Abstract
This article is based on the writer's participant observations of multidisciplinary Nordic-Japanese discussions in August 1997 and October 1998 concerning the cultural acceptance of the new information and communication technologies (NICT) in Japan, China and the Nordic countries. Concepts and theoretical ideas from the sociology of technology and science are applied. The main question is how to frame sociologically a study on the local differences in attitudes toward and the adoption of NICT. The main results are: (1) NICT products are carriers of metaphoric meanings of society and the individual; (2) the image of the information society attached to the computer is less attractive than the metaphoric contents carried by the mobile phone; (3) the mobile phone is more persuasively independent from cultural differences, because of its independence from the cultural differences, the mobile phone is more attractive to the majority of consumers. Its metaphoric reference unlike the computers, is non-verbal and therefore unanalysable and for the same reason also more capable of being freely constructed locally and individually.
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Kantola, I. Reflections for a sociological study on the cultural acceptance of the NICTs. AI & Soc 13, 282–300 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01174782
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01174782