Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society Set
coordinated by Valérie Larroche and Olivier Dupont
Volume 3
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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The rights of Valérie Larroche to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018966655
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-309-7
First, I would like to thank Jacqueline Deschamps, Olivier Dupont and Jean-Paul Metzger, the three teacher–researchers involved in this project, and the “Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society” set for their commitment, perseverance and their abundant reflection, which made the preparation of this book possible. Even if I assume full responsibility for the content of this book, I consider them as co-authors given their involvement.
I would also like to thank the proofreaders of this paper, Julia Bonaccorsi, Josiane Boutet, Stéphane Chaudiron, Thierry Lafouge, Marie-Armelle Larroche, Marie-France Peyrelong and Isabelle Vidalenc for their careful reading, encouragement and constructive suggestions.
The students and teacher–researchers who have been taking part in the teaching of the epistemology of information and communication sciences at the Lyon III IUT (University Institute of Technology) over the past decade have made possible fruitful exchanges, which are reflected in this book. Thanks to all of you, especially Martine Vila.
Finally, I would like to thank all those who encouraged me in this project and believed in its successful completion, in particular Jacqueline Bérard, Patrick Boutet, Marcel Galea, my children Laura and Antoine, and my family.
I am very grateful to all these contributors, without whom this book would not have been possible.
This book is part of the set: “Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society”. This set is a state of the art collection of the latest theoretical developments started by researchers in Information and Communication Sciences (ICS) embracing their discipline. The authors of the set have put forward an interplay of concepts employed in the ICS community. These concepts are also used in other disciplines related to the humanities and social sciences (history, sociology, economics, linguistics, psychology, etc.) besides often fitting in line with the concerns of science and technology researchers (ergonomics, artificial intelligence, data analysis, etc.).
In this set, we aim to highlight the theoretical approaches used in ICS, which is often regarded as a cross-disciplinary field, from a deliberately conceptual point of view. We thought that this was the right choice to supplement the different epistemological works that have already been carried out in the field.
To describe in further detail the perspective adopted in each of these works, we should point out that it represents the point of view of researchers in ICS with a didactic aim and an epistemological focus. We will start by considering ICS as an academic discipline that contributes to the creation and dissemination of knowledge related to information and communication.
Thus, our theoretical reflection will be based on the analysis of a series of concepts widely used by the ICS community, and we will aim to make it accessible to humanities and social sciences students as well as useful for teachers and researchers in several fields and for professionals who wish to consider their practices. This interplay of concepts allows us to conceive 21st Century society in its social and technological aspects. It also helps shed light on human and technological relations and interactions.
So far, this series is expected to include a dozen works, each of which presents one of the following concepts, which are widely used in ICS: power, discourse, mediation, the dispositif, memory and transmission, belief, knowledge, exchange, public/private, representation, writing and aesthetics.
Each book in this set shares the same structure. A first part, called “Epistemological foundations”, summarizes and allows us to compare the theories which over time have developed and then re-examined the concept in question. A second part presents recent problematics in ICS, which involve the concept with the aim of establishing or analyzing the topic researched. This organization of the content can get rid of the restrictive meanings that concepts may take on in the public or professional sphere, or even in various disciplines.
The first four books examine in turn the concepts of power, discourse, mediation and dispositive (dispositif). In these first texts we come across two concepts with a strong historical background : power and discourse; and the two others have emerged instead in the contemporary period: mediation and the dispositive.
These books are the fruit of collective reflection. Regular meetings among the different authors have made collaborative development of these four texts possible. The content of these works and of the preparatory work on the other concepts also forms the basis that has been offered in several types of education for the past 10 years or so. Thus, it has been tested before an audience of students at different levels.
Some authors have already been asked to write about the other concepts. The series coordinators will see that these authors follow the logic of the set and the structure of the first books.
To deal with the concept of the dispositif (dispositive)1 and respect the logic of the Concepts to Conceive the 21st Century set, our discussion is based on two clearly distinguishable parts. Part 1 covers the epistemological foundations of the dispositive. It clarifies the concept of dispositive by means of authors of any disciplines who have provided a definition or discussions related to one of the technical, organizational or cultural aspects specific to their field of research. This part is intended for any person interested in human and social sciences, who wishes to further study what we call the dispositive. Part 2 focuses more on issues concerning information and communication sciences. Our collective position is to consider ICS as, on the one hand, an academic discipline contributing to the transmission of the information and communication culture and, on the other hand, a research discipline.
Even though we note that numerous authors use the term dispositive in its notional form, this book explores its heuristic potential. The approach is to clarify points of view, whether they are those of practitioners or researchers. This is why discussions often vary between operational considerations and theoretical ones, as they influence each other.
