Thinking About Technology

COMS 472Winter 2008

Prof LR Shade

Shaping of Social Technology

•Also known as social constructivism•Concentrates on the effects of

society on technology, rather than just the effects of technology on society

•Emphasizes social factors that shape technological change

Technological Determinism

• Social shaping departs from dominant approaches towards technology that typically study the 'affects' or 'impact' of technology on society

• TD perceives technology as autonomous, self-determining, and omniscient process

Technological Determinism

• Determinism is akin to essentialism; it proscribes attributes based on generalizations - such as biological or genetic determinism (e.g., because women can give birth, they are natural nurturers)

Technological Imperative

• Closely related to technological determinism…a belief that technology is an unstoppable source…that technological enhancement begets progress…

Social shaping continued…• By analyzing social factors that shape

technological change, questions can be asked:

• ”To what extent, and how does the kind of society we live in affect the kind of technology we produce?”

• What role does society play in how the refrigerator got its hum, in why the light bulb is the way it is, in why nuclear missiles are designed the way they are?

Origins of Social Constructivism

• Originally European origin…• Tenets developed from analytic

programs in the history & sociology of science that took scientific theories and hypotheses to be products of their political, economic and cultural milieu

Origins, cont’d

• Investigated institution & practice of science

• Considered social relationships between practitioners, networks of communication, patronage and reward systems

• Day-to-day or laboratory life of science & science as cultural phenomenon

Methodology

• ’Thick descriptions' of development, design, and diffusion of technologies

• Often mundane technologies• Inter and multi-disciplinary –

economics, political science, historical, sociological…

Does not pose essentialisms…

• Urges us to abandon near-cataclysmic obsessions with truth and representation

• Idea of the individual actor-genius takes back-stage to the innumerable relevant social groups which are involved in the design, development, distribution, and diffusion of technology

Relevant social groups…• Can be human, technical, artifactual, or

policy-oriented• They constitute an intricate web of

actor-networks• Randomness and incoherence of such

actor-networks can lead to a messy complexity, in contrast to the deterministically beatific slate of technical euphoria, or `progress'.

Relevant social groups• Various groups that influence the

invention, design, production and diffusion of new technologies

• By concentrating on the minute details (social, economic, technical and political) that comprise case histories of various technologies, we become attuned to these relevant social groups, or actor-networks, that are initially inspired to design, create, and implement technologies

Actor-Networks

• Includes not only human actors, but natural phenomena "that have been linked to one another for a certain period of time" (Callon,1989)

• Networks reveal an interpretive flexibility in how artifacts are designed, and in how different groups perceive the artifacts

Interpretive Flexibility

• Different social actors exhibit varying levels of understanding or motivation in how they design or conceive and expropriate technologies

• We can think of interpretive flexibility as sanctioning a wide spectrum of epistemological views

Unintended Consequences of Technology

• "Technology leads a double life," Noble says, "...one which conforms to the intentions of designers and interests of power and another which contradicts them-proceeding behind the backs of their architects to reveal unintended consequences and unanticipated possibilities" (Noble, 1984, 324-5).

Or the double life of technology…

• Development of the VCR … • Early development of the

telephone • Box knives?• Airplanes as missiles?

Closure, or technological stabilization• Contested• When social groups involved in designing

and using technology decide that a problem is solved

• How does one account for all of the relevant social groups? And …What about those groups whose viewpoints on closure might be disregarded, or whom might not have the power (financial or political) to exert their interpretation of closure?

Limitations of SC agenda

• Winner: “total disregard for the social consequences of technical choice...what the introduction of new artifacts means for people's sense of self, for the texture of human communities, for qualities of everyday living, and for the broader distribution of power in society..." (1993, 368)

Other criticisms• Interpretive flexibility merely reflects

"moral and political indifference”• Focus on political economy needs to

be more explicit• Does not consider gender…• Needs to look at consumers as active

agents• Consider more agency of social

actors…

Mackay and Gillespie

• Their approach to SST tries to address a more critical approach

• Draws on concepts from cultural and media studies

• “A cultural studies approach leads us to analyze technology not solely as a process of design, but as a product of three conceptually distinct spheres…” (p. 691).

Three spheres - interrelated

• Conception, invention, development, & design

• Marketing• Appropriation by users• A heuristic device…”using or

arrived at by a process of trial and error rather than set rules…”

Ideology is important…• …to consider when looking at

technologies - what are the prevailing socio-economic and political agendas at play in the creation and distribution of technologies?

• Notion of encoding unpacks ideological notions.

• Technologies are encoded with particular and preferred terms of use.

Functional Encoding

• Technological affordances allow for particular forms of use …

• Ex: Moses’ underpasses• Certain software programs

Symbolic Encoding

• Symbols used as social communicators - branding, design, colors, etc.

• Ex: men and women’s razors…the Venus (sea-blue, curved, light) vs. the Mach 3 (steel & black, sharper lines, heavier)

• These symbols reinforce/confirm existing ideologies of gender

Social Marketing of Technologies

• An intrinsic factor related to the social shaping of technologies

• Can inscribe gender roles• Consumption encouraged through

domestic uses• Creation of distinct consumer

groups - demographics, psychographics, etc.

Social Marketing

• Creating the technological imperative

• Technological obsolescence • Creating (false) sense of consumer

sovereignty and empowerment

Social Uses of Technology

• What are the everyday uses of technologies?

• How do they accept or actively resist technologies?

• The unintended consequences of technology…the double life of technologies…