Wiberg M. - The Interaction Society[c] Practice, Theories and Supportive Technologies (2005)(en)

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interaction, rather than the means. Can, then, interaction produce emergent outcomes, such as a “third way of knowing” (Shotter, 1993) that is not possible inmonologue?

The ubiquitous term “Information and Communication Technology” (ICT) is reviewed through this philosophical analysis. This is in pursuit of conceptual synthesis, not merely technological convergence. Deetz’s analysis of human interactionshowsthatinformationandcommunicationisright—sowheredoes that leave us with a conception of interaction, seemingly synonymous with communication, as the locus of attention? This discussion will move the explanation from “Information Technology” to “Interaction Technology” — this importantly reintroduces the people into the system — a social interaction system with supporting technologies.

The discussion will recognise that our technicist notion of communicating inhibitsthehardworkofconnectionbyattendingtoimprovementstothewiring, whilstthetaskofbuildingworldstogetherisneglected.Communicationismore a moral problem than a problem solvable by semantics, psychology, or telecommunications.The informationalconceptionof interactionis inherently monological.Thenotionofan“InteractionSociety”implicatesdialogue,unless interactionistakentobenothingmorethanmutuallyreactiveordirectivedyadic monologues(engagedinreciprocalmanipulation).Thenotionofa“Communication Society” seems to be therapeutically valuable, but care has to be taken that “communication” is not taken merely as the transmission of cognitions (products of cognition) between selves.

The widespread adoption of mobile telephones and other ICTs and PCTs may indicate that we are creating an Interaction Society. If the advertising rhetoric is to be believed, use of such devices enables more talk, and indeed much social interaction is now mediated by electronic devices. But when some of us choose to “interact” through the intermediary of a wireless connection, even by use of “text” in place of audible speech, rather than to co-locate for conversation, what kind of interaction is possible? I claim that we need to address this as a political and ethical problem, and not just a technical problem.

Resources drawn upon for this philosophical analysis will include Peters’ history of communication, Deetz’s analysis of corporate communication processes and power relations, Checkland’s and Vickers’ respective analyses of the social process of appreciative systems, Luhmann’s critical theory of society, Simmel’s sociological analysis of human interactions, Myerson’s reflection on ‘mobilised’ communication, and a thorough review of the concepts of interaction and dialogue, in both practical and ethical terms.

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Interaction as Problematic

Interactionisoneofanumberofideas,suchasinformationandcommunication, that have relatively recently entered day-to-day discussion around our underlyinglongingforactionatadistanceandconnectionorcontactacrossthechasm of human separation (Peters, 1999). What I find curious is why we nowadays notice “interaction” and centre the idea as a social phenomenon and basis for action? Katz & Aakhus (2002) report a range of investigations on the ideal of “perpetual contact.” Is the notion of the “Interaction Society” supported, even prompted, by the presupposed ideal of “perpetual contact” as the means to interact and communicate socially, or at least providing potential contact with anyoneatanytimeorplace?Theadventof“personalcommunicationtechnologies” (PCTs) seems to manifest the “presumed natural progression of humans toward the ideal of open, transparent communication” (op. cit., p. 9). The good personcommunicatingwellmaintainsbothcontactandavailability,yetaperson is bad and communication is poor when a person is prevented from being an open, authentic communicator. Nowadays, electronic devices are “naturally” included in what would otherwise be a face-to-face dyad or small group. Our theories about communication have ignored technology, except as a mass medium, a weakness that Katz & Aakhus aspire to set right.

The common sense everyday notion of social interaction originally centred on co-presence. Goffman (1983), for example, took interaction as the event that occurs during, and by virtue of, co-presence. Social interaction transpires in social situations in which two or more persons are physically in one another’s response presence. This does not require co-presence, but is altered by the insertion of a mediating technology. Nowadays, the common-place meaning is somethinglike“actionatadistance”or“mutuallyresponsivecommunication.” This could seemingly be mediated by electronic connection.

