scholarly journals The Social Shaping of Packaged Software Selection

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 122-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra Howcroft ◽  
◽  
Ben Light ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Keegan-Phipps ◽  
Lucy Wright

This chapter considers the role of social media (broadly conceived) in the learning experiences of folk musicians in the Anglophone West. The chapter draws on the findings of the Digital Folk project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and begins by summarizing and problematizing the nature of learning as a concept in the folk music context. It briefly explicates the instructive, appropriative, and locative impacts of digital media for folk music learning before exploring in detail two case studies of folk-oriented social media: (1) the phenomenon of abc notation as a transmissive media and (2) the Mudcat Café website as an example of the folk-oriented discussion forum. These case studies are shown to exemplify and illuminate the constructs of traditional transmission and vernacularism as significant influences on the social shaping and deployment of folk-related media technologies. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the need to understand the musical learning process as a culturally performative act and to recognize online learning mechanisms as sites for the (re)negotiation of musical, cultural, local, and personal identities.


2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reimon Bachika ◽  
Markus S Schulz

This article introduces the Current Sociology monograph issue on Values and Culture. It discusses sociology’s renewed interest in values and the general approach on which the contributors converge despite diverse theoretical backgrounds, areas of focus and social settings. It explains how the studies in this publication contribute to the understanding of the formation and operation of values on micro, meso and macro levels in an increasingly globalized world.


1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Treas ◽  
Supriya Singh
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Kai Jakobs

This chapter discusses the influence individuals have in the ICT standards development process. The chapter draws upon ideas underlying the theory of the Social Shaping of Technology (SST). Looking through the SST lens, a number of non-technical factors that influence ICT standards development are identified. A literature review on the role of the individual in ICT standards setting and a case study of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group (WG) show that in a standards body's WG, the backgrounds, skills, attitudes, and behaviour of the individual WG members are crucially important factors. Yet, the case study also shows that in most cases employees tend to represent the ideas and goals of their respective employer. The chapter observes that the non-technical factors are ignored all too often in the literature. It argues that a better understanding of the impact and interplay of these factors, specifically including the skills and attitudes of the WG members, will have significant implications both theoretical and managerial.


Author(s):  
Teresa Sofia Pereira Dias de Castro ◽  
António Osório ◽  
Emma Bond

Within the scope of how technology impacts on society three theoretical models: the social shaping of technology (SST), social construction of technology (SCOT) and the Actor-Network theory (ANT) are frameworks that help rethink the embeddedness of technology within society, once each is transformed and transformative of the other. More attention will be given to the ANT approach since it solves the technology/society dualisms unresolved by the previous proposals. This is a flexible epistemological possibility that can reach the ambiguity of contemporary life and the remarkable transformations brought by progress that have changed drastically childhood and children's contemporary lives.


2008 ◽  
pp. 1330-1345
Author(s):  
Beryl Burns ◽  
Ben Light

We report the findings of a field study of the enactment of ICT supported knowledge work in a Human Resources contact centre, illustrating the negotiable boundary between what constitutes the developer and user. Drawing upon ideas from the social shaping of technology, we examine how discussions regarding producer-user relations require a degree of greater sophistication as we show how users develop technologies and work practices in-situ. In this case different forms of knowledge are practised to create and maintain a knowledge sharing system. We show how as staff simultaneously distance themselves from, and ally with, ICT supported encoded knowledge scripts, the system becomes materially important to the project of constructing the knowledge characteristic of professional identity. Our work implies that although much has been made of contextualising the user, as a user, further work is required to contextualise users as developers and moreover, developers as users.


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