, and the way in which the social organization of
information technologies is influenced by social forces and social practices. [118]

3.1.3. Socioinformatics and the Japanese concept of social informatics

Scientific literature [30, 32, 45] contains sporadic mentions of the Japanese concept of social informatics, which is
sometimes identified with an approach called socioinformatics (also socio-informatics or socio informatics) [1, 32]. The
Smutny 10

study of available Japanese and worldwide sources raises important questions: Are the two approaches understood as (to
some extent) independent scientific disciplines? And what is the possible connection between them? From those
questions further queries arise: If both the concepts are equivalent in terms of content, then why is there a study
programme called social informatics at some Japanese universities and socioinformatics at others? Why does
socioinformatics also appear as an independent field at other universities across the world, with no direct reference to
social informatics? For these reasons, the field of socioinformatics will first be introduced, followed by its connection
with social informatics in Japan.
Socioinformatics – as it is understood in Germany – studies the social impact of interactions between humans and IT,
which makes software an important part of sociotechnical systems. Thus, a need for new modelling approaches arises in
order to understand the interaction between IT systems and humans, organizations or societies. The research
goal/objective of that research is the design of computer applications in support of social systems and integration with
human and social dynamics. To get a better idea of the themes addressed by this discipline, it is important to consider
that at the 43rd annual meeting of the German Informatics Society (Workshop on Socioinformatics) the following topics
were discussed: socially-minded traffic management; the social dimension of information ranking; integrated modelling
and the evolution of social software; social network analysis in the enterprise; assessment of the structural fluidity of
virtual organizations and its effects; and others. Some of these topics are also relevant for the German concept of social
informatics.

Explanation of the term socioinformatics – In the early days of computer science, software was mainly a simple product which
made a well-known process faster and less prone to error. For example, without word processing software, all texts had to be
written by hand or typed on a typewriter; every mistake required starting all over again. Software enabled the typist to simply
erase the wrong letters, leaving the rest of the document intact. Today, collecting data and processing it digitally is so fast that
processes emerge that have no equivalent to the processes of the pre-computer era, for example the decentralized organization of a
power-grid fuelled by renewable energy sources. IT systems thus have an unprecedented influence on us as individuals, on the
organizations we are embedded in, and on society at large—together we build a so-called sociotechnical system; these systems
have to be carefully designed in order to be acceptable for humans. [119]

Important centres for the study of the field of socioinformatics are located in Germany (International Institute for
Socio-Informatics in Bonn, University of Kaiserslautern), South Africa (Stellenbosch University in Matieland), and
Japan (Chuo University) [120-123]. In addition to a number of symposia and conferences in the field, two scientific
journals exist: International Reports on Socio-Informatics (published in Germany) and Journal of Socio-Informatics
(published in Japan). Socioinformatics is another area that lacks a consensual development and understanding of its
content across different countries. As is shown below, the development and the concept of socioinformatics in Japan is
different than in Germany.
The historical background from which the concept of socioinformatics originated in Japan tends to be linked to the
foundation of two Japanese associations in 1996 [124] (Japan Association for Social Informatics – JASI; Japan Society
for Socio-Information Studies – JSIS). Tamito Yoshida [124] describes them as socioinformatic, from which we can
judge that the term socioinformatics is broader than social informatics. In addition to that, both the associations
established the aforementioned journal, which is open to contributions from the field of both social informatics and
socio-information studies. The two associations merged together in 2012, creating The Society of Socio-Informatics
(SSI) [125]. An active development of socioinformatics can only be seen after 2000 [126]. The original concept of
socioinformatics was built upon media-related aspects (information exchange) of present-day information society; it
deals mostly with communication and social relations, social application of information systems, and methodologies
used for the research of information in an information society. However, this is a very broad idea today, including
philosophical (infosphere) or biological (biotechnology) aspects of information influencing society at various levels
(from micro to macro level) [124, 127]. In spite of that, the current concept is not firmly defined except by its central
moment – information in the social context of the time. Socioinformatics has the following aims [128]:

 To resolve diverse aspects of the production, circulation, accumulation, and utilization of information in the
society.
 To restructure theoretical frameworks of social systems from the perspective of information.
 To seek new relations between the new information and communication networks and the social system.

It is essential that the Japanese concept of social informatics (社会情報学) as part of socioinformatics is understood
as informatics focused on the study of society from perspectives that are not precisely defined. No specific methodology
Smutny 11

is established here; instead, emphasis is put on a systemic approach in which the goal determines what methods are to be
used. It is a multidisciplinary field consisting of informatics and relevant disciplines from the domain of humanities as
well as natural science. Kyoto University is an appropriate illustration of this. There are – subsumed under research in
social informatics – various associated disciplines from the areas mentioned above: formation of social systems based
on information networks; investigation of interactions between human society and the biosphere environment; training
people to use information technology in various areas; the processing and analysis of biosphere resource data; and
digital contents and information access architecture as social information infrastructures [129, 130]. Also applied there
is a unifying approach called fundamental informatics, which generalizes results of the study of information in various
areas of science [131]. This approach is based on broader philosophical and cognitive foundations and aims to offer the
conceptual basis of diverse information-related academic fields. Another relevant illustration is the social informatics
course at Aoyama Gakuin University, which joins together areas of the humanities (e.g. applied economics, theories of
organizational psychology, knowledge management) and information science/informatics (e.g. theories of computer
networks, data systems) [132]. This Japanese concept of social informatics also influenced the understanding of this
discipline in Poland. Social informatics is taught there at graduate level at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information
Technology and this program is suitable for university graduates in the fields of management, economy, sociology,
psychology, culture studies, biology, politology and related subjects [133]. Contact between Japanese and Polish
academics has been maintained since the early 1990s. The limitations of the view presented here must be noted, as it is
based only on materials available in English.
In view of this flexible and purpose-specific scope of social informatics, with the inclusion of less traditional fields of
interest – such as philosophy of information or sustainable development (interaction of the biosphere and society) – in
this Japanese approach, Slovenian authors [32] introduced the geographically-paradigmatic Japanese-Russian concept.
In their article [32], the authors admit that they are not aware of any direct cooperation between the two countries in the
field of social informatics. However, they justify their connection by pointing out the similarity of the concepts,
particularly the embedding of untraditional areas in the context of social informatics in both. The survey of available
sources for this article also did not reveal any mutual references. The similarity of Japanese and Russian concepts can be
partially explained by their general approach to informatics. Cooperation (discourse and exchange of opinions) has
existed there since the Soviet era (see section 2), because Japan was the technological leader in information
technologies. In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union made a number of adjustments in their concept of informatics towards
generalization. They also created disciplines focused specifically on the study of information processing within the
framework of other scientific disciplines.

