Space, Power and Communication: the dynamics of convergent ICT in the Norwegian Health Care System

The introduction of ICT into the health care system, and its convergence with pre-existing forms of communication and digital media, reveals basic characteristics of this field whilst at the same time in-depth and theoretical understanding of the field enables new understandings of communication, IT and digital media at the level of everyday practice. Under the umbrella of this broad approach, there will in the project be brought out individual dimensions which will combine theoretical insights from Sociology, Geography, Political Science and Informatics with existing approaches to the study of technology and society in order to deepen and enrich our knowledge. The project aims to make an original contribution to these debates by combining this approach to technology with an understanding of the health care system as a complex spatialized field of communication in which relations of power and identity are enacted, reproduced and challenged in everyday practice A range of t heoretical approaches will be combined to focus on the implementation and use of new technologies in everyday practice within the health care sector in Norway. Specifically, this approach reveals how everyday practice is shaped and re-shaped by communication, information and digital media but also how everyday practice within the health care sector make convergence possible at all. In sum, the project aims to reveal the complex dynamics of communication through convergent media in the health care system: specifically, the impact that new technologies and the field of practice have upon each other. Due to the character of the questions asked it is here primarily required a qualitative research design. The ICT-based projects constituting the empirical field for the project will form the basis for four case studies. The reseach will entail paticipant observation, informal discussiona, document analysis and interviews with key informants, including health care professionals an d managers.