Social construction of technology
Encyclopedia
Social construction of technology (also referred to as 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, but that rather, human action shapes technology. They also argue that the ways a technology is used cannot be understood without understanding how that technology is embedded in its social context. SCOT is a response to technological determinism
and is sometimes known as technological constructivism.
SCOT draws on work done in the constructivist school of the sociology of scientific knowledge
, and its subtopics include actor-network theory
(a branch of the sociology of science and technology) and historical analysis of sociotechnical systems, such as the work of historian Thomas P. Hughes
. Leading adherents of SCOT include Wiebe Bijker
and Trevor Pinch
.
SCOT holds that those who seek to understand the reasons for acceptance or rejection of a technology should look to the social world. It is not enough, according to SCOT, to explain a technology's success by saying that it is "the best" -- researchers must look at how the criteria of being "the best" is defined and what groups and stakeholders participate in defining it. In particular, they must ask who defines the technical criteria success is measured by, why technical criteria are defined this way, and who is included or excluded.
SCOT is not only a theory, but also a methodology: it formalizes the steps and principles to follow when one wants to analyze the causes of technological failures or successes.
Legacy of the Strong Programme
At the point of its conception, the SCOT approach was partly motivated by the ideas of the Strong Programme
in the Sociology of Science (Bloor 1973). In their seminal article, Pinch and Bijker refer to the Principle of Symmetry as the most influential tenet of the Sociology of Science, which should be applied in historical and sociological investigations of technology as well. It is strongly connected to Bloor's theory of social causation.
The symmetry principle addresses the problem that the historian is tempted to explain the success of successful theories by referring to their "objective truth", or inherent "technical superiority", whereas s/he is more likely to put forward sociological explanations (citing political influence or economic reasons) only in the case of failures. For example, having experienced the obvious success of the chain-driven bicycle for decades, it is tempting to attribute its success to its "advanced technology" compared to the "primitiveness" of the Penny Farthing, but if we look closely and symmetrically at their history (as Pinch and Bijker do), we can see that at the beginning bicycles were valued according to quite different standards than nowadays. The early adopters (predominantly young, well-to-do gentlemen) valued the speed, the thrill, and the spectacularity of the Penny Farthing - in contrast to the security and stability of the chain-driven Safety Bicycle
. Many other social factors (e.g., the contemporary state of urbanism and transport, women's clothing habits and feminism) have influenced and changed the relative valuations of bicycle models.
A weak reading of the Principle of Symmetry points out that there often are many competing theories or technologies, which all have the potential to provide slightly different solutions to similar problems. In these cases, sociological factors tip the balance between them: that's why we should pay equal attention to them.
A strong, social constructivist reading would add that even the emergence of the questions or problems to be solved are governed by social determinations, so the Principle of Symmetry is applicable even to the apparently purely technical issues.
to others. Sport cyclists were concerned by the speed reduction caused by the air tire.
These alternative interpretations generate different problems to be solved. Aesthetics, convenience or speed should be prioritized? What is the best tradeoff between traction and speed?
The first stage of the SCOT research methodology is to reconstruct the alternative interpretations of the technology, analyze the problems and conflicts these interpretations give rise to, and connect them to the design features of the technological artifacts. The relations between groups, problems, and designs can be visualized in diagrams.
Closure is not permanent. New social groups may form and reintroduce interpretative flexibility, causing a new round of debate or conflict about a technology. (For instance, in the 1890s automobiles were seen as the "green" alternative, a cleaner environmentally-friendly technology, to horse-powered vehicles; by the 1960s, new social groups had introduced new interpretations about the environmental effects of the automobile, eliciting the opposite conclusion.)
The second stage of the SCOT methodology is to show how closure is achieved.
published an influential critique of SCOT entitled "Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology." In it, he argues that social constructivism is an overly narrow research program. He identifies the following specific limitations in social constructivism:
Other critics include Stewart Russell with his letter in the journal "Social Studies of Science
" titled "The Social Construction of Artifacts: A Response to Pinch and Bijker".
Science and technology studies
Science, technology and society is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these, in turn, affect society, politics and culture...
. Advocates of SCOT -- that is, social constructivists
Social constructionism
Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...
-- argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology. They also argue that the ways a technology is used cannot be understood without understanding how that technology is embedded in its social context. SCOT is a response to technological determinism
Technological determinism
Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have been coined by Thorstein Veblen , an American sociologist...
and is sometimes known as technological constructivism.
SCOT draws on work done in the constructivist school of the sociology of scientific knowledge
Sociology of scientific knowledge
The sociology of scientific knowledge ' is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity."...
, and its subtopics include actor-network theory
Actor-network theory
Actor–network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to social theory and research which originated in the field of science studies...
(a branch of the sociology of science and technology) and historical analysis of sociotechnical systems, such as the work of historian Thomas P. Hughes
Thomas P. Hughes
Thomas Parke Hughes is an American Historian of Technology. He is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and is a visiting professor at MIT and Stanford.He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1953....