3.1.4. Convergence of concepts

Despite the fact that the concepts listed above offer different perspectives, they still have certain basic approaches and
topics in common (e.g. the relation between society and technology). This congruence allows for further development at
the global level – e.g. at conferences and symposia. A global perspective on the individual research topics within
geographically or historically distant concepts creates an intuitive, unifying view. Researchers with distinct knowledge
of their own subjects can – on the basis of their partial knowledge of other research topics – understand the other
concepts as being very similar or even equivalent to their own. This allows for discourse at least on the level of finding a
practical solution to a particular problem or topic.
From the global perspective, concepts that are known to one another (sharing and adopting views and approaches)
converge. From the local perspective, on the other hand, individual concepts (principles, methods, views) diverge. In
terms of globalized scientific research, this is a continuous process. Significant endeavours on the global level include
the venture of Vehovar and his colleagues: raising awareness of social informatics among researchers through the portal
social-informatics.org, as well as an article [45] in which they tried to offer a unified view on the concepts and
approaches known and used at the time. The summarizing publications in English by Sawyer, Rosenbaum, and
Davenport [1, 30, 31, 46, 87, 98, 99, 115] must also be noted. It is endeavours such as these that make individuals and
research communities aware of similarly-named concepts, enabling mutual inspiration. In this sense, the following are
among important topics currently developed in Western concepts: processing and evaluation of extensive (social) data
[134, 135]; application of sociotechnical and social informatics approaches [136-138]; and life and environments online
[109, 139-143]. Individual research activities focus on understanding changes and dynamics at a social or organizational
level in the context of specific sociotechnical systems.
Another – and not entirely satisfactory – view is a possible subsumption in terms of defining more narrow/specific
concepts within broader ones or in terms of reference to the fundamentals of other concepts. From this perspective, it
can be said that the Slovenian concept adopted that of Kling. Then, as a result, their own approach has been subsumed
Smutny 12

and then further developed, dealing mainly with questions related to socio-scientific research according to the tradition
of this field (i.e. ICT applied to the social sphere and as a tool of social research) [45]. Social informatics in Norway is
conducted at the level of individual subjects within social sciences (e.g. digital studies) or as part of new programmes
that have included social informatics (Kling’s interpretation of it) in their platform, such as community informatics
[144] or digital humanities, which use computer technology to support research in humanities. Because of the
interdisciplinary interconnectedness of humanities and technical areas, social informatics in Scandinavia has lost its
original identity that was established in the late 1980s.
Sociotechnical research as such is an integral part of social informatics [1], and dialogue in this area has been
conducted mainly between researchers from the USA and the UK. It is in the UK that Kling’s concept is well-known
and put into the context of earlier sociotechnical research [87, 145-147]. But each concept supported by a community
will still try to retain a certain uniqueness or tradition, and it would, therefore, not be proper to subsume or even simply
combine individual concepts. Instead, it should be noted that their diversification at the local level takes them into areas
shared by other concepts, which causes convergence at the global level.
It is problematic to categorize the Japanese approach, which seems to be the most general, or not primarily restrictive
(as opposed to the directivity/specificity of Western concepts). Japanese researchers are far more open to Western
concepts and ideas, which is evidenced by the articles [148, 149], in which the authors define knowledge areas and
topics that should be covered by social informatics from the perspective of international discourse with a reference to
Kling. Slovenian authors [32], however, include this concept in the Japanese-Russian tradition. They include it on the
basis of its similar focus and output, due to the isolation caused mainly by the language barrier; this and other direct
connections are misleading.
In spite of that, communication is to be found on a global level (conferences), which shapes the Japano-Euro-
American dialogue. One example is the International Conference on Social Informatics – SocInfo (see articles in [150-
152]), which has since 2009 published the results of (mainly) applied research in the field of social informatics.
According to the conception of this conference, social informatics unites mainly informatics, social sciences, and
management. A similar discussion forum is the ASE International Conference on Social Informatics, which is attended
by scholars from Japan, Europe and the USA [153]. Both the conferences cover a broad range of approaches to social
informatics in these countries: computational social science, human and cultural dynamics, social signal processing,
social behaviour modelling, social intelligence, social cognition, social media analytics, human-computer interaction
and interface design, emotional intelligence, data mining and machine learning in social contexts, privacy and security
in social contexts. Significant at an international level is the Belgian professional society Institute for Computer
Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (ICST), which focuses on supporting research,
organizing conferences and publishing international journals dealing with the individual topics within social informatics
[154]. As to the Euro-American dialogue, the Annual Social Informatics Symposium organized by the Special Interest
Group in Social Informatics (SIG-SI) of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) provides
additional international collaboration [46].
It is such conferences and professional societies that establish international connections and enable the sharing of
knowledge. At present it is difficult to find any strictly limited research that would be typical only for a particular
concept or geographical area (with the possible exception of Germany and Russia), which only confirms the
aforementioned convergence of concepts and international cooperation. A current trend in this kind of research at an
international level is the shift from micro-level to macro-level research. While the macro-debate on a particular problem
used to be connected with individual micro-studies in the past, there are large-scale data sets currently available, which
make it possible to study problems/issues at a new level [1]. This concerns mainly approaches based on larger-scale
modelling and empirical work relying on large-scale data sets of social traces (e.g. localization, digital traces as emails,
web logs, documents, images etc.) [1, 139, 155], the analysis of large-scale infrastructures (e.g. e-health, e-government)
[156-159, 47] and e-science [46, 134, 160] or internet studies/research [161-164]. This shift is connected mainly with
the availability of quantitatively and qualitatively new data suitable for research purposes. This trend in research is
currently followed in a number of countries, although it is not always explicitly connected with the field of social
informatics. Among the main implications of this trend is the changed relationship between the critical attitude of social
informatics and its increasing reliance on empirical methods [165]. Another research domain of social informatics
directly connected with macro-level research is the application of information and communications technologies in
social research. In this area it concerns mainly the study of current social phenomena (e.g. the digital divide, the use of
modern technologies by the elderly, social networks, e-learning) [155, 166-169].
It is surprising that even in such a significant European country as Germany there can develop – independently of the
international development during the past 20 years – an entirely isolated concept referred to as social informatics, in
Smutny 13

spite of the above-mentioned argumentation towards divergence on local level and convergence on global level caused
by communication between scholars. Although this research builds upon the German tradition of research in social
work, its focus (the issues it deals with) falls within the broader context of social informatics on global level (there is a
thematical closeness particularly with the current Slovenian research in the field of social informatics – see [166, 167]).

