The Technological Construction of Social Power

Social construction of technology

Social construction of technology (SCOT) is a theory within the field of science and technology studies. Advocates of SCOT—that is, social constructivists—argue that technology does not determine human action; rather, human action shapes technology. Additionally, they also argue that the ways a technology is used cannot be understood without a thorough understanding of how that technology is embedded within its respective social context. SCOT is a response to technological determinism, and it is sometimes known as technological constructivism.

The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology might Benefit Each Other

The need for an integrated social constructivist approach towards the study of science and technology is outlined. Within such a programme both scientific facts and technological artefacts are to be understood as social constructs. Literature on the sociology of science, the science-technology relationship, and technology studies is reviewed. The empirical programme of relativism within the sociology of scientific knowledge and a recent study of the social construction of technological artefacts are combined to produce the new approach. The concepts of `interpretative flexibility' and `closure mechanism', and the notion of `social group' are developed and illustrated by reference to a study of solar physics and a study of the development of the bicycle. The paper concludes by setting out some of the terrain to be explored in future studies.

Technology is Society Made Durable

Is it possible to devise a set of concepts that could replace the technology/society divide? This set of new concepts - association and substitution - might help to rephrase some of the traditional questions of social order and especially that of the durability of domination of power. However, instead of using different tools to analyse power and weakness, it is argued that power and domination are simply different values of variables that should be studied in their whole range. By reconstructing networks it is argued that a full description of power and domination may be obtained.

The Social Meaning of the Personal Computer: Or, Why the Personal Computer Revolution Was No Revolution

This essay presents a processual model of the personal computing movement that depicts the PC's birth within the context of complex and often contradictory social strategies, each of which used the meaning of computer technology in a distinctive way. It suggests that innovators are constrained by such processes to depict new artifacts in culturally meaningful ways, so that it is difficult for them to conceive of their technologies in radical terms. The rhetoric of "revolution" aside, innovators found it expedient to draw from the stock of meanings at hand as they created new meaning-frameworks for their artifacts. The result is that the new artifacts did not express a coherent or effective political vision and failed to have the intended social effects. This study implies that new technologies frequently reproduce existing social and meaning systems; if they do bring about social change, the changes may differ from those intended by the innovators.

The Social Meaning of the Personal Computer: Or, Why the Personal Computer Revolution Was No Revolution

This essay presents a processual model of the personal computing movement that depicts the PC's birth within the context of complex and often contradictory social strategies, each of which used the meaning of computer technology in a distinctive way. It suggests that innovators are constrained by such processes to depict new artifacts in culturally meaningful ways, so that it is difficult for them to conceive of their technologies in radical terms. The rhetoric of "revolution" aside, innovators found it expedient to draw from the stock of meanings at hand as they created new meaning-frameworks for their artifacts. The result is that the new artifacts did not express a coherent or effective political vision and failed to have the intended social effects. This study implies that new technologies frequently reproduce existing social and meaning systems; if they do bring about social change, the changes may differ from those intended by the innovators.

Technological Dramas - Bryan Pfaffenberger, 1992

This article examines the technological construction of political power, as well as resistance to political power, by means of an 'ideal-typical' mode...

Infrastructure for Interdependence: Building technology in service of collective power

[This document serves as a memo for investors]

Digital Strategy for Organisations

Digital power is created through the interplay of mobilizing and organizing. Open Social protocols bridge the gap.

Folk Tech – tech for life

Folk Tech is a solidarity-based movement among designers, developers, and people in communities who want digital technology that supports their daily life and interdependence without the extraction, exploitation, or surveillance found in most proprietary technology today.

Folk Tech – tech for life

Folk Tech is a solidarity-based movement among designers, developers, and people in communities who want digital technology that supports their daily life and interdependence without the extraction, exploitation, or surveillance found in most proprietary technology today.

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…

What is Technology?

Chapter 3 of Technological Metamodernism

Technocracy References

References and Revisions “Should Scientists and Engineers Run Society?” References [1] Wikipedia: “Technocracy.” [2] Academic Paper: Gunnell, John G. "The technocratic image and the theory of technocracy." Technology and culture 23.3 (1982): 392-416. [3] Academic Paper: Oh, Kyunghwan. "A non-co...

Technoableism

Technoableism is a belief in the power of technology that considers the elimination of disability a good thing, something we should strive for. It’s a classic form of ableism—bias against disabled people, bias in favor of nondisabled ways of life. Technoableism is the use of technologies to reassert those biases, often under the guise of empowerment.

Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object & Tool

Uses of advanced artificial intelligence are changing how societies organize labor, govern, produce knowledge, and make meaning. In light of these developments, this essay argues that AI models, tools, and systems pose three interrelated imperatives for social science: they demand renewed attention to social theories of how technology, human experience, and social order are entangled; they require study as objects of inquiry in their own right; and they offer capabilities that may transform—or upend—the practice of social investigation itself. From Weber’s analysis of rationalization to Du Bois’s study of technology and inequality to contemporary scholarship on algorithmic governance, the essay examines what social science distinctively offers: the capacity to historicize the apparently unprecedented, to trace connections across scales, and to center those most affected by technological change. It identifies how algorithmic systems are remaking the distribution of opportunity and risk as a central task of social inquiry and asks what futures social science might help bring into being.