What Use is Domestication Theory to Information Systems Research?

This chapter introduces and discusses domestication theory—essentially about giving technology a place in everyday life—and its relevance and importance to information systems (IS) research. The authors discuss domestication within the context of the social shaping of technology and critique use and adoption theories more widely found in IS studies. The authors illustrate how domestication theory underpins studies of how Irish households find ways of using computers (or not) in their everyday life and research into the use of ICTs in UK gendered households. In conclusion they outline how developments in domestication theory can contribute to future IS research.


introduction
In this chapter we discuss domestication theory, its origin in the reference discipline of sociology and potential/undiscovered importance to Information Systems (IS) research.The relationship between technology and everyday life (and implicit in this construction is the prevalence of users) is a matter of increasing concern for many academics in a wide range of disciplines.Disciplines like IS may claim ownership for the study and treatment of the end-users of computer systems, for example terming the field Human Factors of Computing or Human Computer Interaction.Yet, although examining the interaction between people and the technological artefact and the systems running on it, little attention is often paid to the social constructs in which computer use actually takes place, and how if at all, this influences how computers are acquired, used and made sense of.Domestication, essentially, is about giving technology a place in everyday life.The concept catches the practical, temporal, spatial place, but most importantly, it underlines how this is mixed with the cultural as an expression of lifestyles and values.
According to Haddon (2006), the very first outlines of the Domestication framework emerged in the early 1990s.Two major strands of domestication literature can be detected -the UK strand (for example Silverstone et al., 1989Silverstone et al., , 1992Silverstone et al., , 1994) ) and the Norwegian strand (for example Sørenson et al. 1996).Silverstone and his collaborators focused their version of domestication within the household setting and on media technologies, while Sørenson and his collaborators widened their interest in domestication to contexts outside of the home and on other technologies, such as the car and 'smart-houses'.
In the IS field, it is crucial to understand domestication theory as IS research begins to engage with the concept of ubiquitous computing in everyday life beyond engineering or design issues and the organisational setting for system implementation.In this chapter we therefore aim to showcase significant studies that illustrate domestication theory as an approach and discuss research strategies in the method adopted.The majority of IS research focus on computer usage in settings other than the household (and indeed the construct of everyday life).Organisational, educational, institutional contexts are and have been prioritized over the household setting or the realm of everyday life.IS has not been solely guilty of this obvious neglect but so too the fields of media studies, audience studies, computer studies and so on, that is until the 1990s with the emergence of the Domestication concept set within a social shaping of technology framework.It is first important to define and discuss this theoretical framework before we can fully appreciate the value of Domestication as a concept.
The chapter will proceed by placing the concept of Domestication in the context of the development of theory related to the social shaping of technology.Then we critically analyze other approaches to the study of adoption and use of technology more widely used in IS research.We explain how Domestication theory is an important alternative to our understanding of technology in everyday life and we illustrate our arguments with examples of how IS researchers have utilized Domestication theory in their research.Finally we draw conclusions and suggest the likely future developments of Domestication theory.

domesticAtion theory in context
In this section we focus on theories that underpin domestication of ICTs and that help to understand technologies in everyday life.These theories are discussed under the umbrella term -the social shaping of technology.

social shaping of technology
Social research, studies of technological use and ways of thinking about technology have tended to focus on the effects of technology on society: its impact, its implications, and so on.A 'social shaping' or 'constructivist' approach to technology means to locate the technology as something social, or a product of social interaction.Wajcman (2004) explains that technology must be understood as part of the social fabric that holds society together; it is never merely technical or social.Rather, technology is always a socio-material product, 'a seamless web or network combining artefacts, people, organizations, cultural meanings and knowledge ' (2004:106).