3.2. The Soviet and later Russian concept of social informatics

The main goal of this section is to introduce the origin, development and understanding of social informatics
(социальная информатика) in the Soviet Union and later in Russia. Informatics as understood by Mikhailov et al.
dealt predominantly with finding the most suitable means of processing and distributing scientific information (in the
form of actual physical publications and documents). Scientific information refers to such information that is gained in
the process of understanding the world (the work of a scientist or technician). It concerns logical information reflecting
the principles governing the objective world – this information is then used in social practice [14]. In this view, the
value (for a particular subject), relevance or truthfulness of the information – i.e. the qualitative aspect – is ignored. At
the beginning of the 1970s, there was already criticism [6, 170] of the version of informatics, narrowly focused on
scientific information, introduced by the group around Mikhailov. This criticism resulted in the emergence of the
discipline of social informatics, represented by Arkady V. Sokolov et al. The term and its content was defined in 1971 at
the Leningrad Institute of Culture (Department of Informatics). This new interpretation put the emphasis on social
information systems, in which human-made qualitative evaluation of information plays a major role [171]. What
appeared in this new concept, along with the theory of scientific information (scientific informatics), was the theory of
social information [11]. The term theory of social information was understood in scientific literature as equivalent to
social informatics [6], but in (political) philosophical treatises it also referred to the issue of information government of
society in connection with Marxism-Leninism [172].
According to Sokolov, it was necessary to widen the framework of the research subject of Mikhailov’s informatics,
which was conditioned by two factors: the fact that scientific research demanded an increasingly higher degree of
generalization of information and the fact that information services had an increasing influence on the spiritual essence
of personality. Scientists required not only scientific and technical information, but also economic, journalistic,
aesthetic, and other kinds of social information. Sokolov assumed that in such a situation, informatics cannot be
restricted to the study of scientific communication [15]. Within (scientific) informatics and scientific information,
information services provided information that could not be optimized; they could not take into account all aspects of
the communication of information in society [170]. Social informatics was understood and constituted as an integrating
and generalising discipline within the framework of the cycle of social communications sciences. This means that it
processed social information from otherwise independent fields (see Figure 1), then generalized them and distributed
them back. Social informatics drew that information from constitutive sciences that were needed to create generalizing
concepts. Constitutive sciences could then use those concepts for the development of their theoretical apparatus. Soviet
literature tended to label social informatics as the metatheory of information service. To put something like that into
practice was very difficult in the former Eastern Bloc. Not only was it difficult in terms of technical support for the
(interdisciplinary) communication itself, but also with regards to formulating the content of the discipline, which would
be distinct from that of other disciplines. Sokolov’s concept of social informatics can also be interpreted as a criticism of
the strict detachment of the areas of scientific and technical information and the creation of information centres in
opposition to libraries. This interpretation was an effort to re-establish the severed cooperation and connection between
informatics (i.e. a field concerned with scientific and technical information) and library science and bibliography.

Sokolov’s concept of social informatics – A discipline of social science which studies the qualities, structures and behaviour of
social information models and processes. That is, transmission and processing (revising) of information in human and artificial,
particularly institutional information systems of society. As an applied discipline of informatics, it uses the results of its other
disciplines (mainly linguistic and technical informatics) to optimize the information process in society. The object of social
informatics is information communication in society. As a theoretical system it is an integrative discipline of its specialized fields
(see Figure 1). [25]

An important term in the context of Sokolov’s concept is social information, defined as the content of a piece of
information used by the society and circulating in the society through information channels [24]. He distinguished
between mass information (journalistic, aesthetic, reportorial – meant for all members of society) and specialist
information (scientific, technological, plan-economic) [15]. Social information itself was the main object category of
social informatics but as such was not its object. In other words, the specific object of social informatics consisted of
Smutny 14

separate categories: object category (findings, primary information), subject category (author, reader), procedural
category (information operations), institutional category (information institutions and systems), etc. Thus, social
informatics studied information attributes, information relations, and information structures in social information
processes and its separate areas [25].

Figure 1. Social informatics (Sokolov’s concept) as a theoretical system in the 1980s integrated its disciplines. At the same time, for
the purpose of automatization of information processes, it used results of work done in the field of technical and linguistic
informatics. Based on [25].

Social informatics also gained popularity in other Eastern Bloc countries. For example, in Czechoslovakia this
concept picked up the development in the field of library science and bibliography [173], and as a result, Sokolov’s
concept was further developed [15] and taught at universities at the level of subjects [25]. Considerable rivalry, on the
other hand, existed in the field of informatics in the Soviet Union. Cejpek [6] distinguishes between the Moscow School
– scientific informatics (represented by Mikhailov and his colleagues Arkady I. Chernyj, Rudhzero S. Giljarevskij) and
the Leningrad School – social informatics (represented by Sokolov and his colleagues Anatoly I. Mankevich, Tatiana N.
Koltypina). Both these branches of informatics would – from the present-day European perspective – fall within the
scope of library and information science. In addition to that, Sokolov’s concept touched upon media and communication
studies. From the perspective of social informatics, their relationship can be understood as a part (scientific informatics)
and the whole (social informatics). Mikhailov, as the director of VINITI based in Moscow, was in a much better
position in this ideological struggle with Sokolov – Sokolov’s approach was not given much emphasis in the informatics
circles. In spite of the fact that Ursul mentioned Sokolov’s concept of social informatics and criticized it in his
publication from the early 1990s [174], Kolin – whether deliberately or not – made no mention of Sokolov’s concept
either in the historical development of social informatics, in which he dated its beginnings back to Ursul [3], or in the
historical development of informatics in the Soviet Union and later Russia [27]. He only wrote about Sokolov as one of
the critics of Mikhailov’s narrowly-conceived informatics. That criticism was considered one of the main reasons that
led to changes in the understanding of informatics in the late 1970s in the USSR (see section 2). In another Russian
source from 2012, Andrei V. Chugunov introduced the entire development of Sokolov’s concept of social informatics
from the 1970s on and named him as the founder [175]. This may have been an echo of the rivalry between the Moscow
(Kolin) and St. Petersburg/Leningrad (Chugunov) School.
Scientific informatics ended with the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc in which it was entrenched. The topics it dealt
with then moved into the fields of (library and) information science as understood in the West [176]. Sokolov’s concept
was revised by Ursul in the late 1980s in Russia, and the teaching and development of it was discontinued in other
countries of the Eastern Bloc.
Smutny 15

A significant phenomenon which affected most concepts of social informatics was the penetration of advanced ICT
into society and the related orientation towards information society and the process of globalization. In this respect, it
concerned mainly computer technology for automated processing of information. It is therefore suitable to introduce this
process of computerization from the perspective of the Eastern Bloc, in order to be able to follow the changes in the
approach to social informatics and its transformation in the 1980s.
While the introduction of computer technology was gradual in Western countries, where it was restrained by
technological development and market rules, the situation was entirely different in the Eastern Bloc. Personal computers
in the Eastern Bloc became more widely accessible only in the mid-1980s, which was when a massive production of
computers commenced, most often based on copies of the Intel 8080 processor. One of the reasons for the initial lack of
accessibility was the fact that the distribution of computer technology among the population interfered with the
totalitarianism of the communist regime; specifically, this included the difficult control of small consumer technology
and the danger of copying and distributing prohibited publications [6]. Until that time, only large networks of business
organizations and research institutions used computer technology within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
(CMEA) [177]. The Unified System of Electronic Computers project was developed from 1969 to 1998 (after 1989 the
project continued only in some of the post-Soviet countries) to deal with communist concerns. But the huge financial
means required for obtaining medium and large mainframe computers, as well as the gradual miniaturization and
increasing capacity of computers, led to a demand for smaller and cheaper computer systems. Thus, the System of Small
Electronic Computers project was developed from 1974 to 1989. In such projects, the access to computer technology
was controlled within individual organizations to prevent unauthorised use. In 1988, the Soviet politburo, headed by
Michail S. Gorbachev, adopted by decree the Scheme for the Development of Information Society, which in practice
brought about a massive expansion of information technologies into all areas of the economy [175].
As one can see, this shift in availability of computer technology had a direct correlation with other changes in society
(relaxing censorship, freedom of speech) immediately preceding the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. In the Eastern Bloc,
this comprised a sequence of qualitative changes, rather than gradual development. This sequence was markedly
reflected in the contemplation of an orientation towards information society in the late 1980s in the Soviet Union. The
new interpretation of the field of social informatics by Ursul was also related to those changes. In his article [2] from
1989, Ursul openly criticized the unsatisfactory state of the socialist society. And he went on to discuss the changes
brought about by personal computers in both social and research contexts, as opposed to computers which had hitherto
been used only within corporations and research organizations with restricted access.
By an extension or modification of Sokolov’s original concept, a new concept was created that used the same name
(social informatics), but its scope was rather different (i.e. it emphasized the impact of computer technology). Ursul6
introduced it in the late 1980s as an issue related to the informatization of society [178], in connection with the topic of
the noosphere7. The noosphere can be described as the space of reason or thinking, and it is concerned with the world
and the way humans as cogitative beings interfere with it (form it). It includes both animate and inanimate constituents
of nature. Such notion of human activity should lead to sustainable development, which is also what Ursul’s works
pointed to (e.g. [179] or more recently [180-182]). The entire historical development presented above is summarized in
the timeline in Figure 2.