Wearecurrentlygoingthroughatransitionalperiod,standingattheintersection of the industrial society from the past and the so-called Interaction Society of the future (with many others labels: post-industrial society, information age, communication age, the age of Aquarius — all suggestive of our longing for “being” together). Social critic Hillaire Belloc saw capitalism as the unstable transitional period between two stable periods. In transitional periods, the grounds for activities of the outmoded period will always lose significance, whilst new models of operation come into circulation to replace them. For the future, actors need to strive to understand their actions in a broader social frame of reference. One characteristic of this time is a shift from a mass production

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approach towards smaller units, both in work organisation and administration. Small-scale community, in which social bondage prevailed, was displaced by large-scalesocietythroughtheprocessofindustrialisation,bringingfreedomto participants. Most interactors were then strangers. Now we see the reascendance of social units on a human scale. Various networks have emerged to enable communication between these units. Indeed, a characteristic feature of the Interaction Society is the emergence into consciousness of various networks in work groups and in private life.

The idea of a life among others in which social interaction is a prominent and frequentactivityisappealing.Weallfeelstrongsocialpressuretointeract.How else are we to resolve problems of politics, knowledge, religion, rights, and morals?But,inaneraofinserting(mostlyelectronic)mediationsintoouractual and potential relationships, are we really justified in our anticipations of personal security and satisfaction? What are we hoping for as members of the Interaction Society? Is this a hope forlorn?

Whilemodernismchampionedtheindividual,andfragmentedtheunitofsocial community, post-modernism (or whatever we can call what succeeds industrialisation) attends to the interaction of the parts. Recently, too, developments of a predominantly economic/technical nature have undermined the sovereignty of the individual as rational reasoner (Gergen, 1991; Sampson, 1993).

Manuel Castells (1996, for example) has said more than a little about the emergence of the network society (the basic structure of which has a networking logic). Several writers on the information society (especially from Finland, for some reason) have said that we can characterise post-industrial society as a network of networks that “process information,” with the primary production being more knowledge.

I want to apply my critical social constructionist review of human interaction (informationalvs.communicational)tosaysomethingabouttheproblemofthe idea of interactive communication (that isn’t communicational/dialogical — controlling reproduction, but rather informational/monological — liberating production).

Are these terms referring to different phenomena? — Interactive Society (Castells, 1996), Interaction Society, and Network Society. Is interaction (in a particular manner) a fundamental characteristic of a Network Society?

Thecentralityofinteractioninwork-flowhasidentifiedinteractionalprocesses (Strauss, 1985) of persuading, teaching, negotiating, manipulating, and coerc-

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ing in the workplace. Task performance is articulated with that of others through interactions before and after the task (Strauss, 1988). Alignment in the flow of work is accomplished through interaction.

Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is a broad term covering several configurations of communication processes — it is referring not so much to a form of communication, so much as to a set of arrangements or conditions withinwhichformsofcommunicationcanarise.WiththeadventoftheInternet there have emerged new transaction “marketplaces,” which create more efficient means of exchange. But can we accept a conflation of “transaction” with “interaction?” Whilst the growth of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use appears to allow more interaction, much of it is automated between machine and person, or machine with machine. “Hightouch” interactions can’t be automated, but the central economic effect of ICT is to free people from interactive activities — by enabling communication — people can be in touch in absence from a distance. Yet, distance matters (Olson & Olson, 2000) in that synchronous and asynchronous interaction arise in colocation and mediated/distributed spatial conditions, respectively. The advent ofICTshasestablishedanexpectationofeasycommunicationandcoordinated accomplishment of difficult work even though remotely located and rarely overlappingintime.

