From Representation to Mediation: Modeling Information Systems in a Digital World

Abstract

The role of information systems is changing in an increasingly digitalized world. Does this situation mean that established conceptual modeling practices relevant to the analysis and design of systems must change as well? In this talk, I will answer this question with a definite and affirmative “yes”. I will review the traditional assumptions around the conceptual modeling of information systems and demonstrate how advances in digital technology increasingly challenge these assumptions. I will then present a new framework for conceptual modeling that is consistent with the emerging requirements of a digital world. The framework draws attention to the role of conceptual models as mediators between physical and digital realities. It identifies new research questions about grammars, methods, scripts, agents, and contexts that are situated in intertwined physical and digital realities. I will discuss several implications for conceptual modeling scholarship for systems analysis and design that relate to the necessity of developing new methods and grammars for conceptual modeling, broadening the methodological array of conceptual modeling scholarship, and considering new dependent variables.