Author
Listed:
- Fay Cobb Payton
- James Kiwanuka-Tondo
Abstract
Adaptive structuration theory (AST) has long been an accepted framework for investigating structures within technological artifacts and work environments. Information systems, organization science and communication scholars have prefaced AST context in terms of collaborative, group decision support systems. The social structures, however, can be characterized by features of rules, resources and capabilities along with a communicative spirit. Spirit is said to enable the user to better understand and interpret the meaning of a technology. Our research varies from the traditional focus of AST studies given that our context is not in single, for-profit organization with a common corporate mission or objective. Rather, we concentrate on the HIV/AIDS pandemic among Black women and the spirit communicated to this population by a principal government healthcare website. By interacting with a group of healthcare experts and practitioners during a 14-month period, we sought to understand the site's meaning and indications as its mission is to disseminate HIV/AIDS and other pertinent medical information. Further, our findings suggest that AST is a research framework that functions as a source for the notion of spirit. The (un)intended spirit inscribed on information and communication technologies (ICT) may be (ex)inclusive with regard to the population or society it intends to serve. Hence, grassroots approaches and audiences can, in fact, offer effective insight into user-centered designs focused on educational and prevention content among those most affected and infected by chronic diseases, such as HIV.
Suggested Citation
Fay Cobb Payton & James Kiwanuka-Tondo, 2009.
"Contemplating public policy in HIV/AIDS online content, then where is the technology spirit?,"
European Journal of Information Systems, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 192-204, June.
Handle:
RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:18:y:2009:i:3:p:192-204
DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2009.16
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:18:y:2009:i:3:p:192-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/tjis .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.