Abstract
Undoubtedly, new technological artifacts, systems, and platforms can have a major impact on the social context of any community. In his book Bowling Alone, Putnam points out how technology has fueled individualization and ultimately the erosion of the American community(Putnam, 2000). My research is interested in trust as a specific factor essential for navigating social life(Luhmann, 1973), which is also said to be affected by the adoption of various technologies (Ashmore & Restrepo-Forero, 2013; Brennan, 2021; Danaher & Sætra, 2022). Furthermore, my research is contextualized in Colombia, the country with the second lowest level of interpersonal trust in the world (Inglehart, et al., 2020). Here, protracted armed conflict (Comisión de la Verdad, 2022) and high rates of poverty and inequality (World Bank Group, 2022) have damaged the social fabric, particularly the value of trust. My research seeks to understand how socio-technical designs have interacted with trust in this context to propose a methodological design framework for social development that responds to trust needs. Montero assert that design plays a fundamental role not only in defining what the world is, but also in suggesting what it should be (2020, p. 110). Here, I disagree with the deterministic idea that designers are entirely responsible for the world "created" by their designs, and I draw on technological mediation theory (Verbeek, 2005) to analyze the social impact of design. I also propose a methodological framework for research for and through design that aims to produce alternative technological mediations for social development through Constructive Design Research (CDR). Regarding technological mediation, Verbeek argues that technology (and technological design) does not determine reality, but rather has a mediating effect on how people perceive the world and, in turn, how people can act in it (2005). To apply this theory, scholars include case studies in their research methodologies to analyze phenomena resulting from mediation (Aagaard & Ihde, 2018). Consequently, I consider the case of Colombian communities to study the impact of sociotechnical systems on trust. Moreover, figure 1 shows my proposed extension of the technological mediation model, which includes the use of the psychological model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2017) to identify the different factors that influence the trust behavior of the members of these communities. In the same model, I propose the application of social network analysis (Borgatti et al., 2009) and social capital (Putnam, 2000) to describe how the world of this community functions in terms of trust and where these systems have an impact on the configuration of the community. I then propose the creation of prototypes as containers of alternatives to current realities, as in CDR (Koskinen et al., 2013), to find alternative ways to mediate trust in the community. My proposal complements this creative practice with the extended technological mediation model to conduct a systematic analysis of the mediation caused by both the current socio-technical systems in the community and the alternative systems proposed by CDR.
Keywords
Service design, Well-being, Dementia care, Systemic perspective
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.742
Citation
Delgado Ramos, D.(2023) Technological mediation analysis on Constructive Design Research: A case study of trust, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.742
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
doctoralpapers
Included in
Technological mediation analysis on Constructive Design Research: A case study of trust
Undoubtedly, new technological artifacts, systems, and platforms can have a major impact on the social context of any community. In his book Bowling Alone, Putnam points out how technology has fueled individualization and ultimately the erosion of the American community(Putnam, 2000). My research is interested in trust as a specific factor essential for navigating social life(Luhmann, 1973), which is also said to be affected by the adoption of various technologies (Ashmore & Restrepo-Forero, 2013; Brennan, 2021; Danaher & Sætra, 2022). Furthermore, my research is contextualized in Colombia, the country with the second lowest level of interpersonal trust in the world (Inglehart, et al., 2020). Here, protracted armed conflict (Comisión de la Verdad, 2022) and high rates of poverty and inequality (World Bank Group, 2022) have damaged the social fabric, particularly the value of trust. My research seeks to understand how socio-technical designs have interacted with trust in this context to propose a methodological design framework for social development that responds to trust needs. Montero assert that design plays a fundamental role not only in defining what the world is, but also in suggesting what it should be (2020, p. 110). Here, I disagree with the deterministic idea that designers are entirely responsible for the world "created" by their designs, and I draw on technological mediation theory (Verbeek, 2005) to analyze the social impact of design. I also propose a methodological framework for research for and through design that aims to produce alternative technological mediations for social development through Constructive Design Research (CDR). Regarding technological mediation, Verbeek argues that technology (and technological design) does not determine reality, but rather has a mediating effect on how people perceive the world and, in turn, how people can act in it (2005). To apply this theory, scholars include case studies in their research methodologies to analyze phenomena resulting from mediation (Aagaard & Ihde, 2018). Consequently, I consider the case of Colombian communities to study the impact of sociotechnical systems on trust. Moreover, figure 1 shows my proposed extension of the technological mediation model, which includes the use of the psychological model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2017) to identify the different factors that influence the trust behavior of the members of these communities. In the same model, I propose the application of social network analysis (Borgatti et al., 2009) and social capital (Putnam, 2000) to describe how the world of this community functions in terms of trust and where these systems have an impact on the configuration of the community. I then propose the creation of prototypes as containers of alternatives to current realities, as in CDR (Koskinen et al., 2013), to find alternative ways to mediate trust in the community. My proposal complements this creative practice with the extended technological mediation model to conduct a systematic analysis of the mediation caused by both the current socio-technical systems in the community and the alternative systems proposed by CDR.