Social Construction of Technology

Looking Beyond the J-UCAS's Demise

by Alain De Neve

Learning Technology: theorising the tools we study

by Martin Oliver

British Journal of Educational Technology (Early View), DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01283.x

This paper identifies a significant gap in existing work within the field of educational technology—the failure to... more This paper identifies a significant gap in existing work within the field of educational technology—the failure to explain technology theoretically—and proposes an agenda for addressing this. While there are discussions of theory within educational technology research, these typically focus on learning. Technology itself is seldom considered, being treated instead as “natural” or given. This is in marked contrast to other fields of study, in which robust theories of technology have been developed. The consequence of this is that technology is treated as if it will cause learning—and when it does not, there is no clear explanation of why. To advance this discussion, two traditions of work theorising technology are introduced—one positivistic, including work on affordance, and the other (largely unrepresented in educational technology) that provides a social account. An example of each is used to analyse a case study, so as to contrast the kind of claims that currently get made about technology with those that we could make. It is argued that adopting a social account of technology would enable richer, better-integrated claims to be made about technology use.

Online communication patterns in low complexity project groups. Tasks, channels and functions.

by Fabian Bethge

Co-authored with Ana-Despina Tudor, Yuan Bo and Thomas Jung-Böhmcker

This paper investigated online communication patterns inside of four student project groups. The main goal of this... more This paper investigated online communication patterns inside of four student project groups. The main goal of this study was to get insights to regularities that influence the selection of specific communication patterns out of the overwhelming range of
online communication applications. A communication pattern was defined to consist of a task, a communication function and a channel. Respondents were told to make conceptual diagrams by connecting pre-defined snippets for tasks, channels and
functions in a way that represents their individual communication for the project. Afterwards they have been interviewed about their conceptual diagrams. The results show that those patterns are influence both by individual group processes and by specific technological factors that are not group specific.

Der parallaktische Blick: Der militarische Ursprung der Holographie

by Sean Johnston

Chapter in Das holographische Wissen, edited by Stefan Rieger and Jens Schroter

The title of this chapter is meant to evoke at least three sources. The first – and perhaps the only obvious one –... more The title of this chapter is meant to evoke at least three sources. The first – and perhaps the only obvious one – concerns the ability of holograms to display parallax, a shifting of visual viewpoint that allows a three-dimensional image to reveal background objects behind those in the foreground. This parallax view is a unique feature of holograms as visual media. A second allusion is to the American film The Parallax View (1974, director A. J. Pakula), a rather paranoid thriller focusing on conspiracy theories concerning government and corporations. To a casual observer, the bare details of the military origins of holography suggest just such cynical and centrally-directed development, although I hope to dispel such simplistic ideas here. And a third passing reference is to the book The Parallax View (2006) by Slavoj Zizek, a wide-ranging and deep exploration of duality in political views, ontological interpretations and scientific methods, among other topics.
Zizek’s theme, as well as Pakula’s, is relevant to my approach, which focuses on a parallax of both practice and intent. During the first successful decade of holography, conflicting viewpoints developed between distinct communities: the militarily-guided engineers who invented practical holography, and the later imaging scientists and artisans who stressed three-dimensionality and other attributes instead of the original goal of optical image processing. I argue that distinct groups of users had different perceptions of what holography is and what it is for.

Telangana Ethno-metallurgical Survey: An interim report

by Tathagata Neogi

Neogi, T. and Jaikishan, S. (2011) ‘Telangana Ethnoarchaeological Survey: an interim report’ in G. Juleff, S. Srinivasan and S. Ranganathan (eds.) Pioneering Metallurgy: The origins of iron and steel making in the southern Indian Sub-Continent (Interim Report 2011), pp. 15-19, Bangalore.

The construction of the techno-economic: networks vs. paradigms

by Richard Hull

What Teletex can teach us

by Jay McKinnon

Presented at the conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), July 16 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Through much of the 1980s, governments and corporations invested hundreds of millions of hours and dollars developing... more Through much of the 1980s, governments and corporations invested hundreds of millions of hours and dollars developing several technologies now generally considered extinct: teletext, videotex, Telidon and Minitel. The technologies which now define the history of the Internet were relatively ignored in their time, though known to exist as obscure academic experiments. Most curiously, BBSes and Fidonet – popular technologies which defined the digital world for millions – were, and remain, largely ignored by scholars.

