Social Construction Of Technology Approach Research Articles

Communication about sensors and communication through sensors: localizing the Internet of Things in rural communities

Abstract Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks are an emerging technology at the center of the datafication and optimization of far-reaching environmental infrastructures—from “smart cities” to workplace efficiencies. However, this low-power, low-cost technology is also well suited to local deployments in rural communities, which are often overlooked by digital development initiatives. Therefore, we used a social construction of technology approach to study how various U.S.-based IoT stakeholders—including designers and advocates as well as citizen stakeholders—understand and value sensor network technologies. Through observational methods, in-depth interviews, and participatory design research in a rural Upstate New York municipality, we worked to design sensor networks with rural community members to generate data about and for community members to further local knowledge. We found that designing rural sensor networks requires stakeholders to navigate obstacles of communication about sensors and communication through sensors to facilitate secure, ethical, and localized sensing in rural communities.

Data-driven governance and performances of accountability: critical reflections from US agri-environmental policy

ABSTRACT Public institutions have increasingly responded to calls for more accountability by promoting ideas of data-driven governance. As this focus on using data tools to strengthen governance intensifies, it is important to examine how the tools that underlie such claims are made. In the context of US agri-environmental policy, policy leadership has spoken the language of data-driven decision-making for over thirty years, primarily in response to accountability demands. However, the reliance on metrics and calculation is most explicit in the newest initiative called the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). Unlike other initiatives, the CSP used a single environmental scoring and decision-making algorithm to allocate approximately US$3.8 billion to 68,000 farmers. Applying a Social Construction of Technology approach to the development of the tool shows that different social groups – political aides, program officials, and subject-matter specialists – interpreted data-driven governance differently. Tool design emerges not despite but through the contestations over the purpose and practicality of doing data-driven governance. Social groups involved in tool development are themselves embedded in different accountability structures that shape the rationalities they marshal when negotiating practical decisions about tool design. The final tool used in the CSP was technically contested and the tool development process was poorly documented, yet it had an important legitimacy function: it deflected accountability pressures for more rationalization in public spending without causing major policy disruption. Centering analysis on the negotiations entailed in making the tools that come to underlie claims of data-driven governance can explain how and to what extent a push for more data in public policy can strengthen (and weaken) accountability relations.

A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TECHNOLOGY VIEW FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DELIVERY OF CITY-SCALE DIGITAL TWINS

Abstract. This paper presents a novel conceptualisation for how city-scale digital twins (CDTs) can be better understood through the social construction of technology (SCOT) lens. This is achieved by drawing inspiration from sociotechnical studies of CDTs, and specifically the SCOT approach. Following a discussion of the shortcomings of technocentrism and techno-optimism bias in the CDT literature, a sociotechnical understanding of their delivery (i.e., conceptualisation, design, development, and implementation) is put forward. Delivering CDTs entails interactions between multiple stakeholders across sectoral boundaries and involve a confluence of business, social and technological dimensions which will engender several multifaceted and evolving complexities. Using the SCOT approach, the paper highlights how a CDT is not a static technical artefact, but rather a transient outcome from a technological network which co-evolves with the actors involved and the goals set in a place. Implications for understanding how an iterative approach for CDT development emerges in a place as part of city smartification agenda, the role of contextual factors in the social shaping of CDTs, actor participation and (ex/in)clusion are identified and discussed as potential future research directions to expand existing knowledge.

The societal dimension of the automated vehicles transition: Towards a research agenda

Automated vehicles (AVs) represent a socio-technical transition of the mobility system. Thus far, research has focused predominantly on the technical dimension (i.e. technology development and operation, short-term impacts) of this transition. This paper presents a research agenda that contributes in rebalancing the focus from the technical to the societal dimension of the AVs transition. We adopt the social construction of technology approach, suggesting that technology and society are involved in a dialectical process over time that constructs each other and we identify three key dynamics of the societal dimension of AVs transition based on the multi-level perspective of technological transition. After reviewing the scholarly literature, we suggest an expansion of the research focus in three key research areas: societal acceptance, societal implications and governance of AVs to account for the societal dimension of the AVs transition. In the first area, we suggest an expansion of the research focus from consumers' adoption to citizens' acceptance of introduction of AVs. In the second area, we suggest an expansion of the research focus from short-term to long-term societal implications of AVs. In the third area, we suggest a shift from exploratory scenarios to participative anticipatory governance of desirable AVs futures.

