Page 238 - Culture Technology Communication

Preserving Communication Context 221

Culture in the Frames of CSCW Researchers

The notion of technological frame provides an interesting way of ap-
proaching culture from a constructivist perspective. Law and Bijker
(1992, 301) use the notion to “refer to the concepts, techniques and
resources used in a community—any community. . . . It is thus a
combination of explicit theory, tacit knowledge, general engineering
practice, cultural values, prescribed testing procedures, devices, ma-
terial networks, and systems used in a community.” It is simultane-
ously technical and social, intrinsically heterogeneous. The related
expression ‘frame of meaning’ as coined by Collins and Pinch (1982)
and adopted by Carlson (1992) in his study of Edison and the devel-
opment of motion pictures, translates the specific focus of this paper
on how cultural patterns and assumptions inform actions and shape
choices most closely:

. . . in any given culture there are many ways in which a
technology may be successfully used . . . To select from
among these alternatives, individuals must make assump-
tions about who will use a technology and the meanings
users might assign to it. These assumptions constitute a
frame of meaning inventors and entrepreneurs use to guide
their efforts at designing, manufacturing, and marketing
their technological artifacts. Such frames thus directly link
the inventor’s unique artifact with larger social or cultural
values. (Carlson 1992, 177)

Carlson argues that designers attempt to impose pre-existing
frames based on previous experience on new products or invention,
rather than inventing new frames. This unconscious process of “cul-
tural creep” results because designers create artifacts to fit into the
cultural spaces suggested by their existing frames of meaning. It is
only after their introduction that new uses and new cultural meanings
are developed. Thus, users are present virtually in designers’ frames,
whether or not an artifact has actually been used (Flichy 1995). The
distinction between design and use thus appears more of an analytic
convenience than a hard and fast rule. Consequently, we suggest that
it may be more valuable to approach design-implementation-use as a
single process, in which all stages are interrelated.
The following section presents the world of two Japanese CSCW
laboratories, with a view to highlighting common research themes. A