This paper quantitatively explores the scholarly output regarding ICT paradigms extant in the 1980s, reports on the current state of development of the relevant technologies and theoretically interrogates the institutional lessons to which can be learned from failed research programs.

Technologies-52-53| 2009

by Ludovic Coupaye

Special Issue of Techniques & Cutlure (2009, 52-53), edited by Ludovic Coupaye and Laurence Douny. Includes Papers by V. Buchli, L. Coupaye, S. Kuechler & G. Were, D. Miller, M. Rowlands & D. Fuller, E. Sanabria, F. Sigaut.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION CULTURE : A Case Study About Social Media Use by Digital Natives Generation

by Adi Wibowo Octavianto

Perception, Standardization, and Closure: The Case of Artificial Illumination

by chris otter

From "History of Technology" 28 (2009)

Information Systems Development as a Social Process: A Structurational Model

by Christoph Rosenkranz

Presented at the 32nd International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2011), Shanghai, China, 3.-7. December 2011.

Prior research has shown that social interactions are important in order to understand the phenomena involved in... more Prior research has shown that social interactions are important in order to understand the phenomena involved in information systems development. However, most traditional research largely ignores these issues. DeSanctis and Poole (1994) made an important contribution to the study of social dynamics in information systems research with their Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST). Although the concepts have found broad acceptance for the study of information technology (IT) uses and effects, AST has not been widely used for studying the process of designing IT artifacts and developing information systems. In this paper we transfer AST to studying information systems development as a social process. We build on Markus and Silver’s (2008) redefinition of AST’s core concepts ‘structural features’ and ‘spirit’ as technical objects, functional affordances, and symbolic expressions, and we extend them with relational concepts for agents and activities that we derive from social construction of technology (SCOT) studies. The result is an AST-based model that describes the information systems development process. We illustrate and discuss how researchers might use these concepts to generate hypotheses in studies of information systems development processes.

Algorithmic Ideology. How Capitalist Society Shapes Search Engines

by Astrid Mager

this article is a preprint version. please cite the journal article, which you can find on the website of Information, Communication and Society: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2012.676056

This article investigates how the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007) gets inscribed in the... more This article investigates how the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2007) gets inscribed in the fabric of search algorithms by way of social practices. Drawing on the tradition of the social construction of technology (SCOT) and 17 qualitative expert interviews I discuss how search engines and their “capital accumulation cycle” (Fuchs, forthcoming) are negotiated and stabilized in a network of actors and interests, website providers and users first and foremost. I further show how corporate search engines and their capitalist ideology are solidified in a socio-political context characterized by a techno-euphoric climate of innovation and a politics of privatization. This analysis provides a valuable contribution to contemporary search engine critique mainly focusing on search engines’ business models and societal implications. It shows that a shift of perspective is needed from impacts search engines have on society towards social practices and power relations involved in the construction of search engines to reconsider and renegotiate search engines and their algorithmic ideology in the future.

Integrando abordagens da economia e da sociologia em análises da produção tecnológica

by Cristiane Rauen

Co-authored with Prof. Léa Velho

The proposal of this article is based on the recent recognition by authors of the most diverse trends that... more The proposal of this article is based on the recent recognition by authors of the most diverse trends that disciplinary approach to study the production of knowledge in science and technology, in general, and the technological change, in particular, is insufficient. Based on this, it proposes the multidisciplinarity (or interactivity) as a form of analysis of this phenomenon. Particularly it seems to exist no dialogue between the ones who study the production of scientific and technological knowledge based on sociological approaches and those who study it based on economic tools. To integrate these two sources of analysis, identifying its differences and, mainly, its convergent points is the first aim of this article. While Economics tends not to incorporate important elements for the understanding of these processes, such as the social determinants of this type of production – among them, the interests of the involved actors, the emergence of power structures between them and the influence of the political aspects - , Sociology, on the other hand, disregards many of the basic economic aspects of technological production, such as economic agencies, institutions and systems. The different aspects focused by each discipline on technological production allow the appearance, in many moments, of vague spaces of analysis that could be better explored if a complementary effort existed between them. Even though there is still certain reluctance on disciplinary integration, this work explores the possibilities of dialogue between one approach of Economics thought, represented by the Evolutionary Economics (EE), and two approaches of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, represented by the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) and the Actor Network Theory (ANT), considering that some of its analytical elements complement each other, guaranteeing a more consistent and ample characterization of the analyzed object. For in such a way, it presents on its first part an introduction of these three approaches, its main contributions related to the technological production and some of its major analytical categories. Its second part proposes an exercise of complementarity between these analytical categories, searching to stand out the interface points and the points from which one approach would suppress the analytical fragilities of the others. The third part presents a technological development case study for each one of the approaches, which are revisited based on the conciliation of the three categories of analysis, allowing the application of the possibility of complementarity between them.