. Leading adherents of SCOT include Wiebe Bijker
Wiebe Bijker
Wiebe E. Bijker is a Dutch professor, chair of the Department of Social Science and Technology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands....
and Trevor Pinch
Trevor Pinch
Trevor J. Pinch is a sociologist and former chair of the Science and Technology Studies department at Cornell University.Pinch has a degree in Physics from the Imperial College London and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bath...
.
SCOT holds that those who seek to understand the reasons for acceptance or rejection of a technology should look to the social world. It is not enough, according to SCOT, to explain a technology's success by saying that it is "the best" -- researchers must look at how the criteria of being "the best" is defined and what groups and stakeholders participate in defining it. In particular, they must ask who defines the technical criteria success is measured by, why technical criteria are defined this way, and who is included or excluded.
SCOT is not only a theory, but also a methodology: it formalizes the steps and principles to follow when one wants to analyze the causes of technological failures or successes.
Legacy of the Strong ProgrammeStrong programmeThe strong programme or Strong Sociology is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge particularly associated with David Bloor, Barry Barnes, Harry Collins, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry. The strong programme's influence on Science and Technology Studies is credited as being...
in the Sociology of Science
At the point of its conception, the SCOT approach was partly motivated by the ideas of the Strong ProgrammeStrong programme
The strong programme or Strong Sociology is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge particularly associated with David Bloor, Barry Barnes, Harry Collins, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry. The strong programme's influence on Science and Technology Studies is credited as being...
in the Sociology of Science (Bloor 1973). In their seminal article, Pinch and Bijker refer to the Principle of Symmetry as the most influential tenet of the Sociology of Science, which should be applied in historical and sociological investigations of technology as well. It is strongly connected to Bloor's theory of social causation.
Symmetry
The Principle of Symmetry holds that in explaining the origins of scientific beliefs, that is, assessing the success and failure of models, theories, or experiments, the historian/sociologist should deploy the same kind of explanation in the cases of success as in cases of failure. When investigating beliefs, researchers should be impartial to the (a posteriori attributed) truth or falsehood of those beliefs, and the explanations should be unbiased. The strong programme adopts a position of relativism or neutralism regarding the arguments that social actors put forward for the acceptance/rejection of any technology. All arguments (social, cultural, political, economic, as well as technical) are to be treated equally.The symmetry principle addresses the problem that the historian is tempted to explain the success of successful theories by referring to their "objective truth", or inherent "technical superiority", whereas s/he is more likely to put forward sociological explanations (citing political influence or economic reasons) only in the case of failures. For example, having experienced the obvious success of the chain-driven bicycle for decades, it is tempting to attribute its success to its "advanced technology" compared to the "primitiveness" of the Penny Farthing, but if we look closely and symmetrically at their history (as Pinch and Bijker do), we can see that at the beginning bicycles were valued according to quite different standards than nowadays. The early adopters (predominantly young, well-to-do gentlemen) valued the speed, the thrill, and the spectacularity of the Penny Farthing - in contrast to the security and stability of the chain-driven Safety Bicycle
History of the bicycle
Vehicles for human transport that have two wheels and require balancing by the rider date back to the early 19th century. The first means of transport making use of two wheels, and thus the archetype of the bicycle, was the German draisine dating back to 1817...
. Many other social factors (e.g., the contemporary state of urbanism and transport, women's clothing habits and feminism) have influenced and changed the relative valuations of bicycle models.
A weak reading of the Principle of Symmetry points out that there often are many competing theories or technologies, which all have the potential to provide slightly different solutions to similar problems. In these cases, sociological factors tip the balance between them: that's why we should pay equal attention to them.
A strong, social constructivist reading would add that even the emergence of the questions or problems to be solved are governed by social determinations, so the Principle of Symmetry is applicable even to the apparently purely technical issues.
Interpretative Flexibility
Interpretative Flexibility means that each technological artifact has different meanings and interpretations for various groups. Bijker and Pinch show that the air tire of the bicycle meant a more convenient mode of transportation for some people, whereas it meant technical nuisances, traction problems and ugly aestheticsAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
to others. Sport cyclists were concerned by the speed reduction caused by the air tire.
These alternative interpretations generate different problems to be solved. Aesthetics, convenience or speed should be prioritized? What is the best tradeoff between traction and speed?
