Adjunct Faculty, Department of Media and Communication, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), Dhaka, Bangladesh. E-mail id: anispervez@gmail.com
Online published on 23 February, 2017.
The understanding of information systems (ISs) has shifted from a techno-centric, narrow view to a user-centric and broad view. The broad view is a user-driven and interpretive approach. ISs rely on communication to support people as they assign value or meaning to the environment out of which information is constructed. Any physical or symbolic artefact that is used in this process of constructing information is a medium; film is an example. This essay maps out the way ISs, as a system and as conception, have evolved from a narrow to broad perspective and thus has entailed a communicative aspect. A communication approach to ISs shifts the focus from artefact to users and from a positivistic to an interpretive understanding of information. It emphasises the way people communicate with their environment by using media. The communication approach to ISs broadens the horizon to include as IS everything that facilitates the communication acts.
Information systems, Information technology, Information use environment, Organisation, Users, Social action, Communication
