Wiebe E. Bijker

The stories of the safety bicycle, the first truly synthetic plastic, and the fluorescent light bulb - each a fascinating case study in itself- reflect a cross-section of time periods, engineering and scientific disciplines, and economic, social, and political cultures. The bicycle story explores such issues as the role of changing gender relationships in shaping a technology; the Bakelite story examines the ways in which social factors intrude even in cases of seemingly pure chemistry and entrepreneurship; and the fluorescent bulb story offers insights into the ways in which political and economic relationships can affect the form of a technology.

Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change

Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs

Thomas Parke Hughes

Trevor J. Pinch

"The impact of technology on society is clear and unmistakeable. The influence of society on technology is more subtle. The 13 essays in this book have been written by a diverse group of scholars united by a common interest in creating a new field - the sociology of technology. They draw on a wide array of case studies - from cooking stoves to missile systems, from 15th-century Portugal to today's Al labs - to outline an original research program based on a synthesis of ideas from the social studies of science and the history of technology. Together they affirm the need for a study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions"--Back cover.

New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology

The Social Construction of Technological Systems

Anique Hommels

Jessica Mesman

Analysis and case studies explore the concept of vulnerability, offering a novel and broader approach to understanding the risks and benefits of science and technology.

New Directions in Research and Governance

Vulnerability in Technological Cultures

John Law

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.

Studies in Sociotechnical Change

Shaping Technology / Building Society

Trevor Pinch

An anniversary edition of an influential book that introduced a groundbreaking approach to the study of science, technology, and society. This pioneering book, first published in 1987, launched the new field of social studies of technology. It introduced a method of inquiry--social construction of technology, or SCOT--that became a key part of the wider discipline of science and technology studies. The book helped the MIT Press shape its STS list and inspired the Inside Technology series. The thirteen essays in the book tell stories about such varied technologies as thirteenth-century galleys, eighteenth-century cooking stoves, and twentieth-century missile systems. Taken together, they affirm the fruitfulness of an approach to the study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions, and they demonstrate the illuminating effects of the integration of empirics and theory. The approaches in this volume--collectively called SCOT (after the volume's title) have since broadened their scope, and twenty-five years after the publication of this book, it is difficult to think of a technology that has not been studied from a SCOT perspective and impossible to think of a technology that cannot be studied that way.

Technology is everywhere, yet a theory of technology and its social dimension remainsto be fully developed. Building on the influential book The Social Construction of TechnologicalSystems, this volume carries forward the project of creating a theory of technological developmentand implementation that is strongly grounded in both sociology and history. The 12 essays addressthe central question of how technologies become stabilized, how they attain a final form and usethat is generally accepted. The essays are tied together by a general introduction, partintroductions, and a theoretical conclusion.The first part of the book examines and criticizes theidea that technologies have common life cycles; three case studies cover the history of a successfulbut never produced British jet fighter, the manipulation of patents by a French R&D company togain a market foothold, and the managed development of high-intensity fluorescent lighting to servethe interests of electricity suppliers as well as the producing company.The second part looks atbroader 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 thesocial construction of motion pictures as exemplified by Thomas Edison's successful development ofthe medium and its commercial failure.The last part offers theoretical studies suggestingalternative approaches to sociotechnologies; two studies argue for a strong sociotechnology in whichartifact and social context are viewed as a single seamless web, while the third looks at the waysin which a social program is a technology.Wiebe E. Bijker is Associate Professor at the Universityof Limburg, The Netherlands. John Law is Professor in Sociology at the University of Keele,Staffordshire, England.

Shaping Technology/building Society

Ruud Hendriks

Roland Bal

Assessing the influence of scientific advice in societies that increasingly questionscientific authority and expertise.

Wiebe E. Bijker

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