scholarly journals Re-negotiating Exhibitionary Practices and the "Digital" Politics of Display: The Case of the MTL Urban Museum App

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria Herman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Digital Display ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Digital Politics

In this paper, I employ a sociotechnical approach (drawn from science and technology studies) to reconstruct how the McCord Museum’s MTL Urban Museum App was re-made. I take into account both the social and the technical, and consider the human and the nonhuman, which allows me to chart the roles of heterogeneous actors in re-making the App and in re-negotiating the Museum’s display practices. In doing so, I explore and point to the politics of this 'digital' display:  What actors were involved in its re-making? How did they participate in decision-making processes? What are the implications of the negotiations made? The analysis reveals: 1) how the re-making of the App redistributed tasks associated with exhibitionary practices by displacing them across unexpected actors both inside and outside the Museum, 2) how some aspects of design can become ‘non-negotiable’ or ‘irreversible’, and 3) how the re-negotiation of display practices established unanticipated ‘gatekeepers’ in the Museum’s display practice. Thus, this study sheds light on a “digital” case of the ‘politics of display’ (Macdonald, 1998). 

scholarly journals Technology, Public Participation, and the American Bureaucracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher George Torres
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Environmental Literacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This dissertation analyzes three participatory technology assessment (pTA) projects conducted within United States federal agencies between 2014 and 2018. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) argues that a lack of public participation in addressing issues of science and technology in society has produced undemocratic processes of decision-making with outcomes insensitive to the daily lives of the public. There has been little work in STS, however, examining what the political pressures and administrative challenges are to improving public participation in U.S. agency decision-making processes. Following a three-essay format, this dissertation aims to fill this gap. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel, and bringing STS, policy studies, and public administration scholarship into conversation, this dissertation argues for the significance of “policy entrepreneurs” who from within U.S. agencies advocate for pTA and navigate the political controls on innovative forms of participation. The first essay explores how the political culture and administrative structures of the American federal bureaucracy shape the bureaucratic contexts of public participation in science and technology decision-making. The second essay is an in-depth case study of the role political controls and policy entrepreneurs played in adopting, designing, and implementing pTA in NASA’s Asteroid Initiative. The third essay is a comparative analysis of how eight political and administrative conditions informed pTA design and implementation for NASA’s Asteroid Initiative, DOE’s consent-based nuclear waste siting program, and NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program. The results of this dissertation highlight how important the political and administrative contexts of federal government programs are to understanding how pTA is designed and implemented in agency science and technology decision-making processes, and the key role agency policy entrepreneurs play in facilitating pTA through these political and administrative contexts. This research can aid STS scholars and practitioners better anticipate and mitigate the barriers to embedding innovative forms of public participation in U.S. federal government science and technology program design and decision-making processes.

Following the Fukushima Disaster on (and against) Wikipedia: A Methodological Note about STS Research and Online Platforms

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 938-964 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Moats
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Lay Knowledge ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fukushima Disaster ◽  
Digital Research ◽  
Research Tools

Science and technology studies is famous for questioning conceptual and material boundaries by following controversies that cut across them. However, it has recently been argued that in research involving online platforms (Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), there are also more practical boundaries to negotiate that are created by the variable availability, visibility, and structuring of data. In this paper, I highlight a potential tension between our inclination toward following controversies and “following the medium” and suggest that sometimes following controversies might involve going “against platforms” as well as with them. I will illustrate this dilemma through an analysis of the controversy over the coverage of the Fukushima disaster on English language Wikipedia, which concerns boundaries between expert and lay knowledge but also the social and technical functioning of Wikipedia itself. For this reason, I show that following the controversy might mean making use of less formatted and less obvious data than Wikipedia normally provides. While this is not an argument against the use of automated digital research tools such as scrapers, I suggest that both quantitative and qualitative researchers need to be more willing to tweak their approaches based on the specificities of the case.

