Thinking About Technology

COMS 472
Winter 2011
Prof LR Shade
January 11, 2011
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
TD
• 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…