We seek to take some initial steps towards a theory of information that is adequate for understanding and designing systems that process information, i.e., information systems in a broad sense. Formal representations of information are needed in designing, using and maintaining such systems, especially when they are computer based. However, it is also necessary to take account of social context, including how information is produced and used, not merely how it is represented; that is, we need a social theory of information. Ideas from ethnomethodology and semiotics, as well as logic and the sociology of science, are used to explore the nature of information.

An approach to information visualization based on algebraic semiotics is introduced, and illustrated with examples. Semiotics is the general theory of signs, and algebraic semiotics is a new approach combining algebraic abstract data type theory with a grounding in social reality. The most important new ideas are to use semiotic spaces for systems of related signs, semiotic morphisms for representations of signs, and preservation orderings for the quality of representations.

While tourism presents considerable potential for the use of new mobile technologies, we currently have little understanding of how tourists organise their activities or of the problems they face. This paper discusses an ethnographic study of tourism focusing on its collaborative nature, and how this could be better supported with new technologies. Three types of collaboration are outlined: collaboration with travelling companions, collaboration with other tourists and collaboration with organisations. Each of these forms of collaboration has an important role when tourists organise their activities. There are also a number of key information resources that tourists use: maps, guidebooks, public displays and tourist information centres. With these resources the problem involves not just getting information, but using that information to decide what to do. These findings are currently being used to develop new tourist technologies.

Doing gender, doing categorisation:

The use of relational terms to accomplish interactional business: Three examples from a rhetorical discursive action approach A paper accepted to the Language and Social Interaction Division of the National Communication Association annual conference,

Abstract. This paper examines reading as done by programmers engaged in software development. Reading is an activity we feel should be of fundamental interest to studies of programming, but the practical achievement of which has not been closely examined. We give examples of programmers reading in pairs, and reading alone, and show reading in both cases to be explainable in terms of shared social practices. These practices are not determined by the code but nor are they purely socially constructed; rather they lie in the linkage between the code and programmers ’ ways of reading the code. We discuss (1) how features of day-to-day coding work create pertinent occasions for reading a certain piece of code, (2) how programmers order and expect there to be an order to code, and (3) how programmers have ways of analysing code in order to make sense of it. This is an ethnomethodological study that draws from ethnographic fieldwork at a professional software development company.