Negotiating 'best practices' in package software implementation

by Adrian Yeow

co-authored with Siew Kien SIA

Package software is often marketed with the promise of offering cutting-edge “best practices”. However, questions... more Package software is often marketed with the promise of offering cutting-edge “best practices”. However, questions remain as to how diverse groups in an organization arrive at a consensus about what constitutes as “best practices” in package software and how these “best practices” are appropriated to the specific local contexts. In this case study, we examine the incongruence in the technological frames of the diverse groups with respect to these “best practices” and trace how these groups implement specific political and discursive strategies to overcome and resolve these incongruent frames. We find that it is an intricate process that demands not only that management make a concerted effort to create and actively work to coax and sustain allies, but also champion, and advocate for the rhetorical justification behind these “best practices.” The negotiated frames of parties are eventually inscribed into the software itself.

'737-Cabriolet’: The Limits of Knowledge and the Sociology of Inevitable Failure

by John Downer

The American Journal of Sociology. 117 (3): 725-762

This paper looks at the fateful 1988 fuselage failure of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 to suggest and illustrate a new... more This paper looks at the fateful 1988 fuselage failure of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 to suggest and illustrate a new perspective on the sociology of technological accidents. Drawing on core insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge, it highlights, and then challenges, a fundamental principle underlying our understanding of technological risk: a realist epistemology that tacitly assumes that technological knowledge is objectively knowable and that ‘failures’ always connote ‘errors’ which are, in principle, foreseeable. From here, it suggests a new conceptual tool by proposing a novel category of man-made calamity: the ‘Epistemic Accident’, grounded in a constructivist understanding of knowledge. It concludes by exploring the implications of Epistemic Accidents and a constructivist approach to failure; sketching their relationship to broader issues concerning technology and society, and reexamining conventional ideas about technology, accountability and governance.

When the Chick Hits the Fan: Representativeness and Reproducibility in Technological Tests

by John Downer

Downer, John 2007 ‘When the Chick Hits the Fan: Representativeness and Reproducibility in Technological Testing’, Social Studies of Science 37 (1): 7-26.

Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves... more Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves that, among many other things, the engine can safely ingest birds. They do this by mandating a series of well-defined - if somewhat Pythonesque - ‘birdstrike tests’ through which the manufacturers can demonstrate the integrity of their engines. In principle, the tests are straightforward: engineers run an engine at high speed, launch birds into it, and watch to see if it explodes. In practice, the tests rest on a complex and contentious logic. In this paper I explore the debate that surrounds these tests, using it to illustrate the now-familiar idea that technological tests - like scientific experiments - unavoidably contain irreducible ambiguities that require judgments to bridge, and to show that these judgments can have real consequences. Having established this, I then explore how the FAA reconciles the unavoidable ambiguities with its need to determine, with a high degree of certainty, that the engines will be as safe as Congress requires. I argue that this reconciliation requires a careful balance between the opposing virtues of reproducibility and representativeness - and that this balance differs significantly from that in most scientific experiments, and from the common perception of what it ought to be.

On Audits and Airplanes: Redundancy and Reliability-Assessment in High Technologies

by John Downer

in Accounting Organizations and Society

This paper argues that reliability assessments of complex technologies can usefully be construed as ‘audits’ and... more This paper argues that reliability assessments of complex technologies can usefully be construed as ‘audits’ and understood in relation to the literature on audit practices. It looks at a specific calculative tool -- redundancy -- and explores its role in the assessments of new airframes by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It explains the importance of redundancy to both design and assessment practices in aviation, but contests redundancy’s ability to accurately translate between them. It suggests that FAA reliability assessments serve a useful regulatory purpose by couching the qualitative work of engineers and regulators in an idiom of calculative objectivity, but cautions that this comes with potentially perverse consequences. For, like many audit practices, reliability calculations are constitutive of their subjects, and their construal of redundancy shapes both airplanes and aviation praxis.

