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Shaped Technology: An Afterword

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Thomas Hughes
Affiliation:
Department of History and Sociology of ScienceUniversity of Pennsylvania

Extract

The informative and engaging essays in the foregoing collection suggest several interesting concepts that deserve further research and reflection. Over the past decade, the “social construction of technology” has become a concept often explored by historians (Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch 1987). Even though it has performed the useful function of discrediting technological determinism, the concept suggests too narrow a set of influences that shape technology. Two other concept, “nature-shaped technology” and “culture-shaped technology,” convey the character of technology more effectively. To designate “nature” as a shaper of technology reminds us that in a relatively prisine world the designer of technology negotiates with natural forces more than with human-built ones. To see culture as a shaper of technology suggests a broader range of influences affecting technology, not simply the social. “Shaping” conveys the notion of influence and avoids that of determinism better than “construction.”

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Bijker, Wiebe E., Hughes, Thomas P., and Pinch, Trevor J., eds. 1987. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
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