From Technology Studies to Sound Studies

In this paper I put in dialogue two areas of scholarship: Technology Studies and Sound Studies. Within Technology Studies I discuss the influential social construction of technology approach and illustrate it with the history of the moog electronic music synthesizer, the first commercial music synthesizer. I stress the role of standardization of keyboards and the key role played by users in the development of this technology. I examine certain iconic sounds that the moog synthesizer produces and discuss the stabilization of sound. It is argued that just as technologies can be traced as stabilizing over time, sounds also can be traced with certain sounds stabilizing and being taken up by users whilst other sounds fail to stabilize. The technology required to produce a sound, performance practice, and wider cultural concerns such as the naming of sounds are crucial ingredients in the stabilization of sound.

Opportunities for improving construction health and safety using real-time H&S management innovations: a socio-technical-economic perspective

The potential health and safety (H&S) benefits of advanced technologies are not currently being optimized in the construction industry. This research aims to identify the technical, economic and social issues and their respective solutions of real-time H&S management technologies during their implementation and operation. A comprehensive literature review is conducted to analyse the technical, economic and social aspects of a number of example real-time H&S management technologies. Using the information gathered from the literature review, Social Construction of Technology approach is used to theoretically analyse each real-time H&S management technology by considering four aspects: technology, social groups who utilize or interpret the technology, problems encountered by each social group and solutions or mechanisms to solve those problems. The study shows that the most common technical issues are occlusions, background disturbances, disturbed line-of-sight and low battery power. Most of these systems have high implementation cost. There is a considerable resistance to physical tagging due to health and privacy concerns. Researchers continue to explore ways to solve the technical issues. However, attention to solving the economic and social issues is relatively low in comparison. The research outcomes will contribute to future innovations and improvements in performance and productivity associated with construction H&S.

Local information services in Medellin: Technology, institutions, communities and power

This article examines the politics of technology and information by exploring a case study of local information service provision in Medellin, Colombia. Local Information Service (LIS) is defined as a community centre where information deemed relevant to local communities is generated, stored, organized and disseminated through print and digital means. Using a social construction of technology approach, the article attempts to deconstruct the implementation and delivery of LIS in Medellin, Colombia and analyse how empowering and disempowering discourses form through relationships between institutions and citizens laden with social and economic inequality. The article analyses the development and deployment of this artefact and positions LIS as a socio-technical system, embedded with political, social, cultural, and economic values. We describe the unintended consequences of this deployment through a multilevel perspective of the head organisation and the smaller 195 local institutions that support it. The article challenges and operationalises the social construction of ‘local’ in local information by highlighting practices of social exclusion and resistance embedded within the design of the service. This case provides a vantage point from which to examine how relevant social groups interpret and engage with technological devices and the implications of this for the communities the device is intended to serve.

Investigating promises of nanotechnology for development: A case study of the travelling of smart nano water filter in Zimbabwe

Using the case of a smart nano water filter that was developed to treat water in Zimbabwe, this article investigates how the filter developed and travelled within a development context and how this relates to promises of nanotechnology for development. The case study is set in a low-resource environment to demonstrate empirically that how and whether or not nanotechnology products are solutions to problems in developing contexts is not a feature of the technology itself, but depends on the social and cultural contexts in which the developers and users live and work. The paper draws on the Social Construction of Technology approach as developed by Pinch and Bijker [1] to show that the processes of technological development involve considerable openness and social contestation over the design, character and meaning of the technology. The case highlights that the filter, in its local contexts of use, constitutes, for different people a solution to the problem of lack of access to clean water or a source of conflict. As the filter’s design and context of use changed in unexpected ways even within a national context, we assert that that the situation is even more complicated when technologies travel internationally, such as from the global North to the global South. Although nanotechnology is often capital intensive, this case illustrates that potentially promising nanotechnology products can be developed within a national context in a developing country in a low-cost manner with help of local knowledge and in the absence or outside of large regulatory schemes. We argue that portraying nanotechnology as a solution for development issues without considering the context of use may be helpful for the development of nanotechnology, but does not guarantee the use of nanotechnology for development issues.