Relevant Social Groups
The most basic relevant groups are the users and the producers of the technological artifact, but most often many subgroups can be delineated - users with different socioeconomic status, competing producers, etc. Sometimes there are relevant groups who are neither users, nor producers of the technology - journalists, politicians, civil groups, etc. (Just think of inter-continental ballistic missiles, for example) The groups can be distinguished based on their shared or diverging interpretations of the technology in question.Design Flexibility
Just as technologies have different meanings in different social groups, there are always multiple ways of constructing technologies. A design is only a single point in the large field of technical possibilities, reflecting the interpretations of certain relevant groups.Problems and Conflicts
The different interpretations often give rise to conflicts between criteria that are hard to resolve technologically (in the case of the bicycle, one such problem was: how can women ride the bicycle decently, in skirt?), or conflicts between the relevant groups (the "Anti-cyclists" lobbied for the banning of the bicycles). Different groups in different societies construct different problems, leading to different designs.The first stage of the SCOT research methodology is to reconstruct the alternative interpretations of the technology, analyze the problems and conflicts these interpretations give rise to, and connect them to the design features of the technological artifacts. The relations between groups, problems, and designs can be visualized in diagrams.
Closure
Over time, as technologies are developed, the interpretative and design flexibility collapse through closure mechanisms. Two examples of closure mechanisms:- Rhetorical Closure: When social groups see the problem as being solved, the need for alternative designs diminishes. This is often the result of advertising.
- Redefinition of the Problem: A design standing in the focus of conflicts can be stabilized by inventing a new problem, which is solved by this very design. The aesthetic and technical problems of the air tire diminished, as the technology advanced to the stage where air tire bikes started to win the bike races. Tires were still considered cumbersome and ugly, but they provided a solution to the "speed problem", and this overrode previous concerns.
Closure is not permanent. New social groups may form and reintroduce interpretative flexibility, causing a new round of debate or conflict about a technology. (For instance, in the 1890s automobiles were seen as the "green" alternative, a cleaner environmentally-friendly technology, to horse-powered vehicles; by the 1960s, new social groups had introduced new interpretations about the environmental effects of the automobile, eliciting the opposite conclusion.)
The second stage of the SCOT methodology is to show how closure is achieved.
Relating the content of the technological artifact to the wider sociopolitical milieu
This is the third stage of the SCOT methodology, but the seminal article of Pinch and Bijker does not proceed to this stage. Many other historians and sociologists of technology nevertheless do. For example, Paul N. Edwards shows in his book "The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America" http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262550288/ the strong relations between the political discourse of the Cold War and the computer designs of this era.Criticism
In 1993, Langdon WinnerLangdon Winner
Langdon Winner is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Science and Technology Studies atRensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York since 1990....
published an influential critique of SCOT entitled "Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology." In it, he argues that social constructivism is an overly narrow research program. He identifies the following specific limitations in social constructivism:
- It explains how technologies arise, but ignores the consequences of the technologies after the fact. This results in a sociology that says nothing about how such technologies matter in the broader context.
- It examines social groups and interests that contribute to the construction of technology, but ignores those who have no voice in the process, yet are affected by it. Likewise, when documenting technological contingencies and choices, it fails to account for those options that never made it to the table. According to Winner, this results in conservative and elitist sociology.
- It is superficial in that it focuses on how the immediate needs, interests, problems and solutions of chosen social groups influence technological choice, but disregards any possible deeper cultural, intellectual or economic origins of social choices concerning technology.
- It actively avoids taking any kind of moral stance or passing judgment on the relative merits of the alternative interpretations of a technology. This indifference makes it unhelpful in addressing important debates about the place of technology in human affairs.
Other critics include Stewart Russell with his letter in the journal "Social Studies of Science
Social Studies of Science
Social Studies of Science is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers relating to the history and philosophy of science. The journal's editor-in-chief is Michael Lynch...
" titled "The Social Construction of Artifacts: A Response to Pinch and Bijker".
See also
- History of science and technologyHistory of science and technologyThe history of science and technology is a field of history which examines how humanity's understanding of the natural world and ability to manipulate it have changed over the centuries...
- Industrial sociologyIndustrial sociologyIndustrial sociology, until recently a crucial research area within the field of sociology of work, examines "the direction and implications of trends in technological change, globalization, labour markets, work organization, managerial practices and employment relations to the extent to which...
- Science and technology studiesScience and technology studiesScience, technology and society is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these, in turn, affect society, politics and culture...
(STS) - Social shaping of technologySocial shaping of technologyAccording to , "Central to Social Shaping of Technology is the concept that there are `choices' inherent in both the design of individual artifacts and systems, and in the direction or trajectory of innovation programs."If technology does not emerge from the unfolding of a predetermined logic or...
- Sociocultural evolutionSociocultural evolutionSociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time...
- Sociology of scientific knowledgeSociology of scientific knowledgeThe sociology of scientific knowledge ' is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity."...
- Technology DynamicsTechnology DynamicsTechnology dynamics is broad and relatively new scientific field that has been developed in the framework of the postwar science and technology studies field. It studies the process of technological change. Under the field of Technology Dynamics the process of technological change is explained by...
- Theories of technologyTheories of technologyThere are a number of theories attempting to address technology, which tend to be associated with the disciplines of science and technology studies and communication studies...