David Graham Kreps
David Kreps was born in London in 1963. His first love was performing and directing theatre, and then running Arts Centres. But in 1995 he made probably the first UK Arts Centre website. Moving into Academia, his BA Theatre & Arts Mgt, MA Cultural Studies and PhD Sociology focussed on Information Systems. He is now Reader in Philosophy of Information Systems at University of Salford, and Chair of the International Federation for Information Processing's Technical Committee 9 on ICT and Society.
Subjects: Information Science, Philosophy
Biography
Dr David Kreps is a trans-disciplinary academic. Combining philosophy with a background in the arts, cultural theory, and sociology, to address a critical perspective on systems theory, David is a critical philosopher of Information Systems – the trans-disciplinary space where computing, the social, and the nature of our relationship with reality intersect.David is Chair of IFIP TC9 on ICT and Society.
David is an ‘early adopter’, pioneering thinker and commentator, with a fascination for technology and its impact upon society. A web developer since 1995, (making probably the first Arts Centre Website in the UK) he did his PhD thesis on Cyborgism, become an expert in Web Accessibility, and writes about the philosophy of virtuality, and cultural identity in the socially networked society. He was Director of the Information Systems, Organisations and Society Research Centre (ISOS) at Salford, 2009-12, and in 2018 is a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow.
Education
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BA(hons) Theatre & Arts Mgt, Dartington College of Arts
MA Cultural Studies, University of Salford
PhD Sociology, University of Salford
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Philosophy of Information Systems
Websites
Books
Articles
Theorising Web 3.0: ICTs in a Changing Society
Published: Oct 16, 2015 by Information Technology and People
Authors: Kreps, David
Subjects:
Information Science
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the broad phases of web development: the read-only Web 1.0, the read-write Web 2.0, and the collaborative and Internet of Things Web 3.0, are examined for the theoretical lenses through which they have been understood and critiqued.
My Social Networking Profile: Copy, Resemblance, or Simulacrum? A Poststructuralist Interpretation of Social Information Systems
Published: Nov 17, 2009 by European Journal of Information Systems
Authors: Kreps, David
Subjects:
Information Science
This paper offers an introduction to poststructuralist interpretivist research in information systems, through a poststructuralist theoretical reading of the phenomenon and experience of social networking websites, such as Facebook.
News
Against Nature: The Metaphysics of Information Systems
By: David Graham Kreps
Subjects: Information Science, Other, Philosophy
New Book published 28/5/18, now available for pre-order
This book questions the nature of the business and social information systems so ubiquitous in contemporary life. Linking positivism, individualism, and market-fundamentalist economics at the root of these systems, it critiques the philosophical ground of this triumvirate as fundamentally against nature. Connecting counter-philosophies of the subject as a natural part of existence, with a more collectivist and ecological economics, it presents a historical critique of the development of the academic field of information systems, and offers a complex view of the nature of Nature through which we might reshape our approach to technology and to our economies to overcome the existential threat of climate change. As such, it will appeal to philosophers, social theorists and scholars of science and technology studies with interests in the environment and ecology, as well as those working in the field of information systems.
British Academy Mid-Career Fellow
By: David Graham Kreps
Subjects: Information Science, Other, Philosophy
In August 2017 David was awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship. This highly prestigious award allows "academics to focus on a major piece of research and to communicate their work to a wider audience, by obtaining time away from teaching and administration commitments."
Project Abstract:
"The Fellowship will provide the opportunity to a) complete
research on digital experience, b) prepare a book manuscript for
submission, & c) hold a workshop for academics and
practitioners to discuss the notion of an Information Systems
‘Event'. The project examines personal experience of everyday
digital tasks - paying a bill online, playing a digital game,
receiving smartphone messages - and also new tasks such as tagging
photographs, and experiencing people being recognised (or not) in
photographs by software. The project seeks to discover if such
digital experiences can usefully be re-conceived as a set of
‘events’ within a ‘structure of events’.
This ‘structure of events’ approach uses
Whitehead’s process philosophy, where the ‘event'
comprises both the subjective consciousness of duration
(Bergson’s durée réelle), the dexterity (or
otherwise) of our physical gestures, and all the material and
virtual artefacts of computing technology, and their interfaces,
unified conceptually into a set of Digital Events."
The project runs between 1st January and 31st December 2018.