Studies emerged from more sociologicalrelated disciplines examining the social context of use and agency of technology in everyday life.The social shaping perspective emerged during the mid-1980s through influential writings from MacKenzie and Wacjman (1985Wacjman ( , 1999)), Bijker et al. (1987) and Bijker (1995).This way of looking at technology in society crossed the boundaries of many disciplines including audience & media studies, cultural studies, anthropological treatments of objects in everyday life and so on.Cockburn and Ormrod (1993) for example discuss how in western culture, 'technology' is surrounded in mystique neglecting everyday meanings involved in the knowledge and practice of doing, making and producing.The common link between these studies is the rejection of technological imperatives on the emergence, use and transformatory effects of technology in society, namely technological determinist accounts.
Technologically determinism suggests views of the world that assume that technology can 'fix' social problems (van Dijk 2005), are decisive 'agents' of social change yet are somehow 'aloof' from the social world despite having enormous social effects (Webster 2002).Technology then is viewed as autonomous, coercing and determining social and economic relationships.Technology is a complex term embracing the physical artefact (including how it is designed and configured); it forms part of a set of human activities and also incorporates what people know as well as what they do (MacKenzie and Wajcman 1985).Moreover history shows us that technologies do not emerge without active involvement of users who have to accept them as relevant and useful in their everyday lives (Silverstone 2005) and in these terms what technologies we have and how they are used are not inevitable.Domestication challenges a dominant viewpoint of the essentialist assumptions held about technologies and those that consume them.This differs substantially from the dominant understanding of technology which perceives technology as distinct from social life, but with the ability to radically change our lives in a utopian or dystopian manner.This remains a powerful and prevalent way of thinking about technology.According to this determinist view, the potential for change lies in the invention of technology.This view of technology has until recently dominated academic research.Technology has been viewed as determining the development of social structures.A social shaping of technology (SST) perspective, in contrast, radically reverses the views advanced by technological determinism advocates, emphasising that technologies are embedded in the social (see Mackenzie & Wajcman 1985, 1999).SST studies have shown that technology does not develop to an inner technical logic, but is instead a social product, patterned by the conditions of its creation and use.SST theory seeks to grasp the complexity of socio-economic, cultural and political processes involved in technological innovation and use, and to move beyond narrow technical considerations.It is becoming increasingly common as a way of interpreting technology in IS research (Wilson and Howcroft 2005).
Within the SST approach, one particular theory addressing the relationship between technology and society is of interest here: Social Construction of Technology (SCOT), developed by Wiebe Bijker and Trevor Pinch (Bijker, 1995;Bijker et al., 1987;Bijker & Kline, 1999).SCOT sought to open up the technological artifact to sociological analysis with respect to not just usage but also design and technical content (Wajcman 2000).This theory focuses on a very significant point namely 'interpretive flexibility'.This refers to the way in which different groups of people involved with a technology (different 'relevant social groups', in Bijker and Pinch's terminology) can have very different understandings of the technology, including different understandings of its technical characteristics (McKenzie & Wajcman, 1999:21).
Users can then radically alter the meanings and deployment of technologies (Wajcman 2000).The notion of relevant social groups makes SCOT very useful as a theory.Relevant social groups play a vital role in the development of a technological artefact and are defined as groups who share a meaning of the artefact.This meaning can then be used to explain particular developmental pathways.Typical groups might include engineers, advertisers, consumers, and so on.These groups are not static, and newly emergent groups can also be identified within SCOT.Although relevant social groups share a meaning of the artefact, for example, young boys viewing computers as games machines (Haddon, 1992), they may also share other group characteristics.However, interpretive flexibility does not continue forever.'Closure' and 'stabilisation' occur, such that some artefacts appear to have fewer problems becoming embedded in society.These can become the dominant form of technology.The trend of technological determinist studies predominantly in the IS field led to utilisation of models that tended to be more technology-focused.