The problem as I see it is that the increasingly popular idea of “interaction” is beingtakenassynonymouswith“transaction.”Forme,theTransactionSociety doesn’t sound so good, and this switch of terminology helps to veil the unpalatablecontemporaryemphasisonimpersonalsocialarrangements.George Soros (2000) concludes from his analysis of the emerging new economy within thedominantformsofcapitalistsocietythatwecurrentlyliveinaTransactional Society — not an Interaction Society — in which relations among people are guided by instrumental rational calculations of self-interest. To be a Relational Society, we would have to shift to relations that are guided by calculations of common interest. In a Transactional Society we talk of “touch points” and “contacts,” rather than of colleagues, acquaintances, friends, relatives, partners, community, and so on. Scarbrough’s (1995) critique of Williamson’s (1975) concept of transaction cost in his “new institutional economics” shows thatbydefiningthetransactionastheunitofanalysis,Williamsonaimedtotake the debate about organizational forms outside the realm of social relations. Scarbrough argues that whilst transaction is a category of socioeconomic interaction,thereisbotheconomicexchangeandsocialrelationinatransaction

— the latter underpins the former. The forms of organization governance —

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economic exchange (market-based control through material incentives) and social control (hierarchy-based control through social relations) — are coexistentmutuallydependentdimensionsofatransactionalcontinuum(inwhich the network is the hybrid form of governance).

Social Interaction

The Social Psychology of interaction has been widely adopted as the basis for understanding social interaction [see, for example, Argyle (1969, 1973)]. The motivationis to understand the making ofa life among others,yettoday, almost all of the others are strangers to us. In this perspective, the terms “interaction” and “communication” are often used almost synonymously. For example, in Porritt(1990),inguidingthebehaviourofhealthcareprofessionalsinsituations of distress and ill health, communication is taken to be the basis (means) of interaction. A social relationship is a case of enduring social interaction (temporally extended, with a shared history, and surviving of interruptions of face-to-face contact), although Goffman (1961) does not accept that a relationship is merely a “two-person” group — the two forms are distinct and different.Laterinthisdiscussion,wewillconsideranalternativeSocialSystems explanation [drawn from the work of Niklas Luhmann (1995)]. Bales (1999) has made extensive studies of social interaction systems in which “situations” are comprised of multiple systems of interacting persons, and has developed a range of instruments of social interaction analysis. Others have studied human interaction as discourse [see van Dijk (1997) for example].

In the sociological tradition, symbolic interaction examines how each actor takes account of each other’s meanings as well as their respective acts. In the behaviouralperspectiveoninteraction,itisassumedthateachactorrelatesonly to the overt behaviour of the other participants. For the adherents to symbolic interactionism, society exists as individuals in interaction. For Simmel [see Ritzer (1992)], society is merely the name for a number of individuals connected by interaction. These individuals are constituted only in their interactions. This is a step forward from imagining autonomous selfs whose actions bear upon each other. Such actions are understood as either expressive (an end in themselves) or instrumental (as means to an end). Simmel was concerned with the effect of spatial conditions on social interaction (in terms of social, physical, and psychological distance). Interaction is the mutual regula-

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tion in which two persons are within one another’s perceptual fields and signal their responsiveness to one another.

In this view of social interaction, at what point does mere co-presence escalate into interaction and communication? How does this come about? The unit of analysis is the interactor, with attention paid to such dimensions of interaction as actor style, purpose, reason for (interaction), motivation, outcome, manner of (interaction), and the characteristic features of the interaction event. Forms of interaction include exchange (economic aspect of society), conflict (state or regulatory aspect of society), and friendship (characterised by intensifying interaction). Interaction within a community (with known others) differs from that with strangers. People interact with each other to conduct, and participate in, one or a combination of four basic types of relationships, seeking, making, sustaining, repairing, adjusting, judging, construing, and sanctioning their relationships. Fiske’s (1992) work identifies the modes of interaction as communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. These are implemented differently in different social domains and in different relative degrees in different cultural groups. Domains of the complex realm of social interaction include: exchange, decision-making, moral judgement, selfpresentation, consumption, and conversation.

Taken as a (social) process, interaction can be understood as productive or reproductiveofsome“things:”meanings,interests,negotiation,closure,andso on. Thus, we can speak of “productive interactions,” as well as of “unproductive,”“reproductive,”or“destructive”interactions.Alternatively,isaninteraction a “thing” (social event) or a property of a thing?