Ursul’s concept of social informatics – The subject of social informatics as a field of science is the patterns (regularities) and
trends of interaction between society and ICT, e.g. the impact of informatization on the society (information process) and the use
of informatics in the society (social orientation of informatics). [174]
Smutny 16

Figure 2. A timeline showing the important moments connected with the development of the Soviet/Russian concept of social
informatics. The upper part schematically shows the origin and the development of the Russian approach to informatics.

His shift towards the notion of social informatics itself (emphasizing the qualitative change of the environment
inhabited by the society – computerization and the related informatization) was gradual. Starting in the 1960s, Ursul
focused mainly on the issue of information at a philosophical level, particularly on the nature of information and the
relation of information theory to the theory of reflection8, which was then preferred. Ursul published his thoughts on this
topic chiefly in his books: The Nature of Information [183] and The Theory of Reflection and Information [172]. In the
following books [184, 185], he touched upon the informational aspects of contemporary science (subjective-objective
relations), philosophico-methodological examination of the concept of information, and the introduction of a
classification of social information. In his works defending his concept at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, Ursul
criticized the original concept created by Sokolov. He had a critical view of the typical approach to scientific
informatics, which was still rather technical and limited to a relatively small number of specialists. He understood
Sokolov’s concept as a mere extension of Mikhailov’s concept through the addition of a socio-humanistic component.
In the area of information processes, Sokolov’s theory of social information focused predominantly on professional
information processes in the form of information supply for the society. This was supposed to satisfy both individual
and social needs for information. However, a negative impact was the narrowing it caused because it disregarded other
kinds of information that affect the formation of a person’s or a society’s knowledge framework. In his approach, Ursul
included all kinds of information processes carried out by any user, not just information specialists. He thus grounded
social informatics more in the field of social sciences, which also included its methodologies, such as interpretation,
despite the fact that he emphasized the central role of ICT in the process of transforming the society. According to
Ursul’s original thoughts, social informatics should focus on two important points:

 Information processes sociotechnical systems supported by ICT – Informatization, that is the introduction
of information and communication technologies into social processes for the purpose of enhancing the
knowledge potential of the society and ensuring its development, changes the environment and particularly the
very information processes in society [186]. This gives rise to new ways of creating, processing, and
distributing information, including the increase of data/information availability. These changes, at the level of
the artificial environment (technosphere) which surrounds us, need to be studied from broader perspectives
with an emphasis on guaranteeing a continuous development of the humankind. This involves the issues
focused on theoretical (philosophical) aspects and future development of information society.
 Social orientation of informatics – Social informatics should also study the human (psychological aspects) or
social (sociological aspects) perspective on informatics, as well as the interaction between informatics and
socially-oriented sciences. These aspects emphasize humans (society) and their transgressions – the change of
Smutny 17

capabilities and behaviour as a consequence of using information technologies, including changes in the
approach to research activities of these sciences. Computer and information literacy or information safety, for
instance, is among relevant topics.

Ursul first understood social informatics broadly, as a part of the noosphere, and in this manner he developed further
ideas mainly towards ecology and sustainability. This approach is currently advocated primarily by Kolin at the Russian
Academy of Sciences (Institute of Informatics Problems); he focuses on the phenomenon of information society and the
issue of informatization of society and information literacy [3].
Ursul offers a rather holistic view on the subject of informatization and the progress towards an information society,
as opposed to the practical possibilities of the use of social informatics. Kolin’s (generalized) interpretation sees social
informatics as formed at the boundary of several natural sciences and humanities. Furthermore, he views it as arising
from the society’s current need to create a scientific basis for the postindustrial society. This means that the fundamental
problem of social informatics as a science is the issue of coordinating the society’s development and its global
informatization. The main goals of the study of social informatics should be the identification and analysis of new
opportunities of the advancement of humans and society. Such studies should also consider the new reality of
informatization, as well as new (current as well as future) threats and dangers for the society’s survival, [3, 187, 188].
Kolin also introduces four areas of interest: society’s sources of information, society’s information capacity, the
information society and people in the information society.
Kolin is well aware of the problem of the current direct application of the research of this philosophically composed
notion, which he excuses by the ongoing formation of this discipline. In contrast, he points out the successes achieved in
the fields of philosophy and fundamentals of informatics. A significant success of this concept can be seen in its
practical connection to the Russian Federation’s system of university education, in which social informatics has been
incorporated into the broader framework of teaching informatics [189, 190]. An extensive handbook has also been
created for the purposes of teaching [191], and it is included in practical education. The main objective of the handbook
is to provide the students with a comprehensive view on the main processes of development of the global information
society. They will thus be able to connect and understand information, socio-economic and psychological problems, as
well as solve them with the use of advanced information technologies. The discipline focuses on educating engineers
and forming their system competence in the field of the development of the information society, as well as their modern
scientific view of the world [3, 187, 188, 192]. Forming a knowledge framework of the current and future generation
through teaching topics related to information society, emphasizing new problems connected with information society,
and teaching systematic thought and problem solving are among the important practically-oriented results of the current
Russian concept of social informatics [193-197]. Kolin also lists in his article four current challenges for social
informatics [3]:

 The question of the development of electronic sources of information and their effective use in various
areas of society.
 A systematic study of the global information society based on knowledge and related questions of technology,
economy, education, and culture.
 Examining new possibilities for the development of humans in an information society, including their
intellectual, creative, and moral qualities.
 The study of new threats and challenges in the area of information security and human society (see also Dmitry
Zinoviev book in English [198]), which includes the study of new phenomena, such as the digital divide,
cybercrime, computer diseases, mind control, virtualization of society or information warfare.

