“Great Men,” Law, and the Social Construction of Technology

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (03) ◽  
pp. 1093-1112
Author(s):  
Kara W. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
Origin Stories ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Law ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Truth Finding

Is Alexander Graham Bell's fame owed to law and lawyers? Two recent histories argue that some popular tales of invention originated with lawyers and judges as part of patent litigation battles (Stathis Arapostathis and Graeme Gooday, Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain[2013]; Christopher Beauchamp, Invented by Law: Alexander Graham Bell and the Patent That Changed America[2015]). Bringing law into the historical project of understanding the social construction of technology, the authors unsettle “great man” narratives of invention. A tale of a recent patent war is a case study in the persistence of such narratives, highlighting the uses of legal storytelling (Ronald K. Fierstein, A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War[2015]). Together, these works invite consideration of the cultural power possessed by invention origin stories, the role of narratives in law and history, and the judicial performance of truth finding in Anglo-American law.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Social Construction of Technology through ‘Following the Actors’: A Reappraisal of Technological Frames

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Prell
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Technology Design ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Technological Frames ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The Social

In this paper, I summarize case study research on an information system called Connected Kids. This case study was guided by an approach to technology studies called the ‘Social construction of technology’ or SCOT Pinch and Bijker (1984). In discussing Connected Kids, I illustrate many of SCOT's main tenents, e.g. the various social interactions that surround and influence technology design. As the paper progresses, however, I focus on one concept in particular, that being SCOT's notion of a ‘technological frame,’ which is used as a catch-all concept for handling the structural influences in technology design. My discussion and illustration of this concept shows that – whilst technological frames help an analyst understand, in general terms, the role structure(s) play in shaping technology – the ‘heterogeneity’ of technological frames can cloak the more obvious, and potentially most influential, forces at work in technology design. In the case of Connected kids, the role of resources, and which actors had access to these resources, was critical in pointing Connected Kids down a particular trajectory. Further, this discovery emerged from listening carefully to respondents’ comments on the role of resources in their community. These comments, and my own observations on how resource-access propelled certain actors into a leadership position, led to my developing an alternative method for analyzing technological frames. The implications of this analysis are then discussed within the context of SCOT and technology studies more generally.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 140-150
Author(s):  
Simone Delerme
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethnoracial Identity

The conclusion summarizes the contributions of the Greater Orlando case study and addresses the role of Latinos in challenging the south’s historic black-white racial binary. The chapter argues that the ethnographic fieldwork provides evidence of the social construction of a distinct Hispanic race and addresses the complexity of ethnoracial identity categorizations by examining the racialization of Hispanics and how they self-idenify.

scholarly journals Decision Theory as Practice: Crafting Rationality in Organizations

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (11) ◽  
pp. 1531-1566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laure Cabantous ◽  
Jean-Pascal Gond ◽  
Michael Johnson-Cramer
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Decision Theory ◽  
Decision Analysis ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range

This paper explores the underlying practices whereby rationality — as defined in rational choice theory — is achieved within organizations. The qualitative coding of 58 case study reports produced by decision analysts, working in a wide range of settings, highlights how organizational actors can make decisions in accord with the axioms of rational choice theory. Our findings describe the emergence of ‘decision-analysis’ as a field and reveal the complex and fragile socio-technical infrastructure underlying the craft of rationality, the central role of calculability, and the various forms of bricolage that decision analysts deploy to make rational decisions happen. Overall, this research explores the social construction of rationality and identifies the practices sustaining the performativity of rational choice theory within organizations.

Replicants, imposters and the real deal: Issues of non-use and technology resistance in vintage and software instruments

First Monday ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claes Thorén ◽  
Andreas Kitzmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Digital Processing ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Music Community ◽  
Online Music ◽  
Technology Resistance

This paper explores non-use and technology resistance among musicians and enthusiasts devoted to analog synthesizers (particularly vintage synthesizers from the 1970s), and the recent influx of software simulations that often elicit critical and negative reactions among this group of devotees. Drawing on a combination of assemblage theory and affect theory this paper presents a case study of a prominent online music community and asks: What does this particular instance of technological resistance reveal about the social construction of technology and the on-going emotional and material negotiations that constitute digital and analog experiences? Results show that the possession or appreciation of analog synthesizers and the rejection of their digital counterparts is less about composing music or playing with others and more about a solitary activity that is deeply emotional, experiential and carefully untainted by the impurity of digital processing and equipment.