modeling the Adoption and use of icts
In this section we analyze deterministic models of ICT adoption and use.We particularly offer a critique of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) given its widespread take-up in IS research.Depending on the academic field, deterministic theoretical concepts range from linear accounts to more user focused adoption and use studies.The technology diffusion model for example, developed by Rogers (1995) focuses on profiles of users and expects the technology to diffuse as it is.This method typically uses the survey method to gain quantitative and statistical data.In this way, groups of people are packaged into easily managed categories.In Rogers' model from Diffusion of Innovation (1995) we have five distinct categorizations of users: 'innovators', 'early adopters', 'early majority', 'late majority' and 'laggards'.What is interesting here is that users appear to be privileged while non-users or informed rejecters are spoken about in terms of 'missing out on something' and lagging behind those who have followed the trend and 'accepted' the technology -a deficiency model of ICT adoption.We now explore this theme in relation to TAM.
technology Acceptance model Davis (1989) developed a model to explain computer-usage behaviour.The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) sought to explain the determinants of computer acceptance and to explain user behaviour across a broad range of end-user computing technologies.The model contains two key sets of constructs: (1) perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) and ( 2) user attitude.The basic hypothesis is that acceptance of a technology is determined by his or her voluntary intentions towards using the technology.Further, attitudes tend to relate to perceptions of its usefulness (Yousafzai et al 2007).TAM utilizes social cognition theories such as the 'Theory of Planned Behaviour' and the 'Theory of Reasoned Action'.Yet a useful critique of such social cognition models has been provided by Ogden (2003).She agrees that they are pragmatic tools but essentially flawed in their conceptual basis.The models focus on analytical 'truths' and may create or change conditions and behaviour rather than describe them.Davis (1989) considered the strength of the belief-attitude-intention-behaviour relationship in order to predict actual behaviour and so PU is influenced by PEOU.PU was initially applied to organisational settings and how performance with new IS may be affected (Yousafzai et al 2007).Later the model was used outside the organisation in studies related to e-shopping and so on.Yousafzai et al ( 2007) have analyzed 145 TAM based studies in detail and compared conclusions and interpretations of data collected.They note that in the papers they analyzed, over 70 external variables have been considered alongside PU and PEOU.
TAM research generally draws on behavioural and social psychology literature and is mainly quantitatively based.Technology use and adoption can therefore mean that the whole process of technology adoption and usage is rooted in individual psychology 'obviating the need to consider the social structures within which individuals necessarily operate' (Adam et al 2004).In their meta-analysis for example, Yousafzai et al (2007) reveal that 41% of the TAM studies were conducted with a student group and over 19% were lab based.
One issue that is clear is that TAM is weakened by its lack of focus on how perceptions are formed or how they can be manipulated.The model was developed for organisational contexts and is constrained in its consideration of social and cultural factors and influences.Although from the TAM model, the MATH (Model of Adoption of Technology in Households) (for example see Venkatesh and Brown 2001) emerged, yet both have been criticized as being one-dimensional and limiting based on 'rationalistic causal models' (Cushman and Klecun 2005).The models are unhelpful in understanding what technologies and services mean to people and how they are experienced in everyday life (Haddon 2006), particularly void of analyzing household interactions, gender and other socially constructed relations.Green and Adam (1998) have noted how little is considered about the way in which ICTs impact on everyday life in the home and in particular they observe the gendered social relation of domesticity which surround the use of ICTs and the negotiation involved.
Technology acceptance is not necessarily a voluntary activity, choice may not enter the relationship and thus in an organisational setting, analysis of inequalities in power relations is needed.In particular Adam et al ( 2004) criticize the use of the TAM model in studies that comment on gender difference in use and attitudes (see for example Venkatesh and Morris's (2000) study of attitudes towards the employment of a new software system).They suggest such studies are problematic without reference to the widespread literature analysing gender and technology as cultural constructs and variables that should be theorized and considered.Further criticism is also of essentialism, with a strong tendency of 'making men's and women's character and behaviour seem, fixed and pre-determined, reproducing and reinforcing well-known stereotypes' (Adam et al 2004).Cushman and Klecun (2005) further critique the tendency of TAM to rely on supposed rational decisions made by agents with the notion of people as passive consumers.Individuals appear seemingly unchanged by adoption and use of technology rather than viewing the relationship as a social engagement.

domestication theory: An Alternative View
Domestication theory offers an alternative to these models and is essentially about giving technology a place in everyday life.The domestication concept enables researchers initially to understand media technology use in the complex structures of everyday life settings, with attention to interpersonal relationships, social background, changes and continuities, but also to the increasingly complex interconnection between different media, and the convergence of different media technologies and media texts.