This view is inseparable from its negative aspect at the level of active scientific development. Ursul’s approach
subsumes social informatics under the concept of noosphere, which brings with it a distant goal. This goal should be
furthered by social informatics. This direction can be characterized as follows: The availability (ICT) and the ability to
acquire information (computer literacy) will bring about an informational development of the society (informatization)
as well as an intellectual and humanistic restructuring of all human activity. Further social progress will be made on this
basis with a view to creating the sphere of reason – noosphere [179, 180]. However, these ideas stand in the background
of social informatics. Their development by other authors like Kolin points in the direction of a variety of visions for the
future shape of the (information) society, but they devote less attention to finding practical means of their fulfilment.
They emphasize the necessity of a systemic view when solving the outlined problems. This typically results in articles
(or critical essays) with vague content – see [3, 174, 178, 179, 199-202]. There is a noticeable tendency towards a
Smutny 18

continual repetition, reinterpretation of older works and, regrettably, also an emptiness of the topic. In conclusion, it is
important to include the current Russian definition:

The current Russian concept of social informatics – Social informatics is a scientific discipline which brings a systematic study
and analysis of the processes of collecting, processing, storing, organizing, distributing and using information in the socio-
economic area, including the processes of transformation of social relations and social institutions under the influence of
information and communication technologies. [175]

Post-Soviet countries have centres of research or education that focus on social informatics the way it was established
in the Russian-speaking world in the 1990s. The greatest degree of application in university education can be found in
Ukraine, where there are three centres pursuing this direction. National Aerospace University N. E. Zhukovsky offers
specialization on social informatics, which combines informatics, sociology, psychology and economy. Similarly, this
specialization can be studied at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and Kharkiv National University of
Radio Electronics. Research at the latter focuses primarily on [203]:

 Formation and implementation of a creative and innovative way of thinking and systematical world-view as
grounds for noosphere and information society.
 Development and teaching of systematical, knowledge-oriented cognitive methods, technologies, and
instruments of efficient decision-making in social problems.
 Decision-making in complicated non-structured qualitative tasks taking into account information semantics.
 Adjusting information and analytical support of business systems for their stable development and competitive
growth based upon knowledge management and information resource formation and implementation.
 The development, use, and implementation of a scientific picture of the world and the problem areas through a
systematization of knowledge based upon the systematical approach.

In Ukraine, there prevail technically-oriented workplaces, which extend the study mainly at postgraduate level by a
multidisciplinary connection with social sciences. The content of social informatics in Russia is currently dealt with on a
broader basis of informatics-oriented disciplines. There are no specializations or study programmes labelled social
informatics. Social informatics can be found instead in individual courses – e.g. at Lomonosov Moscow State University
[204] or ITMO University in St. Petersburg [175]. A more pro-Western approach, on the other hand, can be found in
Lithuania. Faculty of Social Informatics had existed there for five years (2008-2013) at Mykolas Romeris University
before it was transformed into the Faculty of Social Technologies. The disciplines taught there are not influenced by the
Russian concept, and they focus on social sciences and humanities with new information and communication
technologies [205], according to a similar Scandinavian research focused on digital humanities.

4. Comparison and discussion

The approaches presented here, which are either called social informatics or fall within that stream, always reflect the
time and place of their origin – as can be seen in the brief overview of the concepts in Table 2. The individual concepts
originated in different social, political, economic and technological contexts, which is especially true when comparing
Eastern (mainly Soviet/Russian) and Western concepts of social informatics. On the basis of the overview presented, the
current position of social informatics in the world can be understood. Many differences, changing in time, have been
pointed out earlier in the text. Next, it is important to consider the synergic effects behind the form of social informatics
that is currently preferred across the world. The convergence of Western approaches including the Japanese approach
was discussed in section 3.1.4; the discussion emphasized the diversification of concepts on local level and convergence
on global level. This was the basis for introducing the international framework of social informatics built upon mutual
communication (Japano-Euro-American dialogue) and for outlining the trends in this research. What follows is a brief
summary of the influence which the individual approaches to social informatics had on one another, towards the current
international discourse.
Smutny 19

Table 2. Basic comparative overview of the approaches presented here which are called social informatics or related
to it (in chronological order).

Period of foundation;
Country Original name;
of origin Who first used the term
and/or specified the concept
Soviet Union Early 1970s; Social informatics
(Cоциальная информатика);
A. V. Sokolov et al.
Default view
Current focus of the approach
(disciplines it was based on)
Library and information science, Ursul’s concept is currently
media and communication preferred.
studies, knowledge management

Norway Early 1980s; Social informatics, Sociology, psychology, It exists as part of other
also translated as Socio- sociotechnical research sociotechnical disciplines.
informatics in some sources
(Sosialinformatikk);
S. L. Bråten

Slovenia Middle 1980s; Social informatics Sociology It is focused on the use of ICT as a
(Družboslovna informatika) tool for studying social phenomena
and ICT applications in social
sciences.

Soviet Union / Late 1980s; Social informatics Information science, philosophy, It is focused on interaction between
Russia (Cоциальная информатика) informatics, education, society and ICT with emphasis on
as extension of the original knowledge management global sustainable development,
concept; A. D. Ursul education and philosophical overlaps.

USA 1996; Social informatics; Information science, information It is focused on social aspects of
R. Kling et al. systems, computer science, computerization – their institutional
sociology and cultural contexts.

United Kingdom Middle 1990s; Information Sociotechnical research, Current widespread Kling’s concept
systems design as a part of sociology with emphasis on established
sociotechnical research elements of sociotechnical research.

Japan Middle 1990s; Social informatics
(社会情報学) as part of Japanese
socioinformatics
Media and communication
studies, information science
Not strictly defined, but the original
area of interest was information in
the social context of the time with
emphasis on information and
communication networks, social
system and information exchange.

Germany Mid/late 1990s; Social
informatics (Sozialinformatik)
connected with the German view
on socioinformatics
Social work, social economy
Only in German-speaking countries,
does not refer to any other concepts
mentioned here. The concept is
narrowly focused on the use of
information and communication
technologies in social work and social
economy.

European concepts in the 1980s are based on the view of sociology at the time: from the perspective of the study of
sociotechnical interaction, as well as from the perspective of automated processing of social-science data. Along with
the above concepts developed in Norway and Slovenia, it is important to mention again the relevant sociotechnical
research conducted in the United Kingdom [30, 87]. Research in the field of Science, Technology, and Society was
similar in other Western European countries as well. From today’s perspective, the influence these intellectual
movements had first on the formation of Kling’s concept (Norway, UK), as well as later when spreading the awareness
of social informatics in the world (Slovenia), becomes clear. It is not just this parallelism of approaches in the spirit of
Smutny 20

postmodern science that provokes further discussion. The gradual crystallization of opinions makes it possible to adopt
basic attitudes and move towards a broader consensus. One can follow various story lines that influenced one another
and gradually intertwined. Sociotechnical research in the UK influenced Scandinavian countries, including Norway,
where a new field was later defined – social informatics. The Norwegian School together with the sociotechnical
research in the UK are important elements that influenced the future American concept. Kling’s concept which emerged
is strong, and it reflects the influence of both intellectual movements and further diversifies. It is this concept that in turn
influences not only European but also international perceptions of social informatics and enables it to be established and
developed in other countries on solid foundations. This central line is joined by the Slovenian concept, which further
develops particularly the social aspects of using ICT; this community tries to connect not only relevant research
activities but also the community of scholars concerned with social informatics (even if it is from different
perspectives). Thanks to the close cooperation between Polish and Japanese scholars, the Japanese way of understanding
social informatics also appears in Europe. So far isolated in the Western European context is the German concept of
social informatics, which is one of the most recently developed approaches. The final important act directed towards a
broad discussion are the international conferences, where scholars from many countries of the world, including Japan,
share their views and opinions (as well as other conferences where social informatics is the focus, mainly of
workshops). The major conferences are listed in section 3.1.4.
Among the concepts mentioned above, the American, i.e. Kling’s concept has a privileged position. It diversified
after 2006 (influenced mainly by other Western concepts) [1, 45] and thanks to a large scholarly base there has also
been a great expansion of research activities [1]. This is why it has now become a broad platform for relevant research
in the field of social informatics, which includes an extensive theoretical grounding. This platform, built upon mutual
communication and the sharing of knowledge and approaches, more or less unites the American, British, Norwegian,
Slovenian and Japanese approaches to social informatics. In terms of communication, the German and Russian concepts
remain isolated. This interpretation of Kling’s concept is understood as a scientific and intellectual movement across
different countries, a broad platform or an international framework (discourse).
To demonstrate the use of the term social informatics within various paradigms worldwide, Table 3 shows notable
workplaces across the world. It must be emphasized that Table 3 does not attempt to provide a complete list of all
workplaces in which social informatics is in some form the subject of instruction or research. The reason for this is the
problem, probably encountered by the authors of [31, 45], of what is to be included in social informatics. This gives rise
to expressions such as “social-informatics-like” or “multidisciplinary research relevant for social informatics” in those
cases when the courses do not refer directly to social informatics. The overview given below introduces organizations
from around the world which can be looked up on the Internet, in which there is at present explicitly taught a study
programme or course called social informatics, or which carry out some research with an explicit reference to social
informatics. The most comprehensive survey of current or former research centres, study programmes and courses
taught at universities across the world relevant to social informatics can be found at the above-mentioned website [71].
Smutny 21

