Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper I argue that a mutual shaping lens enables a more encompassing and dynamic account of the joint processes of technological and social change in new media than either the diffusion of innovations and social shaping of technology perspectives. Drawing from recent work in science and technology studies, I contend that the shaping and diffusion of media artifacts are so intimately tied that they should be seen as the two sides of the same innovation coin. Using examples from the history of videotex newspapers in the United States, I show that actors simultaneously pursued interdependent technological and social transformations, that this was an ongoing process in which partial outcomes in the technological domain influenced social events at a later phase--and vice-versa--and that such process was influenced by historical developments.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Videotex is a failed information system technology from the 1980s. It received much attention and hype, thousands of column inches, and millions of dollars in investments that turned into losses. However, the rhetoric surrounding videotex was exactly the same as the rhetoric of the Internet in the mid-1990s. Given that both inspired the same utopian visions, did videotex have the same potential as the Internet? Why, then, did videotex fail so terribly? This paper briefly explores the history of videotex, focusing mainly on American developments. It describes the utopian visions that videotex inspired, explores what systems were supposed to be like, and the often contradictory reasons that users and providers should have been involved with videotex. Overall, videotex was a very closed and centralized system, and this is why it ultimately failed, especially given the growing PC and online services market in the 1980s.