Domestication traces the creation of meaning in media from its inception (when the producers and advertisers create certain meanings for new media) to its later use (or non-use) and the meanings that emerge.Thus, the emphasis is on consumption as well as use.Domestication, both as a metaphor and as an analytical concept, is used to find the crossover where technologies and people adjust to each other and find (or do not find) a way to coexist.Central to the domestication process is the often unconscious attempt to make technologies fit into their surroundings in a way that makes them invisible or taken for granted.This requires mutual adjustment on behalf of both the users and the technology, and is where social shaping comes in to play.In essence, the person shapes the technology to fit into his or her life.Haddon (2006) gives a useful overview of the use of domestication theory suggesting that it has been concerned with research into adoption and non-adoption of ICTs, time and space constraints (e.g.see Richardson 2004), symbolic dimensions of ICTs, the social consequences of ICTs and understanding trade-offs between what is gained and lost, social and cultural capital (Hynes, 2005;Hynes and Rommes 2006) and the social shaping of technology.Hynes (2005) illustrates Silverstone et al's four aspects or 'non-discrete elements' used to describe and analyse this system where the 'moral economy' plays a central role: appropriation, objectification, incorporation and conversion.In the appropriation phase, possession and ownership are central.The acquisition of the technology is the main activity or concern.A technology gets appropriated as it is sold and then owned or possessed by a household.That is the point at which a commodity crosses the threshold between public and private, beginning its new life as a domestic object.Objectification tries to capture how values, tastes or styles are expressed through the display of the new technology.It involves both a spatial aspect (where it is placed in the house), and a temporal aspect (how it is fitted in the time structure).However, the spatial aspect is more central in this phase, '…physical artefacts, in their arrangement and display, as well as…in the creation of the environment for their display, provide an objectification of the values, the aesthetic and…cognitive universe, of those who feel comfortable or identify with them' (Silverstone et al., 1992:22-23).The incorporation phase emphasises how ICTs are used, and the temporal aspect is more central in the incorporation phase.Silverstone et al. (1992) suggest that for an artefact to be incorporated it has to be actively used, such as in the performance of a task.The conversion phase is concerned with the relations between the households' internal affairs and the public domain or outside world.
Throughout, the users play a role in how the technology is adopted, not only into the household as a physical space, but also into the everyday routines of the household members and their perception of the technologies.The overall process is not a linear or closed one, 'domestication is practice, it involves human agency, it requires effort and culture and it leaves nothing as it is' (Silverstone 2005:231) Re-negotiations are common and assessments and uses can change over time.Roger Silverstone has spoken about the 'double and interdependent character of the meaningfulness of the mass media', arguing that we need to address, on the one hand, responses to particular texts or genres brought to us by the media and, on the other hand, the significance of media technologies themselves in our daily lives.He writes: 'There is meaning in the texts of both hardware and software ' (1991:189).This plays an important role in the ways the technology is conceptualised.Sonia Livingstone (2007) and Maren Hartmann (2006) provide useful analyses of the concept of double and even triple articulation of media technologies.
At the time of its first formulation, the domestication concept within the media studies framework quite crucially shifted the emphasis away from a concentration on texts and reception, but instead focused on the practices of use.This was an important step in recognising and researching the embeddedness of media consumption in wider social practices, in everyday lives.The domestication concept also embraced the engagement with the whole media environment and not just one medium or even one text.Like other theories in media studies that emphasise the partial power of the audience in the interpretation of media content (for example, Ang, 1991;Morley, 1992Morley, , 2000)), domestication adds a similar element of partial (and ambivalent) power to the user of technologies in general (and shifts the emphasis from the content to the technology).The theory thus adds perceptions concerning the artefact in question to the process of appropriation and use of technologies (including the idea that sometimes only parts of the technology are adopted or rejected, even after the acquisition).Silverstone et al. (1992) stress how meanings of ICTs in formal and public life are actively transformed and translated through negotiations in the practices of everyday life in households.Domestication of technology may be defined as 'the family's capacity to incorporate and control technological artefacts into its own technological culture, to render them more or less 'invisible' within the daily routines of family life' (Silverstone et al., 1989:24).
