James B. Rule

What Do Computers Do

Few studies using representative methods have explored the effects of computing in a cross section of different kinds of organizations. This study presents results of detailed interviews in a representative sample of some 184 computerized private sector firms. Contrary to some skeptical analyses of computerization, managers of most of these organizations appeared to have shrewd instrumental rationales for their decisions to computerize. Moreover, computerization, once in place, appears to change how organizations are managed by encouraging and supporting higher levels of abstraction in management decision-making and closer, more precise control by management of organizational affairs.

America's Misunderstood Welfare State: Persistent Myths, Enduring Realities.

of the United States (1989). 92. Welfare State, supra note 10, at 32, 36-37. 93. Id. at 34.

Documentary Identification and Mass Surveillance in the United States

Reliance on documentary identification such as computer records, identification cards, and official papers is an essential feature of life in todays advanced industrial societies. This paper examines the history and use of six of the most common personal documents in the United States: Social Security cards, drivers licenses, credit cards, birth certificates, passports, and bank books. The increasing use and importance of such documents reflects the growth of new relationships between individuals and large, centralized organizations. These new relationships entail mass surveillance and social control, and result in increasing demands by organizations for personal data. We look at the strengths and weaknesses of these surveillance systems and the prospects of still greater social control in the future.

It's in the cards : consumer credit and the American experience

Preface Consumer Credit as a Social Control Mechanism Advent of Post-Fordist Cultural Developments Consumer Credit and the Experiential Realm The Advertising Industry Commodity Distribution Networks Consumer Debt and the Social Impact of Credit Implications of a Consumer Credit Society References

Computerized surveillance in the workplace: Forms and distributions

The use of computers to monitor job performance has attracted much comment, from social scientists and others. In this analysis of a representative sample of greater New York firms, we show that this use of computing is both widespread and applied to a wide variety of jobs. Contrary to some suggestions, it is does not occur exclusively in large firms with particularly high-tech computing applications. Instead, it appears in all kinds of firms, as an outgrowth of management efforts to control and rationalize work. Most cases of computerized job surveillance identified in this sample are part of one of three basic organizational processes: sales analysis, job tracking, or inventory control.

Silver Bullets or Land Rushes? Sociologies of Cyberspace

JAMES B. RULE State University of New York, Stony Brook everyone from everywhere can join the conversation, how can it be orderly, coherent, or decisive? The partisan model seems doomed by its Own success in marketing; it can be superseded by the online ease in comparison shopping for candidates and in changing affiliations. The monitorial model, on the other hand, may succeed too well by transforming politics into consultations among computer systems. The prospect can remind us that political society, as Hobbes knew, is the creation of an artificial

Who’s Watching?: Daily Practices of Surveillance among Contemporary Families:

This book has a catchy title and nice cover art, adding to the reader’s anticipation that it will be an absorbing—and entertaining— read. The price is reasonable, making it potentially attractive as a text. And the book is, in fact, generally quite well written. America’s romance with technology is complicated, contradictory, and confusing, and it certainly deserves more scholarly attention. However, much has already been written on this subject, not enough of which finds its way into the pages of this book. The introduction suggests that its author, fiction writer and English professor Glen Scott Allen, imagines an audience largely unfamiliar with social and cultural studies of science and technology, and tends to leave the impression that he is unfamiliar with much of this work himself. Allen concentrates on what he sees as Americans’ suspicion of the purely scientific, as opposed to the technological, a suspicion that he correctly surmises may have roots in social class distinctions. He reports that in researching this book, he ‘‘began to wonder to what extent . . . American culture [has] shaped American scientific practice’’ (p. 5), as though this were an entirely original question. In Chapter One, he marvels that in 1848 the American Association for the Advancement of Science adopted promotion of the ‘‘purer’’ sciences as its goal (p. 17), and in general implies surprise at his discovery of the social, political, and class-based character of science (although it is not exactly clear how the AAAS vision is an argument that Americans distrust science, instead of an argument that at least some of us approve of it). He discusses the ‘‘selling’’ of American science in Chapter Three without any apparent reference either to the work of sociologist Dorothy Nelkin or to that of media historian Marcel Lafollette, two scholars especially well-known for their careful documentation of how media representations of science and technology have historically served this purpose. Then, in Chapter Four, Allen presents American Pragmatism without reference to John Dewey, who makes only a cameo appearance a few pages later. Surely Dewey’s contribution to Pragmatism would have been an excellent pillar on which to build any argument about American perspectives on practical knowledge. Finally, as a postscript about two pages from the end of the entire work, Allen confesses that two issues ‘‘not specifically addressed in this book are race and gender’’ (p. 260). Struggling to express my reaction to this latter statement in particularly appropriate scholarly language, the phrase that seems to sum it up best is : ‘‘Well, duh!’’ While some of Allen’s insights into American culture are intriguing—for example, our preference for the practical and our obsession with efficiency certainly ring true—they are not ideally persuasive as presented because of the book’s tendency to ignore too many important issues and scholars. Allen may have read more broadly in the sociology and history of science – as well as in media studies and philosophy—than this presentation of his subject matter implies; if so, he ought to have reflected this reading in what he has written here. A dose of empiricism may be helpful in this context. While it seems to be true (on the basis of most relevant opinion polls) that today’s Americans prefer science that has economic or social benefits (for example, science that creates jobs, health, and wealth), it is also true that Americans continue to like and trust science as well as technology (even while some segments are doubtful about specific points, such as evolution and climate change). If, as Allen apparently takes as his premise, suspicion of all things purely scientific is a peculiarly American cultural

Theory and Progress in Social Science.

Introduction: Progress: formal and substantive 1. Dilemmas of intellectual progress 2. The reckoning of progress Introduction to Part II 3. Rational choice 4. From Parsons to Alexander: closure through theoretical generality 5. Network analysis 6. Feminist analysis in social science James Rule and Leslie Irvine Introduction to Part III 7. Theory as expression 8. Theory for coping 9. Summary and conclusion.