Darryl Cressman -Understanding the Phenomenology of Technology & Educational Media Though Breakdowns

(Presented at the 7th Annual International Phenomenology and Media Conference, May 12 - 14, 2005, in Cannon Beach, Oregon.)

Phenomenology offers the possibility of understanding the experience of everyday relationships with information technology in ways often overlooked in studies of its use and cultural significance. One aspect of this relationship is represented perhaps rather provocatively in the phenomenon of breakdown --as the interruption of flow, the disruption of expectations, or even the cessation of operation altogether. Following Heidegger, Winograd and Flores, Dreyfus and others understand "breakdown" as a opening up a mode of being towards a technical artifact that brings the user into a direct relationship with the object in question, allowing for the recognition of aspects of the technology, user, and process of use that can be systematically overlooked in other approaches. To develop an appreciation of the multifaceted nature of this experience and conception, this presentation will undertake a review of different understandings of "breakdown," and will seek to draw a parallel between the way of being revealed in it and ways of being as understood through Actor-Network Theory. An examination of illustrative and concrete experiences of engagement and breakdown with computer-mediation in educational contexts will conclude the paper --demonstrating the multiplicity of experienced meanings and interpretive possibilities offered by this method.