Opening the ‘Black Box’ of Software The micro-foundations of informational technologies, practices and environments

Abstract

The technical and production structures of informational development, the mechanisms that translate information into new products and power, remain opaque. Without defining these micro-foundational patterns, simple questions - what is information, how is it produced, is this production structure significantly unique - remain unanswered, limiting analysis of informational development generally, and evaluation of higher-level "information' theories specifically. Opening the "black box' of software outlines these production practices in one of the central industries of the coming decades, helping explain its social and economic impact and locating its evolution within broader global economic patterns. Software is a unique informational practice that draws on socially structured domain-knowledge as its central resource. This clarifies the importance of information and design in an informational environment, as well as signalling the impact of digital architectures in structuring new patterns of social interaction. These informational patterns are embedded in software both technically and through the development process, resulting in a strong cohesion between production, product and industry structures. The expansion of software process and products throughout society raises the impact of these unique patterns in shaping future economic and social structures in multiple industries, locations and institutions. Detailing the informational patterns in software opens a path to consider an ideal-typology of informational production. Such an ideal type helps define terms and hypotheses that capture both unique differences and general patterns in an informational environment, opening more rigorous analysis of the broader social transformations in the global environment. Failing to recognize these processes limits the space for social debate, policy and action around the establishment and evolution of new digital architectures at the locus of their development.

Keywords:

• Software development
• Software industry
• Information technology
• Rationalization
• Domain-knowledge
• Informational production