Résumé
"Information technologies, such as the computer aided dispatch (CAD) system, have fundamentally changed workplace protocols. This thesis examines the impacts that the CAD system and its standardized processes have on the labour of 9-1-1/police call-takers. Analyzing the labour of 9-1-1/ police call-takers and their processes for locating wireless call(er)s and classifying emergency call(er)s, uncovers the negotiated labour between human and machine. Throughout the thesis I argue that the CAD, and its standardized processes, do not remove the social from call-taking, but instead emphasize the use of the social as a resource for classifying call(er)s. The present analysis illustrates how emergency classification is not a standardized process, but instead an actively constructed virtual image performed in real space and time by call-takers. It is the call-takers' tacit knowledge and ability to work across the virtual, abstract and material worlds that makes them essential players in emergency response."--Abstract.