Being a critic of technological determinism does not entail a wholesale rejection of the profound influence that technological systems have had on the history of the twentieth century or on the way we live and who we are. No STS scholar would deny that technical innovation has social and cultural implications. Indeed, in The Social Shaping of Technology, we expressed some sympathy for a “soft” determinism: “to say that technology’s social efects are complex and contingent is not to say that it has no social efects.”35 Rather, the aim has been to reconceptualize the relationship of technology and society. In doing so, we do not mean to understate the power of technology. Quite the contrary. Whatever version of STS we do, we do it because we passionately believe in the constitutive power of technology, that our societies and our very identities are shaped together with technologies.
For most social scientists, the recognition that technological change is profoundly shaped by social, economic, cultural, political, and organizational circumstances is too well established to need belaboring. The breakthrough contribution of STS scholars was to demonstrate that artifacts are socially shaped, not only in their usage but in their design and technical content.36 Crucially, such an analysis rejects the notion that technology is solely the product of rational technical imperatives; that a particular technology will triumph because it is intrinsically the best. Technical reasons are vitally important. But we need to ask why a technical reason was found to be compelling, when it could have been challenged, and what counts as technical superiority in specific circumstances. Studies show that the generation and implementation of new technologies involve many choices between technical options. A range of social factors afect which of the technical options are selected, and these choices shape technologies and, thereby, their social implications. In this way, technology can be thought of as a sociotechnical product, patterned by the conditions of its creation and use.
Chapter One
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