As Silverstone and Hirsch (1992) have pointed out, the household is a complex social, economic and political space that powerfully affects both the way technologies are used and their significance.We know little about the economic or social context of the use of technologies in the home and how ICTs are appropriated and consumed in households, including the gender dimensions of this and the negotiation involved (Green 2001).Generally what findings there are suggest that gender politics and sexual division of labour impact strongly on the use of domestic technologies and the appropriation of electronic leisure (Green and Adam 1998).Indeed: The new debates on household technologies have begun to engage not only with issues of power and economics, but also with the issues of moralities, choices and strategies within the nexus of family and personal relationships (Habib and Cornford 2002:338) The key challenge is the attempt to conceptualise how ICTs are culturally transformed to fit in with the household's own understanding of itself.
The aspect of family culture that technologies are fitted into comprises what Silverstone et al. (1989) call the ''moral economy'' of the family.This concept is the starting point for a way of analysing how technologies become part of the household's value system.'moral economy' refers more explicitly to: …these families' own way of working with the social, economic and technological opportunities which frame their world, and which depend on, contribute to and sometimes compromise the ongoing structural forces for change which can be observed and analysed on a macro-sociological scale (Silverstone et al., 1989:1-2).
This implies that the uses and interpretations of media texts or technologies in domestic contexts will be negotiable -depending upon the material and discursive resources which are accessed by households and their members.
The acceptance, use and meaning of ICTs in the context of everyday life of households is central.The incorporation of ICTs into household activities and routines, and thus into the social organisation of the household, shapes and may change the everyday life of these households.At the same time, there is a clear impact of the technologies on households themselves; patterns of ICT acceptance, use and meaning construction are shaped by the way people have organised their everyday lives.
While the use of Domestication as an analytical and methodological concept is well suited to the domestic sphere and in particular in consideration of personal engagement with technologies, it has still yet to be tested on mass organisational levels or extended to groups.Domestication continues to be developed and applied to new contexts there is still more work to do to make it an attractive concept to broadly positivist analysts seeking to quantify on a mass scale the impact of the adoption of technologies.

methodology And ApproAches to domesticAtion reseArch
While the diffusion process is useful in the ways it explains how technologies are appropriated, the domestication process is more valuable in the ways it provides insights into the intricate processes whereby the user assigns meaning and significance to the artefact, and how this is experienced by domestic users during the acquisition and consumption of the technology.Meaning attribution is seen as a continuous process whereby such meanings can experience renegotiation, and even change altogether.
Methodologically studies have been mainly qualitative -unsurprising given the centrality of understanding the significance of ICTs to people as well as ambiguities and contradictions (Haddon 2006).Skepticism tends to be built into the domestication approach (Silverstone 2005) involving challenging industry assumptions and highlighting implications of decisions as well as presumptions of rationality and efficiency within discourses of 'consumer needs'.In IS research therefore Domestication theory tends to fit with the critical paradigm that aims to critique the status quo and expose deep-seated structural contradictions within social systems.It involves a critical stance against 'taken-for-granted' assumptions and a dialectical analysis to reveal the historical and ideological contradictions within social practices.
