| Even when the timing, sequence, and manner of
notification are instrumentally inconsequential, how one conveys
information affects the meaning of the telling. This paper introduces
the concepts of “notification norms” and the “information order,”
showing how the former constrain the behavior of nodes in social
networks as well as providing a tool that nodes can use to manipulate
the relationships that comprise those networks. “Notification” is
defined as information transmission that is motivated by role
obligations. Notification norms are defined as social rules that
govern the passing along of information. I show how these rules
produce patterns of information dissemination that are different from
what individual volition would produce and from what technology makes
possible. The capacity to wield a socially sanctioned repertoire
of notification rules is a learned competence: children must be
socialized in the notification ways of adult society and adults into
the notification ways of the professions, organizations, and
communities of which they are members. Familiarity with
notification norms also allows actors to extract meta-information from
notification incidents and to use notification to manipulate social
relationships. In addition to knowing the rules, competent notifiers
must possess a mental model of their local epistemological ecology –
which includes where information came from, who else knows and when
they found out, as well as a sense of the projects, concerns, and
priorities of those around them which determine what information they
expect or hope to receive. This study of notification introduces the
broader concept of “the information order” and is a first step in the
project of a sociology of information which is different from, on the
one hand, the traditional sociology of knowledge, and, on the other,
the faddish “sociology of information technologies” of recent years. |