Shaping Technology / Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change

Voorkant
Wiebe E. Bijker, John Law
MIT Press, 29 sep 1994 - 352 pagina's
Building on the influential book The Social Construction of Technological Systems, this volume carries forward the project of creating a theory of technological development and implementation that is strongly grounded in both sociology and history.

Technology is everywhere, yet a theory of technology and its social dimension remains to be fully developed. Building on the influential book The Social Construction of Technological Systems, this volume carries forward the project of creating a theory of technological development and implementation that is strongly grounded in both sociology and history. The 12 essays address the central question of how technologies become stabilized, how they attain a final form and use that is generally accepted. The essays are tied together by a general introduction, part introductions, and a theoretical conclusion. The first part of the book examines and criticizes the idea that technologies have common life cycles; three case studies cover the history of a successful but never produced British jet fighter, the manipulation of patents by a French R&D company to gain a market foothold, and the managed development of high-intensity fluorescent lighting to serve the interests of electricity suppliers as well as the producing company. The second part looks at broader interactions shaping technology and its social context: the question of who was to define "steel," the determination of what constitutes radioactive waste and its proper disposal, and the social construction of motion pictures as exemplified by Thomas Edison's successful development of the medium and its commercial failure. The last part offers theoretical studies suggesting alternative approaches to sociotechnologies; two studies argue for a strong sociotechnology in which artifact and social context are viewed as a single seamless web, while the third looks at the ways in which a social program is a technology.

 

Geselecteerde pagina's

Inhoudsopgave

The Life and Death of an Aircraft A Network Analysis of Technical Change
21
Whats in a Patent?
53
The Social Construction of Fluorescent Lighting Or How an Artifact Was Invented in Its Diffusion Stage
75
Strategies Resources and the Shaping of Technology
103
Controversy and Closure in Technological Change Constructing Steel
109
Closing the Ranks Definition and Stabilization of Radioactive Wastes in the US Atomic Energy Commission 19451960
140
Artifacts and Frames of Meaning Thomas A Edison His Managers and the Cultural Construction of Motion Pictures
175
What Next? Technology Theory and Method
199
Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts
225
A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the Semiotics of Human and Nonhuman Assemblies
259
Technology Testing Text Clinical Budgeting in the UK National Health Service
265
Postscript Technology Stability and Social Theory
290
References
309
Contributors
327
Index
331
Copyright

The DeScription of Technical Objects
205

Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen

actants actors aircraft argued artifact Atomic Energy Bessemer Bessemer process Bijker Bruno Latour Callon clinical budgeting closure concerned Conrad Schlumberger context controversy cost culture deconstruction delegated described Division door economic Edison Electric electricity network Evaluation Group films fluorescent lamp fluorescent lighting footcandles frame of meaning fusion classification geological global network groom Henry Bessemer Hess Committee heterogeneous Holley human industry instance invention inventors iron John Law Kelly kinetoscope laboratories Latour Lieberman machines management budgeting manufacturers Mazda companies methods Ministry Ministry of Supply motion picture MPPC Mulkay Nela Park nonhuman nuclear patent phonograph Pinch practices problem production radioactive waste Reactor relevant social groups rhetoric Sanitary Engineering Sanitary Engineering Branch Schlumberger scientific sociology sociotechnical specific stabilized steel steelmaking strategies structure technical objects technological frame testing tion Trevor Pinch USAEC users utilities waste disposal Wolman Committee

Populaire passages

Pagina 3 - ... of the technologies were made according to their mindscapes and perceptual reach, thereby indirectly predetermining future landscapes. Our technologies mirror our societies. They reproduce and embody the complex interplay of professional, technical, economic, and political factors. . . . The idea of 'pure' technology is nonsense. Technologies always embody compromise, politics, economics, theories of the strength of materials, notions about what is beautiful or worthwhile, professional preferences,...‎
Komt voor in 8 boeken vanaf 1994-2005

Over de auteur (1994)

Wiebe E. Bijker is Professor at Maastricht University and the author of Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press) and other books.

John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England.

Wiebe E. Bijker is Professor at Maastricht University and the author of Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press) and other books.

John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England.

John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England.

Michel Callon, developer (with Bruno Latour and others) of Actor Network Theory, is Professor at the École des mines de Paris and a Researcher at the Centre de Sociologie de l'innovation there.

Geoffrey C. Bowker is Professor and Director of the Evoke Lab at the University of California, Irvine. He is the coauthor (with Susan Leigh Star) of Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences and the author of Memory Practices in the Sciences, both published by the MIT Press.

Wiebe E. Bijker is Professor at Maastricht University and the author of Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press) and other books.

Thomas J. Misa is ERA-Land Grant Professor of the History of Technology at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Charles Babbage Institute. His books include Modernity and Technology (coedited with Philip Brey and Andrew Feenberg; MIT Press, 2003).

Bruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of We Have Never Been Modern, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, Facing Gaia, Down to Earth, and many other books. He coedited (with Peter Weibel) the previous ZKM volumes Making Things Public, ICONOCLASH, and Reset Modernity! (all published by the MIT Press).

Bruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of We Have Never Been Modern, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, Facing Gaia, Down to Earth, and many other books. He coedited (with Peter Weibel) the previous ZKM volumes Making Things Public, ICONOCLASH, and Reset Modernity! (all published by the MIT Press).

Trevor Pinch is Goldwin Smith Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University and coeditor of The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (anniversary edition, MIT Press).

John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England.

Wiebe E. Bijker is Professor at Maastricht University and the author of Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press) and other books.

Bibliografische gegevens

TitelShaping Technology / Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change
Inside Technology
RedacteursWiebe E. Bijker, John Law
UitgeverMIT Press, 1994
ISBN0262260433, 9780262260435
Lengte352 pagina's
  
Citatie exporterenBiBTeX EndNote RefMan