Sunday, February 25, 2007

a modest study informed by ant

I have narrowed the scope of what I intend to study, the complications of multiple ethics applications, across 2 countries, 2 universities as well as an external agency finally filtered into my conscious system. The word math on a thesis split between 3 studies similarly informed this decision.
The scope of my research is to explore the use of emergent technolgies in a counselling service. The technology I am investigating is broadly defined by Franklin(1999) as practice; "the way we do things around here". Technology according to this definition is not a modern invention, just the way things are done.
And in this consideration of the 'way things are done' my area of interest is the how changes implemented have both first level as well as second level effects (Sproull and Kiesler, 1991). They explain how changes made often have other offsetting consequences...more efficiency in one place can result in negative sequalae unimagined.
So, altering the medium or platform used in counselling will have effects unimagined as well as forseen. As these effects become known, in what ways do these then shape the evolving practices, and in what ways are we too shaped.
This follows in the line of writing from McLuhan to Turkle, the mediums we use change us. They are not mere tools, they have agency.
In what ways then do texting or e-counselling reconfigure counselling as it occurs...as much as we might think that we shape what we do, in what ways are we shaped.

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