scholarly journals The Dynamics of Google within the Frame of a Large Technical System

MaRBLe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Johannes Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
System Approach ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Technical System ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The Us

The Large Technical System approach was introduced by the influential historian of technology, Thomas P. Hughes, in the 1970’s and is one of the most prominent theoretical frameworks within the Science and Technology Studies. However, it has found little attention in relation to the digital realm. This research applies the LTS framework onto the US-American company Google and seeks to bring a conceptual understanding to the company’s exponential growth. Thus, it describes the emergence and evolution of Google as a complex system – an alignment of components of technical and non-technical nature – and assigns patterns and concepts to its development. This research provides an answer to how Google not only gained a system structure but also reached the notion of momentum. Yet, suggesting a social constructivist path, this paper secludes by elucidating the influencing power of the LTS’s user – an important factor which was widely disregarded in the initial works of Hughes.

scholarly journals The Dynamics of Google within the Frame of a Large Technical System

MaRBLe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Johannes Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
System Approach ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Technical System ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The Us

The Large Technical System approach was introduced by the influential historian of technology, Thomas P. Hughes, in the 1970’s and is one of the most prominent theoretical frameworks within the Science and Technology Studies. However, it has found little attention in relation to the digital realm. This research applies the LTS framework onto the US-American company Google and seeks to bring a conceptual understanding to the company’s exponential growth. Thus, it describes the emergence and evolution of Google as a complex system – an alignment of components of technical and non-technical nature – and assigns patterns and concepts to its development. This research provides an answer to how Google not only gained a system structure but also reached the notion of momentum. Yet, suggesting a social constructivist path, this paper secludes by elucidating the influencing power of the LTS’s user – an important factor which was widely disregarded in the initial works of Hughes.

Gender and Technology in Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Greenhalgh-Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Technology In Education ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Gender And Technology ◽  
Digital Divides ◽  
Liberal Rights

This article defines and analyses multiple theoretical frameworks which have been developed in order to explain the interactions of gender and digital technology in schooling. Specifically, this article addresses: science and technology studies (STS) and education, technofeminism and education, post-humanism and education, and liberal rights framings of gender and technology. These frameworks offer a key backdrop to the sites of several educational policy and pedagogical conflicts that have recently arisen around gender, technology, and education. These frameworks are explained in ways that foregrounds there connections to schooling debates around: cyberbullying, speech rights, activism, embodiment, queer pedagogies, and digital divides.

scholarly journals THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGICAL CONCEPTS OF DESIGN CULTURE

2017 ◽  
pp. 9-12
Author(s):  
Y. O. Bytsykina
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Design History ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
Design Culture ◽  
History Of

The article is devoted to introducing new theoretical frameworks and methodological concepts from the field known as science and technology studies (STS) and discussing their potential for design history. The concepts of design and culture are analyzed and compared within the article, providing the possibility of developing the complex concept of “design culture”. The study shows that design can be considered as a social and cultural phenomenon, that design historians may find that the sociology and the history of technology can provide an appropriate theoretical framework and methodological repertoire for studying design, not only as the part of art history. The article introduces main concepts from science and technology studies that might be of particular value to design history and culture, focusing on actor-network theory, script analysis and domestication.

scholarly journals ST(&)S: Martyn Pickersgill Talks with Sheila Jasanoff

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 320
Author(s):  
Martyn Pickersgill ◽  
Sheila Jasanoff
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Technology And Society ◽  
Distinct Mode ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Contested Meanings ◽  
And Training

In this interview, Sheila Jasanoff and Martyn Pickersgill discuss the contested meanings of STS, defined as either “science and technology studies” (often associated with European origins) or “science, technology, and society” (commonly seen as originating in the US). The interview describes how Jasanoff entered STS, and the ways in which she sought to bring together different traditions within the field. Jasanoff underscores how her intellectual and professional journeys were shaped through a mix of institutional context and personal choices, and reflects on the role she has played in shaping STS networks, programs, and departments. Jasanoff remains excited about the future of STS, yet also highlights the need for disciplining within the field. For her, STS represents a distinct mode of researching, approaching, and engaging with the world. This distinctiveness, Jasanoff argues, needs to be carefully cultivated and reproduced through creative but rigorous teaching and training.  A reflection by Martyn Pickersgill follows the interview.

Data Management and Data Sharing in Science and Technology Studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Maienschein ◽  
John N. Parker ◽  
Manfred Laubichler ◽  
Edward J. Hackett
Keyword(s):  
Data Sharing ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Social Studies Of Science ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Science Association

This paper presents reports on discussions among an international group of science and technology studies (STS) scholars who convened at the US National Science Foundation (January 2015) to think about data sharing and open STS. The first report, which reflects discussions among members of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), relates the potential benefits of data sharing and open science for STS. The second report, which reflects discussions among scholars from many professional STS societies (i.e., European Association for the Study of Science and Technology [ EASST], 4S, Society for the History of Technology [ SHOT], History of Science Society [ HSS], and Philosophy of Science Association [ PSA]), focuses on practical and conceptual issues related to managing, storing, and curating STS data. As is the case for all reports of such open discussions, a scholar’s presence at the meeting does not necessarily mean that they agree with all aspects of the text to follow.

Holism, Chinese Medicine and Systems Ideologies: Rewriting the Past to Imagine the Future

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Scheid
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Us ◽  
Shared Objective ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.

CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF THE SYSTEM OF SPECIAL TYPES OF TECHNICAL SUPPORT

2018 ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
A. N. Mironov ◽  
V. V. Lisitskiy
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Model ◽  
System Approach ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Technical Support ◽  
Technical System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alert System ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
The Creation

In the article on set-theoretic level, developed a conceptual model of the system of special types of technical support for difficult organizational-technical system. The purpose of conceptualizing the creation of a system of interrelated and stemming from one of the other views on certain objects, phenomena, processes associated with the system of special types of technical support. In the development of applied concepts and principles of the methodology of system approach. The empirical basis for the development of the conceptual model has served many fixed factors obtained in the warning system and require formalization and theoretical explanation. The novelty of the model lies in the account of the effect of environment directly on the alert system. Therefore, in the conceptual model of the system of special types of technical support included directly in the conceptual model of the system of special types and conceptual model of the environment. Part of the conceptual model of the environment is included in the conceptual model of the enemy of nature and co-systems.

scholarly journals Is There a Place for Theoretical Frameworks in Qualitative Research?

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 160940692098795
Author(s):  
Casey M. Garvey ◽  
Rachel Jones
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Common Sense Model ◽  
Rich Description ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

Qualitative research proceeds from the position that there is no one observable reality. Researchers utilizing qualitative methods build findings inductively, from raw data to a conceptual understanding. Theoretical frameworks may be utilized to guide qualitative analyses by suggesting concepts and relationships to explore. The framework may provide a sense of the story emerging from the analyses. And concurrently, the rich description provided by the analyses may allow the framework to be more deeply appreciated. However, there is a risk that using a theoretical framework may stifle inductive reasoning or result in findings incongruent to the data. The following is a discussion of the application of a theoretical framework in a qualitative study. This study, guided by the Common-Sense Model, explores the choice to undergo treatment for Hepatitis C Virus among veterans. Examples from the analyses are provided to facilitate discussion on the utilization of a theoretical framework. Techniques to optimize the use of a theoretical framework, as well as mitigate risks of such use, are presented. When utilized alongside rigorous data analyses and introspection, a theoretical framework may serve as a valuable tool to navigate data in qualitative research.

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