Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Social Science Computer Review
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Grafton, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

"Shadow Theories" in Fountain's Theory of Technology Enactment

Carl Grafton

Auburn University Montgomery, graftonpermaloff{at}worldnet.att.net

Fountain was concerned with the effect of information technologies on government. Her thesis was that government organizations are strongly motivated to adopt information technologies and that the ways these technologies are used and their effects vary depending on agency interests. Although Fountain claimed to present original ideas, elements of her thesis have been commonplace for decades in political science, public administration, business administration, and the field of science, technology, and public policy. Instead of crediting orthodox concepts such as technological determinism, rational actor models, incrementalism, and systems analysis, she attacked them as "shadow theories" only to import large elements of them back into her own framework. Fountain sought to dazzle us with her originality when she really was assembling a worthwhile research agenda out of good ideas taken from existing scholarship. Instead of encouraging cooperation in her modest venture, she invites a backlash.

Key Words: information technologies • organizations • Fountain

Social Science Computer Review, Vol. 21, No. 4, 411-416 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0894439303256567
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Social Science Computer ReviewHome page
G. D. Garson
Technological Teleology and the Theory of Technology Enactment: The Case of the International Trade Data System
Social Science Computer Review, November 1, 2003; 21(4): 425 - 431.
[Abstract] [PDF]