The One-Dimensionality of Data

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Scott Timcke
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The One ◽  
American Political Economy

This chapter turns to questions about the social life of data. It uses the case study of econometrics to look at how datafication disproportionately shapes the comprehension of reality. The goal in this chapter is to demonstrate how econometrics as a mode of knowledge production understands, organizes and controls social life the world over. There are several steps involved in this argument. First, it reviews how Acemoglu and Robinson, as emblematic of orthodox Anglo-American political economy, conceptualize their symbolic reasoning, and how this quantification comes to mediate social phenomena, thereby determining them as objects. It builds upon these observations through undertaking a selective historical analysis on the role of statistical inquiry during European state formation as it relates to accomplishing economic growth. The remaining sections employ Western Marxism's critique of quantification to highlight what is at stake in the symbolic reordering of social life as well as what kinds of mystifications are courted by econometrics.

The invisibility of violence

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicky Bishop ◽  
Marek Korczynski ◽  
Laurie Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Formal Organization ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interpretive Approach ◽  
Line Context ◽  
High Level

This article explores the social construction of violence within the front-line context of job centres in the Employment Service (ES). The issue of violence within organizations is typically approached using positivistic methods. In contrast, this article deepens understandings of violence in organizations by using an interpretive approach. Through an analysis of data generated through an in-depth case study, this article argues that although ES front-liners experienced much of customer behaviour as violent, this high level of violence was systematically denied by the organization. In effect, the formal organization constructed violence in such a way that it was rendered invisible. This article examines not only how management, formal policies and procedures construct violence as invisible, but also the role of the staff themselves as active agents in the social construction of violence out of the workplace.

Endangered Butterflies and their Non-Native Host Plants: Examining Shifting Values of Belonging in Restoration

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Robert M. Anderson ◽  
Amy M. Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Restoration ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Puget Sound ◽  
A Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Remote Island ◽  
Scientific Truth ◽  
Native Host

The island marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides insulanus), thought to be extinct throughout the 20th century until re-discovered on a single remote island in Puget Sound in 1998, has become the focus of a concerted protection effort to prevent its extinction. However, efforts to “restore” island marble habitat conflict with efforts to “restore” the prairie ecosystem where it lives, because of the butterfly’s use of a non-native “weedy” host plant. Through a case study of the island marble project, we examine the practice of ecological restoration as the enactment of particular norms that define which species are understood to belong in the place being restored. We contextualize this case study within ongoing debates over the value of “native” species, indicative of deep-seated uncertainties and anxieties about the role of human intervention to alter or manage landscapes and ecosystems, in the time commonly described as the “Anthropocene.” We interpret the question of “what plants and animals belong in a particular place?” as not a question of scientific truth, but a value-laden construct of environmental management in practice, and we argue for deeper reflexivity on the part of environmental scientists and managers about the social values that inform ecological restoration.

THE ROLE OF LOCAL SOCIAL INSTITUTION IN COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT IN BANDUNG REGENCY, INDONESIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helly Ocktilia
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Style ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Board Members ◽  
Supportive Leadership ◽  
Community Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Descriptive Method

This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the existence of the local social organization in conducting community empowerment. The experiment was conducted at Community Empowerment Institution (In Indonesia it is referred to as Lembaga Pemberdayaan Masyarakat/LPM). LPM Cibeunying as one of the local social institution in Bandung regency. Aspects reviewed in the study include the style of leadership, processes, and stages of community empowerment, as well as the LPM network. The research method used is a case study with the descriptive method and qualitative approach. Data collection was conducted against five informants consisting of the Chairman and LPM’s Board members, village officials, and community leaders. The results show that the dominant leadership style is participative, in addition to that, a supportive leadership style and directive leadership style are also used in certain situations. The empowerment process carried out per the stages of the empowerment process is identifying and assessing the potential of the region, problems, and opportunities-chances; arranging a participative activity plan; implementing the activity plan; and monitoring and evaluating the process and results of activities. The social networking of LPM leads to a social network of power in which LPM can influence the behavior of communities and community institutions in utilizing and managing community empowerment programs. From the research, it can be concluded that the model of community empowerment implemented by LPM Cibeunying Village is enabling, empowering, and protecting.

Catching an Atom Spy: MI5 and the Investigation of Klaus Fuchs

2010 ◽  
pp. 554-567
Author(s):  
Timothy Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Klaus Fuchs ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Successful Approach ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Atomic Espionage ◽  
Signals Intelligence

This article focuses on M15 organization and Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist and Soviet “Atom Spy” who was arrested in 1950 and served fourteen years for offences related to atomic espionage. It examines how Fuchs was identified as an “Atom Spy” in 1949 and describes the MI5's investigation, which ended in the early 1950 with the successful arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of this highly significant Cold War figure. Key issues discussed in this article include the difficulties encountered by MI5 and the budding British atomic program in the sphere of security. It also discusses the role of Signals intelligence (SIGINT) in the investigation of Fuchs, and the high-risk but ultimately successful approach taken by MI5's key interrogator, William Skardon. This case study highlights both the unparalleled level of international intelligence cooperation between the British agencies and their American counterparts, which made the resolution of this case possible, and some of the frailties in the Anglo-American alliance that were brought to the fore by the exposure of Fuchs as an Atom Spy.

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