SYNTHETIC KNOWING: THE POLITICS OF THE INTERNET OF THINGS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Monteiro, Eric; Parmiggiani, Elena
• 署名单位: Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU)
• 刊物名称: MIS QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0276-7783
• DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2019/13799
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 167-184
• 关键词: big data; digital innovation; service innovation; KNOWLEDGE WORK; INFORMATION; management; systems; sociomateriality; FOUNDATIONS; analytics

摘要

All knowing is material. The challenge for Information Systems research is to specify how knowing is material by drawing on theoretical characterizations of the digital. Synthetic knowing is knowing informed by theorizing digital materiality. We focus on two defining qualities: liquefaction (unhinging digital representations from physical objects, qualities, or processes) and open-endedness (extendable and generative). The Internet of Things (IoT) is crucial because sensors are vehicles of liquefaction. Their expanding scope for real-time seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching increasingly mimics phenomenologically perceived reality. Empirically, we present a longitudinal case study of IoT-rendered marine environmental monitoring by an oil and gas company operating in the politically contested Arctic. We characterize synthetic knowing into four concepts, the first three tied to liquefaction and the last to open-endedness: (1) the objects of knowing are algorithmic phenomena; (2) the sensors increasingly conjure up phenomenological reality; (3) knowing is scoped (configurable); and (4) open knowing/data is politically charged.