Need to know vs. need to share: information technology and the intersecting work of police, fire and paramedics

Abstract

Emergency preparedness concerns over inadequate emergency interoperability among police, fire and emergency medical services (EMS) have led to the adoption of shared information technologies. Using a social worlds/arenas framework, I ethnographically study police, fire and EMS, as ‘users’ of technology, to understand how they interact with their technologies, and the ways in which their respective organizational contexts, cultures and practices shape technological functioning and collaborative action. From this analysis, I uncover social world contexts (ideologies) and individual actions (social legitimation and hierarchy of credibility) that alter technological functioning and create impediments to emergency interoperability. I further highlight an important ideological disconnect between the design and in-situ application of emergency technologies. I conclude by discussing the extent to which policies and technological innovations cannot, in and of themselves, address emergency preparedness concerns.

Keywords:

• collaborative action
• hierarchy of credibility
• information technology
• ideological disconnect
• social worlds/arenas (SW/A) theory
• users

Notes on contributors

Carrie B. Sanders is an Associate Professor of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her theoretical areas of interest are social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, social shaping of technology and critical criminology. Her research interests include qualitative methodologies, science and technology and policing. Her ethnographic research on police and emergency response technologies has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. This implementation of technology was also instigated by the 9/11 Commission Report (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004, p. 24) that concluded that the meaning of interoperability should shift from the system of ‘need to know’ to a system of ‘need to share’.

2. Technological determinism consists of two parts: (i) that technological developments occur ‘outside society, independently of social, economic, and political forces’; and (ii) ‘technological change causes or determines social change’ (Wyatt, 2008, p. 168).

3. Given the exploratory nature of this study and the sample size, these findings should be interpreted with caution.

4. Thanks to Peter K. Manning for this insight.