Table 3. Selected centres and workplaces across the world where social informatics was explicitly taught in 2015 (in a study
programme or a course with this name) or which carry out research that refers to social informatics. This is not a comprehensive
list. A more extensive list can be found in [45, 71], which also mentions workplaces concerned with the areas that fall within social
informatics as part of other disciplines (social-informatics-like research) or relevant multidisciplinary research.

Country Name of organization (university, centre, or professional society)

Australia Monash University (Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics), Charles Sturt University
Belgium Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (professional society)
Czech Republic Masaryk University
Estonia University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology
Germany Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Baden-Wuerttemberg
Cooperative State University,
Japan Aoyama Gakuin University, Kyoto University, Nagoya University, Hiroshima University (Social Informatics Lab)
Lithuania Mykolas Romeris University
Malaysia University Malaysia Sarawak (Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations)
New Zealand Open Polytechnic
Norway University of Agder
Poland Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology
Romania West University of Timisoara
Russia ITMO University in St. Petersburg, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Slovenia University of Ljubljana (Centre for Social Informatics)
Switzerland University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland (FHS St. Gallen)
Taiwan Yuan Ze University
Uganda Makerere University
UK Edinburgh Napier University (Centre for Social Informatics), University of Brighton (Social Informatics
Research Unit), University of Edinburgh (Social Informatics Cluster), Newcastle University (Social Informatics
Lab)
Ukraine National Aerospace University N. E. Zhukovsky, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kharkiv
National University of Radio Electronics
USA Indiana University (Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics), Syracuse University, University of Hawaii-Manoa
(Social Science Research Institute), Berkley University of California, University of Iowa, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, University of Oklahoma, Central Washington
University, Eastern Connecticut State University, Northern Kentucky University

Given the fact that Japanese scholars have a very pluralistic approach to social informatics close to the Western and
the Russian approach, the comparison below looks at the Euro-American and the Russian tradition of social informatics.
The Euro-American tradition is represented by Kling’s concept, which currently has the greatest impact on the world’s
scientific community [1]. The Russian tradition is represented by Sokolov’s concept and in particular by the currently
used Ursul’s concept. Such approach makes it possible to emphasize the significant differences in the interpretation and
understanding of the field and to outline the areas of possible future cooperation.
To begin with, the mutual awareness of the two traditions is considered. In publications dealing with Western
concepts, there are no direct references to or mentions of Soviet concepts. There is only a reference to an article of
Ursul’s [2], which is referred to in an original article by Vehovar [45] and in a work [1] by Kling’s colleague
Rosenbaum. In addition to this reference, a contribution by Slovenian authors [32] adds two references to Kolin’s
articles, but with no wider link to the work of Sokolov and Ursul. It can thus be reasonably assumed that the supporters
of Kling’s concept do not have a more accurate awareness of the current Russian concept. Likewise, some Russian
followers of Ursul’s concept are aware of the existence of a field of scientific research called social informatics in
Europe and the USA, but they probably consider its theme to be very close or even the same. One such example is
Yuri M. Plotinsky [206] from Lomonosov Moscow State University, who – on his website about social informatics –
mentions primarily Russian literature, and English literature only as a complement. But in scientific publications there
can be found no references to any works of either current or past representatives of Western concepts of social
informatics – see e.g. [3, 27, 175, 190, 199]. Moreover, there still prevails the Russian tradition of referencing their own
renowned authors and historical approaches.
Smutny 22

The original Soviet concept of Sokolov’s tried to deal with the issue of availability of relevant information sources
and focused on the communication function of social information (the transformation of information into individual or
social knowledge). This view reflected the socialist era, and its problems connected with the centrally planned economy,
as well as with devising an effective system of information supporting scientific research. Sokolov’s social informatics
as a theoretical system became an integrative discipline of its specialized fields, one of which was also scientific
informatics. In Sokolov’s work, as well as in the works of Mumford (UK), Bråten (Norway), or Kling (USA) from the
1970s, a common element is found – an emphasis on the previously-neglected social aspects and the necessity of
balancing them with technical aspects. Thus, they adopt a different position than that of deterministic approaches, just as
Sokolov attempted in the USSR in the field of scientific and technical information. Initially, Sokolov criticized
Mikhailov and his grounding of (scientific) informatics because of its omission of humans and the variety of their
information needs, including his mechanical (simplifying) view on the work and needs of a scientist or technician.
The availability of computing and communication technology in the 1980s and the 1990s and its widespread
introduction into social and organizational contexts (computerization) also brought about a massive increase in
communication and the accessibility of information (informatization), with radical impacts on the society; both Kling
and Ursul noticed that trend. While the former created an empirically-focused concept and tried to solve problems
connected with the interaction between ICT and humans on a micro or macro level, the latter tried to offer a broader
perspective and opened up related global problems on a philosophical and social level.
A fundamental difference can be found already on the theoretical level in using and explaining, for example, the term
information. Kling’s notion did not consider information as a unitary concept, but rather a concept embedded in context,
which moved it closer to practical use. But the fundamental differences between the two notions lie in the degree of
universality and the treatment of empirical data. Ursul’s concept seems utopian (its aim is information society as the
precursor of noosphere – the rule of reason), and it is predominantly a theoretical discipline which calls for a broader
systemic view. Kling’s concept of social informatics was based on understanding empirical data (information behaviour
in a given context), and is more consistent in applying social science theory and method to the study of information
systems in social and organizational contexts. An example can be Kling’s article from the early 1990s [207] in which he
consider on a macro level the social transformation as a consequence of computerization, but he always builds his
conclusions on previous empirical studies. Another problem of Ursul’s concept lies in its insufficient connection with
the current development of information and communication technologies on the practical level. For these reasons,
Kling’s concept seems to be more advantageous in practice.
A comparison of the two concepts demonstrates that it is difficult to find more points of contact. Both the concepts
are well aware of the qualitative changes of people’s lives due to the penetration of ICT into society – they study the
social aspects of the process of introducing ICT into society and its effect on the conditions of people’s lives and
activities in an information environment that is principally new for them. Both Kling’s and Ursul’s concepts put an
emphasis on continual change, i.e. the fact that people and technologies constantly find themselves in new positions.
While Kling sees this change as happening at an organizational level (e.g. a change in the use of an artefact in time),
Ursul explains it by a continuous rebuilding of society on an intellectual and humanistic basis, conditioned by
technological development in time.
The link between these two concepts is therefore the phenomenon of the information society, which is dealt with in
different manners at a different level of precision offered by these two approaches. Kling’s concept tries to offer tools
and methodologies (approaches) that could be used for the study of interactions of humans and ICT at various levels and
in various contexts. Thus, it can be used to solve problems practically, not only within an organization but also in
sociotechnical research in other areas. Ursul’s concept, on the other hand, finds its practical fulfilment in information
literacy education, or in its extension towards an awareness of the concept of global information society and the
essential role of knowledge; this proceeds from a philosophico-technical basis and a systemic view. The fact that both of
the Soviet/Russian concepts are so general follows partly from the integrative character of Sokolov’s concept and later
from Ursul’s even broader perspective based on philosophical foundations. Similarly, the current followers, looking
back at the success of their concepts, emphasize these different positions. Kolin, for instance, claims [27] that thanks to
its long-standing tradition, Russia today is the world leader in formulating theoretical bases of social informatics, as well
as in structuring this discipline and creating a system of basic scientific terms. Rosenbaum [1] asserts that the American
version of social informatics seems to have the greatest impact in terms of the number of publications and research
centres.
However, there can be found several other tracks which may create a bridge for future cooperation. Some works
within the Western concept of social informatics also focus on the well-being of the information society (the ethical
perspective) [208, 209]. Equally interesting can be the outreach to the philosophical level; relevant thoughts and views
Smutny 23