In sociological thinking, society is understood as a stable and integrated system

— conditions brought about through social interaction. Studies have investigated how interaction creates, fits into, reproduces, functions within, or contributes to the social system. It is assumed in these inquiries that order, stability, structure, coherence, and organization arise from face-to-face communication. Order is assumed in symbolic interactionism (e.g., Mead), role theory (e.g., Turner), dramaturgy (e.g., Goffman), and phenomenology (e.g., Berger & Luckman and Garfinkel, following Schutz). Supposedly, then, ICT enables, accelerates, and connects by creating and extending a social web in society. Smith (1992) challenges this by emphasizing instability. He argues convincingly that interaction is best understood as a self-organising system, ratherthananidealizedarrangementof“actors”performing“roles”(inasociety constituted as a system of roles). Commonly, interaction produces not order but misunderstanding, discomfort, estrangement, and conflict — rather than

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meaning and understanding. We yearn for the interaction, but we don’t feel good about what happens, so we interact in ways that don’t require engagement!

People interact with norms and rules in mind — they have interactional expectations (of sincerity, brevity, openness, intimacy, and so on). Following Elias’(1939)resolutionoftheproblemofdichotomisingthepsychologicaland the sociological, Stacey (2003) explains the “organisation” as patterns of meaning in iterated interaction, as patterns of power relations sustained in selforganising patterns of communicative interacting or conversation/meaning in which human identities emerge. The individual is the singular and the social is the plural of interdependent people. Learning is the activity of interdependent people.

Interaction as Exchange

The social exchange perspective complements symbolic interactionism by examining concepts of value, sanctions, cost, profit, reward, and so on. Blau (1964), for example, seeks to explain how individual exchanges emerge from social attractions into personal exchanges and power, and group authority and opposition.

People are interdependent with one another and thus attempt, abort, avoid, and accomplish the exchange of things (food, goods, services, money, etc.). This requires agreement on who does and should exchange what with whom for what reasons and on what terms. The necessary interaction, as individuals and asagroupmember,isthroughsharedmeaningsandlearnedvalues,andthrough socialroleenactment.Notethesimilarityherewithcommonplaceexplanations for“communication,”Withininteraction,peopleoffer(ordon’toffer)thingsto one another and demand, accept, or avoid things from one another. Vickers (1983) didn’t accept goal pursuit as the foundational motivation for human behaviour, but rather the pursuit or elusion of human relationships.

Social exchange is distinct from strictly economic exchange, and establishes bondsoffriendshiporsuperordinationoverothers.Withinaninstitution,social exchange may cement peer relations or produce status differentiation. Social exchange is a voluntary action motivated by expected returns.

CommercialinteractionisthebasisfortheMarketSystem,whichisthesocietywide social process that brings about coordination of human activities, not by

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central command, but by the interactions of the participants. The actions of producers are controlled and coordinated by the promise of profit-making revenue from buyers through their actions in expressing preferences and needs.

Patterns of Social Interaction

The job and trading are two of a number of social domains in which interactions are sought. Each has characteristic particular forms of interaction (in terms of rules, expectations, conventions, and so on).

A social relationship is a pattern of the coordination of interaction. People coordinate with each other so that their action, affect, evaluation, and thought are complementary. Strauss (1985, 1988) has investigated workplace interaction, for example. What each person does, feels, judges, and so on, makes sense with reference to what other persons do, feel, judge, etc. A social relationship exists when a person acts under the implicit assumption that they are interacting with reference to imputedly shared meanings. It is not necessary that the other people be present or that they perceive the action or understand it as it was intended, nor even that they exist.

The social problem is the coordination of actors, each of whom can behave adaptively towards others: they can give something to the other, accept something from the other, leave something of the other’s alone, or not inflict something on the other. For each actor, the question to be asked is “Why should I…?” The answers characterise alternative forms of social coordination.