Running together or alone? Institutional and socio-technical analysis of Water Management at the Thabina Irrigation Scheme, South Africa

by Gert Jan Veldwisch

Veldwisch, G.J.A. (2004). ‘Running together or alone? Institutional and socio-technical analysis of Water Management at the Thabina Irrigation Scheme, South Africa’, working paper prepared for the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

This document embodies the results of research conducted between November 2003 and March 2004 at the Thabina... more This document embodies the results of research conducted between November 2003 and March 2004 at the Thabina Irrigation Scheme in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The objective of the research was two fold: (1) to gain a better understanding of the formal and informal control of water by users of the Thabina Irrigation Scheme and (2) to develop and test a methodology and framework for institutional analysis that is complementary to the SMILE approach and applicable to research at other irrigation schemes.

The report first describes the approach used which consists of both a framework for analysis and a methodology. It draws mainly from existing material on collective action in common resource management and more specifically collective action in smallholder irrigation systems. It is complemented with an understanding of irrigation systems as networks composed of heterogeneous material i.e. technical, managerial and social aspects are not separated but analysed as a whole. A qualitative approach is chosen that focuses on water users, their relations to infrastructure and its link with patterns of governance.

Following this, a case study of the Thabina Irrigation Scheme is presented. Between 1998 and 2001 the Scheme was rehabilitated as a pilot of the Revitalisation of Smallholder Irrigation Schemes in the Limpopo Province. A Water Users’ Association and Management Committee were set up under the same programme and management responsibilities turned over to the Committee. A previous study conducted at the Scheme made use of the SMILE approach and indicated a significant economic/agronomic diversification tendency (Perret et al., 2003). The same study also acknowledged the importance of some institutional issues and the availability of water. This report elaborates on these issues.

The institutional and water sharing practices are presented in four steps. Firstly, an official account of water sharing is given. This sketches the situation as it was supposed to be, an idealised and simplified scenario. Secondly, the reality as experienced by ‘the water users’ is portrayed. This already identifies some difficulties in water sharing. Following this the various levels of organisation are described and analysed.  Finally, the differences between water users are identified and interpreted from four different perspectives.


The main results of the study may be summarised as follow:

Although the official account suggests that there should be enough water at Thabina, in reality there seems to be a situation of strong water stress. This situation was partly created during (re-)design of the Scheme.  For example, a 60% overall efficiency was used in the design calculations while in reality the field efficiency was only 15%.

The off-take structures from the main into the sub-canals consist of a check structure in the main canal and a number of pipes in the side of the main canal, just upstream from the check structure. All pipes release a discharge of about 7 l/s. There is thus no proportional relation between the area served by a sub-canal and the design discharge at its inlet. Furthermore, five of the sub-canal units have a wrong layout, three with too little pipes and two with too many.

During rehabilitation a stretch of the main canal had been covered with concrete slabs to restrict water use in the residential area and to prevent sand and objects from falling in. However, many slabs have broken and fallen into the canal and thus block the flow of water. At other places there seem to be obstructions under the slabs. Clearing these obstructions could increase water flows in the main canal up to three times.

As discharge to the sub-canal is independent of discharge in the main canal, the layout of these off-take structures leads to water shortages at the tail-end. In such a system, water shortages are not equally spread but affect only users at the tail-end as water in the main canal becomes depleted before reaching this section. In practice this means that more than half the Scheme receives water less than five months a year.

From a farming perspective, the sub-canal has the biggest influence on water supply although it is not recognised as an organisational unit. The lowest organisational unit is the ward, a cluster of three to five sub-canals. Hydraulically seen, the ward is not a logical unit of organisation as there is no common entry point.

The length of the main canal and its 18 off-takes make the Scheme organisationally and technically difficult to manage. Moreover, the strong tail-end effect and absence of a sanctioning system for illegal use by head-enders is highly political. Although an elected Management Committee (MC) exists, its representation, accountability and information sharing seem to be poor.