have been developed mainly by Scandinavian scholars [210], but their positions are different from those which Ursul
and his followers used as the basis of their reasoning. In the Western concept of social informatics, these are only the
marginal activities of scholars. A more important precursor of future cooperation is connected rather with the orientation
of social informatics in recent years. This concerns the use of large-scale data sets and thus the shift towards empirical
research carried out directly on the macro-level. This brings it closer to the Russian concept or the topics and issues
which it currently deals with, which are related to the development of the information society and its sustainability.
While the critical approach in Kling’s concept is built upon empirical studies, in Ursul’s concept it is based on the
interpretation of relevant phenomena and on a systemic view. Along with the new possibilities of direct empirical
research on the macro-level, there opens an opportunity for cooperation, which could assist Russian scholars in
developing their research (see [3]) on a practical level by basing it not only on the interpretation of observed phenomena
but also on relevant empirical studies. Western concepts could take advantage of the theories of information society
introduced by Russian researchers, which they could support or disprove by their own research. The international
discourse in social informatics could be further extended by an interpretative approach and relevant social topics.
In order to emphasize the distinctions between the concepts, it is crucial to understand their historical foundations,
because they form the very basis of the concepts. These paradigms of social informatics, used simultaneously, differ
mainly because of the level at which they consider the issue (global vs institutional empirically-grounded orientation)
and because of the considerable overlap of Ursul’s concept with educational and philosophical levels. For these reasons
it is impossible to expect a convergence of both approaches in the near future that would lead to their synthesis, despite
the fact that there is overlap in the topics within the two concepts. It is also difficult to imagine that the supporters of
Kling’s concept would engage in a dialogue on a practice-oriented level with Ursul’s followers (Kolin, Plotinsky,
Chugunov, Nikolaj I. Lapin, Vladimir B. Britkov, Andrey A. Davydov, Eldin M. Korzheva, Tatyana I. Zhukova and
others) due to their different levels of perspective. Despite that, it can be agreed that individual authors could inspire one
another. Further problems are generally the isolation of Russian community, problems with sharing research results
globally (e.g. the sporadic appearance of Russian authors in international databases such as Web of Science or Scopus),
and the language barrier. It is these problems that the present article attempts to overcome by introducing the basic
perspectives on the development and use of – not only – the Russian concept.

5. Conclusions
This article’s objective was to introduce the isolated Russian concepts of social informatics, to offer a basic comparison
with other concepts which participate in the current international discourse, and to introduce areas of contact for
possible cooperation between these two directions. The individual concepts originated in different social, political,
economic and technological contexts. The historical existence of parallel directions, which were not only called social
informatics but often thematically very close, gives rise to discussion between individual scientific communities. From
that follows a diversification of individual concepts. The result is, in contrast, a gradual convergence of individual
concepts at a global level, which includes the possibility of cooperation. There exists a subject domain with a common
name that has apparently been understood differently across geographies. This fact is not so important with relation to
the name as it is from the perspective of clearly defining the area of interest. Western scientific research, at least,
requires a particular discipline to have a clear definition and thus a substantiation of its existence. If the research
community were to forego that, they would not be able to define the content of research, and books such as [1] would
thus be rather misleading; they would reflect only a small portion of the research that social informatics encompasses.
But if the scientific research community grasps the individual concepts, they can not only define the relevant area of
research connected with a particular geographical area but can also allow a broader discussion of how the paradigm of
this field is understood by individual scientists and communities. Thanks to this aggregate of individual concepts, the
knowledge of theoretical foundations can spread across the scientific community. That spreading opens possibilities not
only for thematic inspiration but also at the level of principles, approaches, or methods.
A comparison of the current American (or Western) and Russian concepts suggests the following conclusions. Both
the concepts have different historical roots, conditions of and reasons for their formation. Kling’s approach was
influenced by his criticism of the application of computer technologies in practice in the 1970s and the 1980s, as well as
by the need for an empirically-grounded solution of sociotechnical interaction in institutional, cultural, and social
contexts. Sokolov’s original approach had its ideological roots in the issue of accessibility of information sources and
information supply for the (socialist) society. Ursul surpassed Sokolov’s original concept, emphasizing the importance
of the role of different types of information in social systems and refusing to be narrowed to selected information
activities (which support scientific and socialist work). He directed his philosophically-oriented study towards a
Smutny 24

