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Chapter Summary
Chapter 3 covers a plurality of theoretical perspectives, which seek to shed light on the nature of the relationship between technology and society as well as on those elements of society most affected by technology. The chapter contrasts the utopian and dystopian approaches, which each highlight a different side of how technology transforms society. Chapter 3 also reviews the key premises underlying the theories of technological determinism and social determinism and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. The chapter introduces the field of STS as an alternative framework, which stresses that artifacts are socially constructed, mirroring the society that produces them. Then the chapter reviews the two most prominent approaches of STS: social construction of technology (SCOT) and actor network theory (ANT). Finally, the chapter reviews the theory of technological affordance, which helps us understand how users engage with technology.
Learning Objectives
In this chapter, you should learn to do the following:
- to obtain a broad overview of the history of technology;
- to critically examine in a historical context how technology and society have mutually shaped each other;
- to provide an alternative view of the history of technology by taking a sociological perspective of technological transformations;
- to learn about how digital tools have led to the development of a high-tech society characterized by customization, individualism, and privatization.