Although a neglected area of research, nevertheless there are indications that Domestication theory is being used by IS researchers.For example, Hynes (2005) found that Irish households engage in a complex justification process to rationalize the purchase of the computer (and internet).The main motivations were educational purposes (both adult and children), peer pressures and wider social pressures from official and commercial sources.Using Domestication as methodological and analytical tool, Hynes found that users (and even non-users) design their own domestication process, no two experiences are the same bringing about an overall rejection of the 'one size fits all' adage so easily applied by technological determinist hyperbole.This study rejects the notion that computer users can be seen as a homogeneous group but instead many social, cultural, economic and political factors shape the use of and engagement with computer and internet technologies in everyday life.Hynes and Rommes (2006) and Hynes (2003) found that public IT courses were an important factor that played a significant role in the domestication processes of users.It was found that the design of the courses served as a catalyst in the overall Domestication process when courseparticipants could easily translate the course curriculum and relate the material to their everyday lives.IT Courses therefore needed to address both the material and symbolic capital course participants brought with them to IT courses.Hynes (2007) found that the application of the domestication model resulted in quite diverse negotiations of users' domestication experiences.In addition, the increased functionality of new media and computing technologies brought about renegotiations of those meanings that had been previously ascribed to them.This research showed that domestication is a fluid and dynamic process unlike competing adoption and use models which are rational, harmonious, liner and fixed.Furthermore, Hynes (2007) argued that domestication can be applied as an analytical model which produces rich, lived realities of the everyday experience of living with technologies.Richardson (2006;2005a;2005b) has found that the approach has also been useful for feminist research, since it focuses attention on the underresearched domestic context.With a lens on the UK gendered household, she conducted a five-year longitudinal study of ICT use in households and family life detailing time and space constraints and gendered domestic leisure that impacted on motivational, material, skills and usage access.
Women maintain primary responsibility for the smooth running of the home and for the reproduction of domestic order and comfort.This means, among other things, that domestic leisure remains heavily gendered (Morley 2000).Green's (2001) studies of women's leisure continue to show time synchronization and time fragmentation dominating most women's lives leading them to find 'snatched' spaces for leisure and enjoyment.The research showed that a striking feature of everyday lives is how little leisure time people have or perceive themselves to have (Richardson 2006).
In these terms Richardson (2006) draws on an aspect of the social shaping of technology identified as underpinning Domestication theory, that of the co-construction of gender and technology in understanding use of ICTs in a domestic setting.In early gender and technology studies the core argument was that technology is a key source of men's power and a defining feature of masculinity (Wajcman 2004:6).Faulkner (2000) has summarized the gender and technology arguments to involve how technology is gendered because the 'key specialist actors' are men, that is those who design new technologies.There is also a strong gender division of labour based on a link being specified between the idea of masculinity and technical skill.Technical artifacts can also be seen as being gendered both materially and symbolically, though it is important to appreciate that there is considerable flexibility in use, so technology is shaped by users and as such often have usage not intended by the designers.Finally the cultural image of technology is strongly associated with hegemonic masculinity despite the mismatch between image and reality.
These issues were linked to analysis that did not take the family as a gendered institution for granted and further placed the research within the dominant discourse of the 'digital divide' which in the UK centered on engagement with ICTs in a 'meaningful way' as defined by government.This research challenged the technological determinism of corporate and governmental visions of the future.It gave voice in particular to women's experiences in the home.
The research undertaken by Richardson (2006;2005a;2005b) showed that technologies and the gender structures which contribute to the shaping of women's work in the public sphere and 'consumption work' in the home are therefore mutually constitutive -neither is autonomous, immutable or determinate.Webster (1995) discusses how women come to perform tasks which carry an imprint of their socially constructed roles both within the family and workplace.Hynes (2005) adds another dimension in terms of how the routines and habits of everyday life are shaped by the use of technology and how in turn the technology is shaped by everyday life and indeed often the gender dimension is ignored here.So the concept of domestication is seen as expressing a process of shaping a technology to an acceptable form within the family (Hynes 2005).Domestication theory therefore helped understand the household as a site of consumption, reproduction of labour power and formation of gender relations.
In conclusion to how the domestication concept can be used effectively in IS research it provides a frame to contextualize studies and is a tool to understand the perspective and environment of empirical data.It does not take technology for granted and allows multiple interpretations for a more in-depth and rich understanding of technology use in everyday life.conclusion This chapter has contributed to a neglected area of information systems research namely applying the concept of domestication to understand socioeconomic change where it matters and is taken for granted 'in the intimate spaces of the home and household' (Silverstone 2005:231).In practice the era of ubiquitous computing involves much more than the spheres of design, development or end-user implementation.ICTs involve dynamic, mutually shaping relations and application of domestication theory means giving technology a place in everyday life.