The first part provides a comprehensive analysis of the state of the art of the concept, in which the author of the book often gives way to the authors quoted. The second part is more focused on the vision of ICS, here it is more difficult for the author to remain completely neutral. To give just one example, the theme selection inevitably reflects her areas of interest.
We very clearly differentiate in the rest of this introduction our two parts, which are, respectively, entitled “Epistemological foundations” and “The Dispositive and ICS”.
By checking the term dispositif (dispositive) in the Trésor de la langue française (1971–1994)2, made available in computerized version (the TLFi) by the Centre national de ressources textuelles et lexicales (CNRTL, National Center for Textual and Lexical Resources), we find the following etymology:
“The term dispositif is derived from disponere which means to dispose. A notion of organization, arrangement is present in the etymology of the word dispositif. Before 1615, dispositif was defined as the ‘part of an enactment which absolutely rules’”3 (Pasquier, 1963–1967, orig. ed. 1560, p. 847).
The first understanding of the word dispositif is then legal, and refers to a text that specifies implementing terms of the written provisions included in this text. In other words, the enactment contains practical provisions. In 1797, a second definition emerged, written by Jean-François de Galaup, Earl of La Pérouse (1741–1788), author of the Voyage de La Pérouse autour du monde. Dispositive is then defined as a “set of elements ordered for a specific purpose” (de Galaup, 1797, p. 90). In a military context, the word means a set of means and measures arranged according to a strategy. To these definitions we can add the more technical and common one: “The way parts of an appliance are arranged for a specific purpose, parts of a machine” (CNRTL, “Dispositif”, A, 1).
When starting this research on the dispositive, we were sure of its link with technique and an organizational form, two aspects found in the previous definitions. Progressively, technical activity4 appeared as intrinsically linked to the dispositive. For example, humans use techniques to perform repetitive actions within the dispositive. However, the discursive aspect present in the legal definition of dispositive was only discovered later, although it is a crucial component of it. For example, the description of a process within a dispositive can be written to collectively share the order of operations, and dialogue can facilitate the exchange of best practice to improve the effectiveness of the dispositive.
In this book, we will see that, depending on the disciplines using the term dispositif, the technique becomes a skill, a know-how, a tool and a practice, which leads to a relationship between humans and technical objects. The organizational aspect introduces roles commissioned to perform collective repetitive activities, but also actual tasks. The dispositive is a framework in which techniques and humans are arranged to make it possible to perform repetitive and distributed activities. The collective aspect requires coordination between human and non-human actors. Dispositives of various natures can overlap, as the result of one dispositive can be integrated into another. The example of a book publication dispositive implies that there is a book produced in another dispositive. This aspect is further developed in Chapter 2. Finally, Chapter 3 studies the place of discourse in the dispositive. The documents circulating within the dispositive illustrate the fact that discourse is a component of the dispositive. However, it is also the purpose of some dispositives to produce discourse. The media illustrates this category. This last chapter also makes it possible to go beyond the operational aspect of dispositives to discuss their social and identity impacts.
The dispositive is understood in this first part both as a concrete and scientific object. Engineering and expertise fall within the first type, and the cultural and social interpretations of dispositives integrated into contexts of use fall within the second one. The dispositive is therefore approached from scientific, operational and cultural perspectives.
The second part is deliberately focused on issues covered by ICS, the discipline to which the author belongs. Dispositive is a term that is often found in publications of ICS researchers. The interest in the dispositive is already illustrated by the use of the term in the presentation of research teams6. The Dicen-IDF (Dispositifs d’information et de communication à l’ère numérique (Information and Communication Devices in the Digital Era, Paris, France) laboratory includes in its name the term dispositive.
Other research laboratories use the term to identify or explain their research themes.
It is also the case for the I3M (Mediation, Information, Milieux, Medias, Médiations; Information, Environnements, Média, Médiations) laboratory of the Nice, Sofia Antipolis and Toulon Universities, whose research subjects are “information and communication socio-technical dispositives (DISTIC)”.
The MICA laboratory (Mediation, Information, Communication and Art research laboratory) of the Bordeaux Montaigne University reflects on “Mediation mutations in the digital and globalization era”, from which one of the lines of research Information & Connaissance (Information & Knowledge) focuses on the “uses of digital devices and the new practices they generate”.
The Gripic (Interdisciplinary Research Group on Information and Communication Processes) at Celsa specifies, on the other hand, that the discipline “focuses on information and communication actors, processes, dispositives and phenomena produced in social life”7.