Market: “because if you do, I will give you something that you value more than

that which I am asking you to give up”

Tradition/legal/bureaucracy: “because it is my right to tell you to do it, and your duty to do it”

Solidarity: “because you value my welfare, and your doing this will make me better off”

Cooperative: “because what I am asking you to do is, in these circumstances, the best way to achieve your goal, which I share”

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Markets, bureaucracies, solidarity groups, and cooperative teams are different kinds of social structures, with different rules for the conditions under which exchanges take place.

Thehierarchicalformisconstitutedbyconsciousorganisationthroughsystematic administration with overt rules-based control and a hierarchy of authority. The predominant value is planned orders. In the market, “automatic” coordination is accomplished in the pursuit of self-interest by individually motivated andwelfare-maximisingindividuals,leadingtothebestoutcomethrough“free” exchanges. The predominant value is price competition. The network comprises informal and exclusive social, political, economic relationships among relatively independent trusting and trusted social agents. The predominant values are trust and cooperation.

The market and the hierarchy are special cases of the network way of coordinating among and within social units, and these forms often are found operating in mixed mode. Movement (flow) within a network has replaced presence at a location as the locus of power, according to Castells (1995).

These different social structures each require a special kind of value consensus

— a medium of exchange (see Table 1).

In this analysis, adaptation involves obtaining “things” (matter, energy, human services,information)fromtheenvironment,disposingofthingstoit,avoiding things that are in it, and retaining things inside that might escape to it.

Smith (1995) examines the market and the hierarchy in terms of interaction partners as persons responsive to basic attachment needs, and explains the marketasadissipativestructureofarrangementsofrationalactivity.Smithasks how it is that it is possible for people to act as if their interaction partners are

Table 1. Values of alternate modes of social co-ordination of adaptive actors (based on the discussion by Bredemeier, 1979)

Market mode	The Money symbol substitutes for direct social
	interaction
Tradition-Legal-Bureaucratic mode	Insignia as symbol of a right, and compliance
	with a symbol of respect for right and
	acknowledgement of duty
Solidarity mode	Demonstration of need by exposure of
	dependency
Cooperative mode	Expertise and goal acceptance
Coercive mode	Weapons

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cold, impersonal, unempathic fictions (the impersonalized other)? In this, partners construe each other in ways that are interpersonally distancing. He also points out that the facilities and media that enable profit-oriented market exchangesyieldinstrumentalrelevancestopartners.Smithhighlightsthatfirmbased economies are characterized by competitive pressure being primarily between sellers, whereas in bazaar-type economies competitive pressure is on the transactions between buyers and sellers. This supports impersonality in buyer-seller transactions. As Smith points out, “interaction itself is always a form of market behavior, however imperfect” (p. 226), and “many persons, observing one another in competitive attachment processes, constitute an interaction system and form a social market” (p. 226).

Social Action

An action is a unit of intentional behaviour that produces expected consequences. Experience is the result of interaction between the person and some thing(s) — person, object, idea. So, then, interaction is action done together

– a purposive interpersonal process. Interaction, taken literally, means reciprocal action or co-action. Transaction, on the other hand, is across, beyond, over,ortotheother(e.g.,trans-Atlantic).Inthetermsofsymbolicinteractionism, in social interaction the self is observed and analysed as subject and object. Social interaction is interpersonal action, or relations between self and other: there is negotiation of meaning, there is reciprocation, and actions of self and other are reflected on. So, is social interaction merely the “coming together” of people into co-presence? Is social action events of behaviour in, and by virtue of, the presence of other(s)?

Social Systems

Luhmann(1995)movedbeyondthesocio-psychologicalanalysisofindividuals todistinguishthreeformsofsocialsystemsormodesofsocialsystemformation: interaction systems, societal systems, and organised social systems.

The system of interaction comprises those who are “present” “together” at a point in time, with a set of rules. Interaction is, in this view, a social system that

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