Systems in Context: A Systemic Semiotic Approach to Information Systems in Organisations

Rodney J. Clarke

School of Economics and Information Systems

University of Wollongong, NSW AUSTRALIA 2500

Email: rodney_clarke@uow.edu.au

Web: http://www.dsl.uow.edu.au/~rclarke/contact.htm

Abstract

This paper describes how a semiotic model of language (Halliday, Martin, Hasan) and a broader social semiotics (based on the work of Bakhtin, Althusser and Foucault) - collectively referred to as systemic semiotics - can be used to understand how information systems function within organisational contexts. Of particular importance to this approach is the use of the semiotic concepts of genre which describes the organisational/cultural context in which systems work (the way things are done around here), and register which describes dimensions relevant to the immediate situational context (the focus of activity, the social organisation of participants, and the way in which language is used to realise the situation.

These theories can be used to describe what is not possible to describe within traditional information systems paradigms. Some of the areas that can be directly addressed with the systemic semiotic approach include: (i) the relationship between an information system and organisational work described in terms of the negotiation of system features by users and other social subjects, which can be used to understanding how systems can be bypassed and how new patterns of work can be produced; (ii) the evolution of information systems in organisations by using of theories of context described above; (iii) the communicative characterisation of different types of information systems, which can be used to develop a taxonomy of different types of information systems.