Finally, for others, the field of analysis clearly includes the dispositive object; the focal point of GERiiCO (Groupe d’Etudes et de Recherche Interdisciplinaire er Information et Communication – Group for Studies and Interdisciplinary Research into Information and Communication) in Lille is the analysis of info-communication practices, processes and dispositives studied under their linguistic, discursive, technological and symbolic aspects.
This list illustrates the variety of uses. It is a term which defines a method, frames the object of research or makes it possible to identify issues, all at the same time. It is also often an unquestioned notion that authors consider as self-evident or not crucial.
In this second part, we have selected dispositive mobilizations as a concept (therefore integrated into the formulation of the questioning) or as an object of study8. In the field of information, communication and media, the term dispositive is commonly used to refer to all material substrates of communication. “We talk in that sense about media dispositive, television dispositive, editorial dispositive: in each case, it is to highlight that communication implies an organization, relies on material resources, requires technical know-how, defines frameworks for intervention and expression” (Jeanneret, 2005, p. 50). The elements listed in this quote by Yves Jeanneret contain components of the dispositive discussed in Part 1 and reused in Part 2 according to the ICS theme considered.
The I3M laboratory (Information Environments, Media, Mediations) formulates a questioning in terms of the dispositive, which allows it to “consider world transformations by highlighting the flexible and powerful interactions of technologies with their environment according to structuring and coercive forces, but which never fully make sense and whose purpose can always be diverted through the use made of them by the subjects” (Rasse, Durampart, Pelissier, 2014).
Jean-Mathieu Méon, ICS researcher at the CREM (Centre de Recherche sur les Médiaions – Research Center for Mediations) of the University of Lorraine in Metz, in collaboration with visual art researchers, presents a book on cultural and artistic dispositives. He indicates in the introduction of the collective work that “in terms of art and culture, this approach helps to maintain together an internal perspective on art works and practices (their constituent interests, the intentions and representations they support, the stratagems and methods governing their layout) and an external perspective (the conditions and forms of their setup, their presentation to the public, the way they are individually and collectively seen)” (Méon, 2011, p. 9). The points of interest he lists will be later associated with dispositive questioning.
The notion of dispositive is then “clearly heuristic since it leads us to look closely at how changes happen, in terms of contexts, procedures, materials, orders” (Jeanneret, 2005, p. 50). This is why we have chosen to further develop some ICS dispositive mobilizations.
In this part, we shall focus on the work of ICS researchers related to specific objects, and in which authors use the term dispositive in their own research. The theoretical tools integrating the dispositive make it possible to decipher the complexity of info-communication phenomena. For Violaine Appel and Thomas Heller, who worked on the communication dispositive concept of organizations, “the concept of dispositive implies at the level of scientific practice a position which is both analytical (description of power technologies) and critical (especially revealing power struggles)” (Appel and Heller, 2010, pp. 45–46).
We have chosen to further study three current ICS themes, on the one hand, to illustrate the questioning heuristic scope integrating the dispositive concept and, on the other hand, to demonstrate the unifying aspect of this concept in ICS. Indeed, authors focusing on the media field, information or organization communication discuss the concept.
The first issue tackled in Chapter 4 questions the complexity of the productions of media content by means of the dispositive concept, from the point of view of publishers and journalists, but also from those who manage the information produced in organizations or institutions. Digital technology adds complexity to interactions9 and requires a better overall view to understand media convergence and the necessary adaptation of traditional media.
Chapter 5 reflects on the concept of the secondary information dispositive, which is already well defined in the document context, to assess its heuristic scope in view of the object traces of activities. This chapter makes it possible to show two very different visions of these dispositives, one focused on interfaces and another on a cybernetic vision.
Finally, the last chapter discusses participation from the dispositive perspective, and cross-references the views of researchers linked to media discourse, information management and learning or organization communication. The social web led to a collaboration of platforms with users, whether it is to collectively produce discourse or act and learn.
In this book, each part is independent and can therefore be read on its own. The same goes for the chapters composing them (especially those of Part 2).
As indicated in the general introduction, this first part helps us to understand the concept of the dispositive from its different aspects. Chapter 1 deals with technique, its relationship with humans, science and the notion of efficiency. Chapter 2 highlights the importance of the roles carried out by human actors and of the coordination activities to ensure a collective action within the dispositive. This action can also result from partnership-based configurations. Finally, Chapter 3 is dedicated to the place of discourse in the dispositive. Discourses and teleological documents circulating within operational devices are discussed. This last chapter also makes it possible to present dispositives whose purpose is to produce discourses made available to a public and those who facilitate the realization of collective representations, in particular those of power. Finally, the last dispositives studied move away from realization and have a heuristic aim. They make it possible to produce society models or better understand some social and psychoanalytic mechanisms.