Four situations leading to specific strategies have been identified. They are represented visually on two axes: commercialising farmers versus subsistence farmers and head-enders versus tail-enders. Although not absolute there seems to be a relation between subsistence farming and the tail-end and commercial farming and the head-end. It illustrates that water shortage prevents people from adopting a more commercial approach towards farming. However, the existence of subsistence farmers in the head-end indicate that more water does not automatically lead to commercialisation.

Analysing the most important enabling conditions for sustainable self-management of common property resources, provides both a long list of conditions enabling emergence as well as a long list opposing emergence. On a balance the conditions point towards non emergence. The existence of a strong heterogeneity of interests and the failure to fulfil these different interests at Scheme level imply the existence of a variety of individual strategies to get water.

The report proposes four changes to overcome the constraints to collective action and self-management. These are (1) increasing the water available to the users, (2) land reform to increase flexibility and security in land tenure, (3) improvement of representation of all farmers in the MC and (4) creating clarity on the role of Government in local water governance.

Finally, the approach used should be seen to complement the SMILE-approach although steps can be taken to better integrate the two.  Concurrent use of the two approaches will strengthen both as a deeper understanding at the early stages of the SMILE-approach will assist in defining more relevant farmer typologies and improve the reliability of data gathered through questionnaires.

From Rehabilitation to Revitalisation: The Evolution of a Small Scale Irrigation Revitalisation Approach in the Limpopo Province, South Africa

by Gert Jan Veldwisch

Veldwisch, G.J.A. and J. Denison. 2007. From Rehabilitation to Revitalisation: The Evolution of a Small Scale Irrigation Revitalisation Approach in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. In: Denison, J. and S. Manona (eds.): Principles, Approaches and Guidelines for the Participatory Revitalisation of Smallholder Irrigation Schemes: Volume 2 – Concept and Cases. Gezina, South Africa: Water Research Commission, 85-119.

The concept of revitalisation is much broader in its development focus and carries with it the expectation of a... more The concept of revitalisation is much broader in its development focus and carries with it the expectation of a holistic approach to re-building socially uplifting, profitable agribusiness on existing schemes.
The Revitalisation Programme of Smallholder Irrigation Schemes in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, is an interesting case study in the evolution of an approach, which moved from a “rehabilitation” (i.e. infrastructure driven) style of intervention to “revitalisation”, a much broader based intervention covering a wide range of sectoral activities linked to successful small scale irrigated agri-business. This particular research assignment has attempted to document this evolution, and record the methodology that evolved from extensive field work on a number of schemes over a six-year period.

Local Governance Issues after Irrigation Management Transfer: A Case Study from Limpopo Province, South Africa

by Gert Jan Veldwisch

Veldwisch, G.J.A.. 2006. Local Governance Issues after Irrigation Management Transfer: A Case Study from Limpopo Province, South Africa. In: S. Perret, S. Farolfi and R. Hassan (eds.): Water Governance for Sustainable Development: Approaches and Lessons from Developing and Transitional Countries. London: Earthscan, 75–91.

Thabina Irrigation Scheme was one of the pilot schemes within the Revitalisation Programme of Smallholder Irrigation... more Thabina Irrigation Scheme was one of the pilot schemes within the Revitalisation Programme of Smallholder Irrigation Schemes in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The paper describes local governance practices approximately three years after the intervention. This involved the rehabilitation of infrastructure, mobilising and training farmers and institutional development, through the establishment of Water Users’ Associations.
Thabina is a run of the river system with one main canal and 18 sub-canals, which in total serve 160 plot holders (total area 200 ha). Farming strategies are a mix between self-sufficiency and commercialisation. The scheme is managed by a farmers committee, in which representatives of the 4 management areas (Wards) take the majority of seats.
The strength and weaknesses of the deployed approach are assessed and two problematic aspects are discussed in detail on basis of ample field material; (1) the clear differences between strategies and interest of commercial farmers and growers for home consumption and (2) the interaction between technical layout on the one hand and socio-political relations on the other.
These two aspects have still not effectively been addressed. It is suggested that (1) clear choices have to be made regarding the objective of commercialisation to avoid a heavy burden on financial self-sufficiency as well as fair chances for subsistence farmers and (2) improving the integration of socio-political and technical aspects in the approach. The latter will be possible through interdisciplinary teams that work in a process oriented way, in which user experts have a substantial input.