Providers and policy-makers are interested in understanding consumers' use of new media and technologies. The challenge, however, is to work out ways in which qualitative research on the social construction and uses of the new communications technologies can connect with and reformulate issues central to industry and policy.
In this paper, I present a way of exploring the perspectives of the user, and connecting them to the language and perspectives of providers and policy-makers. Users and their activities are placed at the centre of the questions. The questions and concepts then focus on the activity and nature of communication rather than the goods and services sold or the technologies being used. Information and communication technologies are studied within their social context. This research is most often qualitative because, for the most part, we are discovering new questions and exploring ambiguity.
Once the user's perspectives have been discovered, it is easier to engage in dialogue with providers and policy-makers by focusing on concepts central to both sides, such as ‘design’ and ‘trust’. These concepts link issues important to the user to issues of production, diffusion and consumer confidence.
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