Technology and social interaction: the emergence of 'workplace studies'

Despite the substantial body of literature concerned with the ways in which digital media are transforming contemporary society and institutional life , we have relatively little understanding of the ways in which new technolo gies feature in day to day organizational conduct and interaction. There is however a growing corpus of empirical research which places the situated a nd contingent character of new technologies at the heart of the analytic ag enda, but as yet, these studies are relatively little known within sociolog y. They include ethnographies of command and control centres, financial ins titutions, the news media, and the construction industry. They address the ways in which tools and technologies, ranging from paper documents through to complex multimedia systems, feature in work and collaboration. In this p aper, we discuss these so-called 'workplace studies' and consider their imp lications for our understanding of organizational conduct, social interacti on and new technology.