We have placed Domestication theory in the context of the Social Shaping of Technology originating in the IS reference discipline of Sociology.We then offered a critique of other approaches to the use and adoption of technology more popular as a theoretical model for IS researchers.The TAM model for example is clearly growing in its use by Information Systems researchers.We provide evidence from Yousafzai et al ( 2007 (Alvesson and Skoldberg 2000).Moore (2003) describes the corporate versions that seek to produce corporate identities presenting a future that is ultimately knowable through expertise resting on the valued endpoint of competitive advantage.She continues to highlight the inexorable logic of future-orientated technological determinism.
Domestication theory is one of the only theoretical approaches that explores the complex processes of adoption and especially the use of technologies into and in everyday life.New developments suggest that the domestication framework considers interactions with wider networks outside the home and also is increasingly discussing 'professional domestication' for example through telework and home working (Pierson, 2006).This is important as the boundaries between home and work are increasingly blurred with the need to understand how ICTs fit into (or not) existing work patterns (Haddon 2006).
A recurrent theme among advocates of technological deterministic perspectives that imbibe notions of a culture of consumption is that consumers and users are 'passive dupes' and 'impotent, malleable consumers, unthinking and unprotesting in the face of media technology' (Heap et al 1995).Hynes (2005) also notes that study of consumption of ICTs is often a number-crunching exercise and 'quantitative discourse' pervades -in other words trying to profile a typical user buying a particular brand in a 'technology-driven strategy'.Bourdieu (1998) suggests that these analyses are a submission to the values of the economy where a return to individualism means not only blaming the victim for their own misfortune but also an attempt to destroy any notion of collective responsibility lest this may interfere with commercial interests.This represents an essentialist view of people, households and technologies and their use and the specific contexts, dynamics and dimensions of inclusion or exclusion thus remains under researched.We conclude that the household has such a central role in our lives that there is a great need to document, analyse and understand changes that are occurring in the ways in which people consume technologies in the domestic setting through their everyday lives (Hynes 2005).Not to do so is to give into the corporate version and vision of the future.references Adam, A., Howcroft, D., & Richardson, H. (2004).A decade of neglect: Reflecting on gender and IS.New Technology Work and Employment,19(3).on 'relevant social groups '. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 14, 17-43. Yousafzai, S. Y., Foxall, G. R., & Pallister, J. G. (2007).Technology acceptance: A meta-analysis of the TAM: Part 1. Journal of Modeling in Management,2(3), 251-280.

Key terms And definitions
Domestication Theory: A theory developed by Silverstone et al (1994) to interpret how technologies become part of everyday life.
Feminist Research: Field of research examining women's political, cultural, social and economic experiences Gender: Social construction of identity and roles based on normative values Social Shaping of Technology: This approach argues that the emergence and development of technology is a social process and people and their social arrangements are the crucial factors in promoting change.This approach argues against intrinsic characteristics inherent in technologies determining their effect and use.

TAM:
The Technology Acceptance Model seeks to explain the determinants of computer acceptance and user behaviour across a broad range of end-user computing technologies.The model contains two key sets of constructs: (1) perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) and (2) user attitude.The basic hypothesis is that acceptance of a technology is determined by his or her voluntary intentions towards using the technology.
Technological Determinism: This approach places technology as the pivotal factor in bringing about social change.Technologies are seen as autonomous inventions that have direct effects on social life.
) for example, who provide a meta-analysis discussing 145 papers published on TAM.Systematic critiques of this model are rare (see Cushman & Klecun 2005 and Adam et al 2004 for exceptions).Yet we have argued that it is important to apply more than a deficiency model of ICT adoption for academic study to offer in-depth and consequential research to this important area.Application of TAM in IS research in our view has led to essentialist analysis of who does what and why with technology and a lack of analysis of power relations associated with technology usage.Domestication research highlights a dominant viewpoint of the essentialist assumptions held about technologies and those that consume them.The future and what technologies we have and how they are used is not inevitable and critical interpretation means a shift in focus from what appears to be self-evident, natural and unproblematic on the one hand and what can be interpreted as the freezing of social life, irrational and changeable on the other