sustainable development of information society and towards noosphere. Russian social informatics is concerned with the
analysis and study of global information society, with an emphasis on the changes of environment resulting from the
penetration of ICT into society. But its perspective is more theoretical, rather than focused on the practical, applied
level. This makes it radically different and distant from Kling’s concept, which emphasized an empirically-grounded
approach (he offered methods and tools applicable to the study of sociotechnical interaction). What both concepts have
in common are the practical problems and challenges of the information society, but each of them treats them from a
different perspective (global vs institutional view; theoretical vs practically applicable approach).
In today’s view, both these approaches to social informatics could be described as transdisciplinary platforms, in
connection with their adjustability to current phenomena associated primarily with internet-mediated environments. This
trend is also illustrated by the defining of the current orientation of the Western concept in [1, 46]. This concept, among
other things, emphasizes the importance (topicality) of social informatics, mainly in connection with the development
and the impact of social media at both the social and organizational level, which also brings consequences for the
development and use of (scientific) methods of researching this area. A similar situation can be seen at the level of
applied research, which strongly emphasizes research on socially-oriented online platforms and internet-mediated social
phenomena (topics: the impact of technologies on socio-economic considerations, computational models of social
phenomena, mining social data, social interaction and collaboration, etc.). For the Russian part, this trend is reflected in
the multidisciplinary aspect of the topics discussed [3, 174] and the orientation – through the information society, which
is today significantly affected by the Internet – towards the noosphere. At the practical level of university education, this
means a systematic understanding of elemental notions and reflections on information society and their inclusion in
university education. This understanding prompts an appropriate remodelling of the framework of human knowledge of
the environment (technosphere) that they inhabit, which improves their decision-making in that environment. The
systematical approach introduces the basic principles, methodologies, technologies, and possible future problems of
information society. It is through the activity of individuals who have been thus influenced and their participation in
organizations that one can see the practical level of this concept. In other words, if Western concepts focus on solving
various aspects of interaction between ICT and humans (creating tools or methods), then Eastern concepts, on the other
hand, focus on educating humans who can handle such problems with no regard to a more exact delimitation of the
problematic area (which changes in time and is reshaped); thus they focus on creating an ideological basis and showing
general approaches to solving problems, based on the methods used in other disciplines. It then depends on each scholar
to decide in which domain they will specialize and which methods and procedures they will use to achieve their goals.
In this, too, one can see a closeness to the Japanese approach to social informatics.
The Russian approach to scientific research honours its historical traditions, including its past and present iconic
figures, and it is still, in a way, closed to outside influence. This enables long-term independent development of certain
topics or views of the world that do not get as much attention in the USA or Europe (e.g. the theory of reflection or the
noosphere). On the other hand, this isolation also brings with it certain stagnation in a limited circle of supporters and a
lack of critical approach to the very essence and the accomplishments of social informatics as a scientific discipline.
Unfortunately, no dialogue exists between the two concepts, which can change in the future as a result of the
accessibility of relevant sources on the Internet. The possibility of a future convergence or combining of both
approaches can be seen in the extension of the Western approach by broader philosophical aspects towards global
questions concerning information society. An interesting dialogue could be found in Ursul’s approach to the philosophy
of information. It must also be observed that, in principle, the Western notion of social informatics does not necessarily
need such a broad focus. At the moment, cooperation would, therefore, take the form of critical essays that would
contribute to theorization and present new possibilities of macro-level research (focused on the information society and
its sustainable development). This direction of cooperation supports also the current trend in the Western concept, which
is focused on empirical work relying on large-scale data sets of digital traces. This possible dialogue is also connected
with making Russian works available in electronic form (via Internet) and with increasing the number of publications of
Russian authors in English.
Other possible development would be a rejection or (gradual) termination of the Russian tradition and its replacement
by a Western concept. Such development is possible due to the problematic situation in Russia, mainly due to the
following reasons. First, there is a smaller community of scientists (social informatics is not their major specialization)
who would gradually expand and fulfil the original framework. Second, social informatics is taught at universities only
in the form of individual courses (study programmes can only be found in Ukraine, which is currently undergoing
geopolitical changes). Finally, there are fewer opportunities for direct practical fulfilment. This raises the question of
whether this concept, as Sokolov’s concept before, will be crushed under the impact of Western concepts and
approaches. That is what happened after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the satellite states, as well as later in the
Smutny 25

above-mentioned case of Lithuania (Mykolas Romeris University) – former part of the Soviet Union – where Russian
approaches have already been replaced by Western approaches. However, none of these possibilities can be anticipated.
This article should contribute to a basic awareness of individual scientific communities across the world and enable
future pragmatically-oriented discussion between the individual concepts, as well as international cooperation, either at
a theoretical or a practical level.

Notes
1. The selection of literature on (social) informatics was made on the basis of a search of bibliographical records of libraries in the
Czech Republic and Russia as well as of resources accessible on the Internet (e.g. Google Scholar). On this basis the relevant
publications were bought or borrowed, which often referred to other relevant sources that this article draws upon. This concerns
mainly the publications from the time of the existence of the Eastern Bloc. Articles and websites were searched via web browsers
(global and local services), citation indexes (Web of Science, Scopus) and fulltext resources (EBSCO, ProQuest, ACM,
eLibrary.ru, Cyberleninka and others), using the following keywords: informatics, social informatics, scientific informatics and
socioinformatics, combined with the names of the main representatives and translations to the respective languages. To view the
currently non-existent websites, the Archive.org service was used.
2. Mikhailov was the second director (1956-1986) of the All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, known today
as the Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (Всероссийский институт научной и технической
информации – VINITI). To the present day, they administrate the polythematic information database, which primarily contains
research results, which are then used to support current research. The database includes both Russian and foreign/international
sources, which are categorized into twenty-eight thematic bases [16]. This institute tends to be put into connection with the
development of (scientific) informatics in the former USSR.
3. Jiří Cejpek also mentions unofficial reasons for the emergence of a field called informatics (or later scientific informatics/theory of
scientific information) [6]: Extracting the area dealing with scientific and technical information from the discipline of library
science and bibliography – which was subject to the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, in a tight grip of post-Stalinist ideology –
was practical in other respects, too. The dogmatic approach to socialism often built an impenetrable barrier, particularly with
regard to supplying libraries with scientific and technical information from developed capitalist countries. A practical application
of the theory of scientific information was supposed to enable the freer flow of information (including Western publications)
necessary for the development of Soviet national economy.
4. The necessity of establishing an ideological connection between new scientific disciplines and between ideas that lie at the
foundations of Marxism-Leninism can be shown in the example of cybernetics. In the Stalinist era, cybernetics was prohibited as a
bourgeois pseudo-science: “Cybernetics, as a bourgeois reactionary movement in automatization based on a vulgarly mechanistic
blending of human activity with a machine’s function, became a natural escape route for capitalist automators.“ [211] There was
an almost fanatical aversion, and scientists promoting cybernetics in the Eastern Bloc were persecuted and ridiculed. Only in the
late 1950s, when conditions had been relaxed, was it pointed out that cybernetics is consistent with the teachings of
Marxism-Leninism (dialectic materialism), and cybernetics later became an important and promoted discipline in the USSR and
other Eastern Bloc countries – see e.g. [11, 182].
5. The establishment of the term social informatics was preceeded in February and March 1996 by a discussion of scholars who
focused on social aspects of computerization, including Phil Agre, Jacques Berleur, Brenda Dervin, Andrew Dillon, Rob Kling,
Mark Poster, Karen Ruhleder, Ben Shneiderman, Leigh Star and Barry Wellman. [50]
6. Ursul is to date one of the foremost Russian academics. He is the author of more than 1050 scientific publications, and he has
written over 200 monographs and edited over 250 scientific journals and collected works. More than 350 of his publications have
been translated into dozens of foreign languages. Social informatics is only one of the many areas of his scientific work. [212]
7. The term Noosphere was established by Pierre T. de Chardin, Édouard Le Roy, and Vladimir I. Vernadsky. Noosphere as thought
space was developed mainly by the Ukrainian natural scientist Vernadsky. In his opinion, noosphere followed geosphere and
biosphere in Earth’s development – each phase of development transformed the preceding one [213]. In today’s information age,
social evolution is at a crossroads which might enable the evolution of consciousness to change into a conscious evolution. For
this purpose it is necessary to bridge the gap between technological and social development, which is a critical phase in the
development of humankind and its heading towards the noosphere [214]. For the sake of completeness, the references to the
relevant sources discussing the noosphere should be made: [215-217].
8. This course of philosophy was represented mainly by Todor D. Pavlov and Lenin – see also the book [218].

Acknowledgement
The work was partially funded by the grant of University of Economics, Prague under grant agreement number F4/18/2014.

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