Thursday, March 31, 2005

Hanson and Grounded Processes

Having previously read Granovetter and studied the strength of weak ties, I though Hanson's chapter on accessibility was excellent. It was exciting because it really reinforced everything I'm attempting to get some colleagues to realize: that ICT is a political force, even a geopolitical force, and as the years go on with our experience in technology is even more grounded in "real-life" practices and processes. I get really tired of reading older articles all about cybercommunities and virtual this and that. I've quit believing in the whole concept of "virtual" anything, since it can only be experienced by a living breathing human. ANyway, back to PROCESSES. Hanson's article neatly ties to some previous ones in that access alone is not a solution, neither is content alone, nor training. I think what she's getting at is that accessibility is meaningless without the measures of physical place and social functions that enable it, what she referenced (268) as the "old" measures of access. Did anyone else find this article as good as I did? What did you think about her points on why web job banks and resume databases don't work?

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