| Shaping Technology / Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change Revised Edition Contributor(s): Bijker, Wiebe E. (Editor), Law, John (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0262521946 ISBN-13: 9780262521949 Publisher: MIT Press OUR PRICE: $59.40 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 1994 Annotation: Building on the influential book "The Social Construction of Technological Systems," "Shaping Technology/Building Society" carries forward the project of creating a theory of technological development and implementation that is strongly grounded in both sociology and history. The twelve essays address the central question of how technologies become stabilized, that is, how they attain a final form and use that is generally accepted. The first part of the book examines and criticizes the idea that technologies have common life cycles. The second part looks at broader interactions shaping technology and its social context. The last part offers theoretical studies suggesting alternative approaches to sociotechnologies. Each part contains case studies, examples of which include 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. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Sociology - General - Science | Philosophy & Social Aspects |
| Dewey: 303.483 |
| Series: Inside Technology (Paperback) |
| Physical Information: 0.84" H x 5.9" W x 9.01" (1.20 lbs) 352 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Law, John: - John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England.Bijker, Wiebe E.: - 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.Bijker, Wiebe E.: - 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.Law, John: - John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England.LaTour, Bruno: - Bruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Our Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, and many other books. He curated the ZKM exhibits ICONOCLASH and Making Things Public and coedited the accompanying catalogs, both published by the MIT Press.Pinch, Trevor: - 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).Callon, Michel: - 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.Bowker, Geoffrey C.: - 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.Misa, Thomas J.: - 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). |