Social construction of port sustainability indicators: a case study of Keelung Port

This study developed Port sustainability indicators (PSIs) using social construction of technology (SCOT). A case study of Keelung Port was conducted. An indicator generator was proposed to generate initial PSIs using a linkage-based framework, and the initial PSIs were grouped into environmental, economic, and social aspects. Subsequently, 34 expert-based PSIs were selected by using rough sets theory (RST). The decision group consisted of representatives from the Taiwan International Ports Corporation (TIPC), academic researchers, and industry representatives.Besides the decision group, the following groups were involved in the stakeholder analysis: the Department of Navigation and Aviation, Ministry of Transportation and Communications (DONA, MOTC), industry representatives, legislators, the Keelung City Government (KCG), local Keelung residents, and the general public. The SCOT approach offered a counterbalance to the expert-based approach in developing indicators. For the scientific frame and the operational frame, this study suggested 34 expert-based PSIs and 2 additional indicators chosen by legislators and local Keelung residents: annual traffic fatalities in the area surrounding the port and employment of Keelung residents by the TIPC. For the actors in the public-relations frame, 12 PSIs were suggested, and 10 PSIs were suggested for the actors in the nonprofessional frame.

Indigenous culture and communications: can stakeholders build a better telephone service?

This paper explores the corporate and cultural complexities involved in developing a new communications technology solution, called Country Calling, for remote Indigenous community users. The starting point is the persistent very low take-up and maintenance of personal or household telephone services in these communities.A social construction of technology approach is used to review three primary questions.1. How is the current Standard Telephone Service culturally constructed with respect to remote Indigenous communities?2. How are users represented in the technology innovation process?3. How is a new technology solution negotiated between supplier constraints and user demands?It is important to explore these questions, which should allow for the more intelligent design of communications technologies and provide insights into what makes for successful technological innovation within the Australian telecommunications industry.The paper argues that best-practice public participation processes, which prioritise an understanding of the user environment, can provide for the construction of new technologies that will hopefully allow more people in Australia to stay connected. Copyright 2008 Robert Morsillo. No part of this article may be reproduced by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

Indigenous culture and communications

This paper explores the corporate and cultural complexities involved in developing a new communications technology solution, called Country Calling, for remote Indigenous community users. The starting point is the persistent very low take-up and maintenance of personal or household telephone services in these communities.A social construction of technology approach is used to review three primary questions.1. How is the current Standard Telephone Service culturally constructed with respect to remote Indigenous communities?2. How are users represented in the technology innovation process?3. How is a new technology solution negotiated between supplier constraints and user demands?It is important to explore these questions, which should allow for the more intelligent design of communications technologies and provide insights into what makes for successful technological innovation within the Australian telecommunications industry.The paper argues that best-practice public participation processes, which prioritise an understanding of the user environment, can provide for the construction of new technologies that will hopefully allow more people in Australia to stay connected. Copyright 2008 Robert Morsillo. No part of this article may be reproduced by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

Thickening the Frame: Cross-Theoretical Accounts of Contexts Inside and Around Technology

Starting from the social construction of technology approach and proposing a literature review of the concept of technological frame, the distinction or continuity between contexts inside and around technology is analyzed as constitutive of a thicker frame. A multilayered articulation of the technological frame is proposed. Organizational history, identity, interorganizational relations, along with discursive practices and communicational routines are seen as the components of the intranet technological frame. Discursive practices, therefore, mediate between macro components belonging to the organizational dimension and micro components concerning the practice of specific organizational communities or workgroups and the inscribed patterns of use through which technology is temporarily stabilized into specific artifacts. The analysis of the frame as set of practices and contexts is carried out by referring to sociotechnical literature and findings of a completed Ph.D. dissertation about intranet technology.

In Pursuit of Standardization: The British Ministry of Healthis Model 8F Wheelchair, 1948-1962

As Brian Woods and Nick Watson note, for millions of people the wheelchair has been a significant site of technological innovation over the last hundred years, yet few historians or sociologists have paid it much attention. With "In Pursuit of Standardization: The British Ministry of Health's Model 8F Wheelchair, 1948–1962, "Woods and Watson aim to rectify that situation, at least in part. The article surveys "the effects of the interplay between the state, medical professionals, and disabled peopleÑboth as individuals and in organized groupsÑon wheelchair innovation in Britain during the 1950s." Although it is "primarily a sociotechnical history of the emergence of a standardized wheelchair" that proceeds from a starting point in the social construction of technology approach, the authors are aware that a focus on "the circulation of power veils the processes of structural exclusion." They draw on the "social model of disability, first developed in Britain as a political tool to explain disability in social terms and later refined . . . as a sociological theory" to complement SCOT and shed light on "the relationships between wheelchair developments and the structural exclusion of disabled people."

