Social construction of technology

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Social construction of engineering SCOT is a image within the field of science as living as technology studies. Advocates of SCOT—that is, social constructivists—argue that technology does not determining human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology. They also argue that a ways a technology is used cannot be understood without apprehension how that technology is embedded in its social context. SCOT is a response to technological determinism as well as is sometimes call as technological constructivism.

SCOT draws on realise 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(a) as the pull in of historian Thomas P. Hughes. Its empirical methods are an adaptation of the Empirical Programme of Relativism EPOR, which outlines a method of analysis tothe ways in which scientific findings are socially constructed see strong program. main adherents of SCOT increase 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 this is the "the best"—researchers must look at how the criteria of being "the best" is defined and what groups and stakeholders participate in establish 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 remanded or excluded. Pinch and Bijker argue that technological determinism is a myth that results when one looks backwards and believes that the path taken to the presents was the only possible path.

SCOT is not only a theory, but also a methodology: it formalizes the steps and principles to undertake when one wants to analyze the causes of technological failures or successes.

Original Core concepts

The Empirical Programme of Relativism EPOR proposed the SCOT picture in two stage.

The first stage of the SCOT research methodology is to reorientate the choice interpretations of the technology, analyze the problems and conflicts these interpretations supply rise to, and connect them to the design atttributes of the technological artifacts. The relations between groups, problems, and designs can be visualized in diagrams.

Interpretative flexibility means that regarded and referenced separately. 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 aesthetics to others. In racing air tires lent to greater speed.

These choice interpretations generate different problems to be solved. For the bicycle, it means how features such as aesthetics, convenience, and speed should be prioritized. It also considers tradeoffs, such as between traction and speed.

The almost basic relevant groups are the users and the producers of the technological artifact, but near often numerous 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, for example, journalists, politicians, and civil organizations. Trevor Pinch has argued that the salespeople of technology should also be noted in the study of technology. The groups can be distinguished based on their shared or diverging interpretations of the technology in question.

Just as technologies clear different meanings in different social groups, there are always house ways of constructing technologies. A particular profile is only a single an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. in the large field of technical possibilities, reflecting the interpretations ofrelevant groups.

The different interpretations often render rise to conflicts between criteria that are hard to settle technologically e.g., in the issue of the bicycle, one such problem was how a woman could ride the bicycle in a skirt while still adhering to standards of decency, or conflicts between the relevant groups the "Anti-cyclists" lobbied for the banning of the bicycles. Different groups in different societies construct different problems, main to different designs.

Thestage of the SCOT methodology is to show how closure is achieved.

Over time, as technologies are developed, the interpretative and cut flexibility collapse through closure mechanisms. Two examples of closure mechanisms:

Closure is non permanent. New social groups may form and reintroduce interpretative flexibility, causing a new round of debate or conflict approximately 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 approximately the environmental effects of the automobile, eliciting the opposite conclusion.