articles+ search results

Strategic design, Methodology, Actor-Network Theory, Prototyping, Research, Technology (General), T1-995, Economics as a science, and HB71-74

Published in two parts, this article presents an evidence-based research and prototyping method for strategic design. In Part 1, we introduce the concept of DARN as an updated version of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). DARN is a theoretical framework used to study, rearrange, or remake the constituents of an organization or problem universe. In Part 2, we propose that DARN can be used to for several purposes. (1) It can help organizations reach their stated objectives. (2) It can define, darn, or solve organizational problems with evidence-based and collaborative design interventions. (3) It allows us to imagine new organizational models with complex and distributed agency considerations. (4) It can improve and measure the impact of design interventions within organizational strategy. The DARN approach is critical of social engineering and design solutionism. This approach proposes using collaborative strategic design in sector-agnostic organizational contexts to support designers in problematization, research, conceptualization, prototyping, testing, and impact measurement. Further, DARN presents a single frame that designers and scientists can use simultaneously without imposing an a priori language on each other. It can also serve other actors with whom they work and study. The article concludes with a practical discussion of how to apply DARN on the ground while considering its limits.

Strategic Design, Methodology, Actor-Network Theory, Prototyping, Research, Technology (General), T1-995, Economics as a science, and HB71-74

This article presents the first part of a study that aims at proposing an evidence-based research and prototyping methodology for strategic design. Analyzing the emergence of Strategic Design, we argue that a historically unprecedented rapprochement between intangible design and social research opens a spectrum of possibility for conducting design and science in a new way. First, we examine the emergence of strategic design and discuss its institutionalization in academic and professional contexts. Second, we summarize the three ways of approaching Strategic Design as (1) Discipline, (2) Practice and (3) Attitude. Third, drawing on the social sciences as inspired by Actor-Network Theory (ANT), we define Strategic Design as an evidence-based and social scientifically informed creative practice that aims at proposing a new way to arrange or remake the interaction between devices (D), actors (A), representations (R), and networks (N) in any given organization or problem universe. Preparing a groundwork to develop a research and prototyping methodology for strategic design, the paper ends with a methodological discussion as a segue to Part 2 (available in this issue of She-Ji) that presents DARN as a theoretical toolkit for strategic designers.

media, Indian students, international relations, Sociology (General), and HM401-1281

By any measure, 2009 was a big year for news in India. And yet the safety of Indian students in Australia ranked among the major news events in India that year. The India-Australia Poll 2013 found 65 per cent of respondents believed the Indian media had accurately reported the problems faced by Indian students in Australia in 2009-10. That implies two-thirds of Indians accepted the Indian media’s mostly negative depictions of Australia. Those who believed the media reporting about Australia had been accurate were more likely to be from large cities, be tertiary educated and have relatively high-incomes. The poll found 62 per cent of respondents thought Australia was a dangerous place for Indian students and that 61 per cent believed attacks on Indian students were motivated by racism. The results suggest negative perceptions about Australia created by the media’s portrayal of the student attacks linger in the Indian community. The timing of the initial attacks, and the imagery associated with them, helped attract and sustain media attention on the issue. The diplomatic tensions created by the crisis highlighted the growing influence of the broadcast media on India’s foreign relations. But the episode also exposed a deep lack of understanding about India in Australia. Governments were slow to comprehend how much damage media coverage of student attacks could do to Australia’s reputation in India.