The social and cultural shaping of educational technology: Toward a social constructivist framework

The Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theory offers a useful conceptual framework for examining the social and cultural factors that may contribute to or detract from the successful integration of computer technology into educational environments. This theory, which grew out of studies in the history of technology and the sociology of science, suggests methods for studying the phenomenon of technological development, such as identifying the relevant social groups involved in the development process and the factors that either leave the technology in a state of interpretive flexibility or bring the interpretation of the technology to closure. This paper uses a SCOT approach to explore how personal and institutional beliefs can shape the ways in which technologies are used by teachers and students, and to identify the social, epistemological, cognitive and motivational factors that need to be considered as computer technology becomes an integral part of the educational experience.

Collaboration and conflict in the development of a computerized dispatch facility

Recent research on the social and cultural aspects of systems development work has focused on the work of professional software and systems designers. A complementary approach is to look at the work of end users as systems developers, whose informal systems design work is frequently ignored or undervalued in organizations and by IS researchers. This case study, of an application to facilitate dispatch work in a large organization, describes a history of collaboration and conflict between IS professionals and end users as systems designers. Application development was initiated by end users, the initial programming was carried out by IS professionals in collaboration with end users, and the subsequent implementation and enhancement of the application was shared, and passed back and forth between end users and the organization's IS department over a period of several years. We take a Social Construction of Technology approach to describing this history, examining the mixture of cooperation and conflict between the Dispatch and IS departments in terms of the differing interpretations of the application by the social groups involved in its history. A constructivist approach to studying systems design allows us to recognize the unique expertise end users bring to systems development work, and provides a useful means for describing the political aspects of systems design and implementation over an extended time period.

Collaboration and conflict in the development of a computerized dispatch facility

Recent research on the social and cultural aspects of systems development work has focused on the work of professional software and systems designers. A complementary approach is to look at the work of end users as systems developers, whose informal systems design work is frequently ignored or undervalued in organizations and by IS researchers. This case study, of an application to facilitate dispatch work in a large organization, describes a history of collaboration and conflict between IS professionals and end users as systems designers. Application development was initiated by end users, the initial programming was carried out by IS professionals in collaboration with end users, and the subsequent implementation and enhancement of the application was shared, and passed back and forth between end users and the organization's IS department over a period of several years. We take a Social Construction of Technology approach to describing this history, examining the mixture of cooperation and conflict between the Dispatch and IS departments in terms of the differing interpretations of the application by the social groups involved in its history. A constructivist approach to studying systems design allows us to recognize the unique expertise end users bring to systems development work, and provides a useful means for describing the political aspects of systems design and implementation over an extended time period. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Design research programs and the logic of their development

Design research programs attempt to bring together the properties of available materials and the demands derived from intended applications. The logic of problem states and state transitions in such programs, including assessment criteria and heuristic principles, is described in settheoretic terms, starting with a naive model comprising an intended profile and the operational profile of a prototype. In a first concretization the useful distinction between structural and functional properties is built into the model. In two further concretizations the inclusion of potential applications is motivated and described for the case of drug research as well as the inclusion of potential realizations for the case of complex products. Next, another line of concretization of the naive model, the incorporation of potentially relevant properties, is sketched. Then the partial analogy between “product-” and “truth-approximation” is indicated. We conclude with some remarks about the usefulness of our models for products reaching the market in comparison to the the so-called social construction of technology approach.

The Social Construction of Artefacts: a Response to Pinch and Bijker

In their paper on 'The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts', Pinch and Bijker advocate an integrated social constructivist approach to explaining scientific knowledge and technological artefacts, suggesting how each separate sociological field might benefit the other. In particular, they compare the Empirical Programme of Relativism (EPOR) for science and the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) programme. They suggest that since their explanatory goals are similar, a relativist approach, and concepts such as 'interpretative flexibility' and 'closure', may be useful in both. I am concerned here with technology rather than science, except insofar as EPOR may have influenced SCOT or come to do so as the relationship is furthered.1 I fully support the objective of developing an explanation of the content of technology as a social product, and so I welcome Pinch and Bijker's discussion. I agree with their criticisms of economists' 'black box' treatments, linear models of innovation, and descriptive historiography. I want, however, to identify a number of weaknesses in the SCOT approach as described in the paper in particular, its espousal of relativism and of an evolutionary model of technological change; its treatment of 'social groups'; and its explanation of their means of influence on development. I shall argue that to transfer the concepts of a sociology of science to technology is to ignore basic differences between the two, as activities and as products. We should do better to try to situate the social processes producing technologies in an established framework that