Situating Technology: Confrontations over the Use of Sonar among Turkish Fishermen and Marine Scientists

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ståle Knudsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Controversial Issue ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Fishing Practices

AbstractSince its introduction in the Turkish fisheries in 1980, use of the fish finder device sonar has been a controversial issue among fishermen and between fishermen and scientists. Most fishermen claim that sonars scare away or kill fish while local marine scientists contend that sonars have no such effect. What can study of this conflict tell us about the use of advanced technology in regions of the world far away from the metropolitan production of such technologies? In this ethnographic approach to a study in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) the fishermen's use of and the scientists' research on the sonar are surveyed. The article discusses the degree to which the adoption of sonar in the Turkish fisheries has resulted in a standardization of fishing practices—not only technologically, but possibly also in the way the fishermen perceive the hunt. Some theoretical arguments on how people relate to technology are reviewed and a phenomenologically inspired perspective advanced. It is argued that too much attention on finding the "Truth"—in this case whether the sonar is harmful to fish or not—diverts attention from more fundamental issues, such as what kinds of change sonar has brought to the social relations of production.

scholarly journals A critical analysis of information society conceptualizations from an STS point of view

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduard Aibar
Keyword(s):  
Information Society ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Technology And Society ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Social

Science and Technology Studies (STS) have developed over the last four decades very rich and deep analysis of the interaction between science, technology and society. This paper uses some STS theoretical and methodological insights and findings to identify persistent misconceptions in the specific literature on ICTs and society. Technological deterministic views, the taken-for-granted image of technological designs, the prospective character of many studies that focus mainly on potential effects, a simplistic view of uses and users, and an uncritical distinction between the technical and the social, are discussed as some of the most remarkable theoretical flaws in the field.

scholarly journals Science and Democracy Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Joseph Harris
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Normative Commitment ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociological Society ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Social Construction Of Science

To what extent is the normative commitment of STS to the democratization of science a product of the democratic contexts where it is most often produced? STS scholars have historically offered a powerful critical lens through which to understand the social construction of science, and seminal contributions in this area have outlined ways in which citizens have improved both the conduct of science and its outcomes. Yet, with few exceptions, it remains that most STS scholarship has eschewed study of more problematic cases of public engagement of science in rich, supposedly mature Western democracies, as well as examination of science-making in poorer, sometimes non-democratic contexts. How might research on problematic cases and dissimilar political contexts traditionally neglected by STS scholars push the field forward in new ways? This paper responds to themes that came out of papers from two Eastern Sociological Society Presidential Panels on Science and Technology Studies in an Era of Anti-Science. It considers implications of the normative commitment by sociologists working in the STS tradition to the democratization of science.

scholarly journals Making a financial market: the economization and topology of Farmland REITs

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 599
Author(s):  
Angela Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Real Estate Investment ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
And Topology ◽  
Decision Making Processes

<p>This article considers how financial mechanisms shape political and economic power around farmland. It draws on political ecology around the financialization of agriculture, and perspectives from Science and Technology Studies about performativity and topology to study how financial mechanisms in agriculture reconfigure networks of access to farmland for farmers, investors, workers and consumers. The article focuses on the case of Farmland Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the United States and shows REITS as sociotechnical assemblages of economic theories mobilized by investors and their representatives. Building on topologic ideas, the article highlights how financial mechanisms, such as REITs, shift networks of access to land. These mechanisms can profoundly shape landscapes and livelihoods by creating a market for farmland that transforms the connections of different actors with land, distancing workers and consumers from decision making processes while producing fluid and smooth access for investors. By studying REITs from the perspectives of economization and topology this article identifies key actors and mechanisms through which financialization is reconfiguring access to farmland and identifies limitations and opportunities for increased access to decisions about land for farmers, workers and consumers.</p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>financialization of agriculture, political ecology, performativity, topology, science and technology studies, REITs, farmland</p>

scholarly journals Diversifying the Deliberative Turn: Toward an Agonistic RRI

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110672
Author(s):  
Deborah Scott
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Responsible Research ◽  
Opening Up

In its “deliberative turn,” the field of science and technology studies (STS) has strongly advocated opening up decision-making processes around science and technology to more perspectives and knowledges. While the theory of democracy underpinning this is rarely explicitly addressed, the language and ideas used are often drawn from deliberative democracy. Using the case of synthetic biology and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), this paper looks at challenges of public engagement and finds parallels in long-standing critiques of deliberative democracy. The paper suggests that STS scholars explore other theories of decision-making and explores what an RRI grounded in agonistic pluralism might entail. An agonistic RRI could develop empirical research around questions of power relations in contemporary science and technology, seek to facilitate the formation of political publics around relevant issues, and frame different actors’ stances as adversarial positions on a political field rather than “equally valid” perspectives.

scholarly journals A critical analysis of information society conceptualizations from an STS point of view

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-182
Author(s):  
Eduard Aibar
Keyword(s):  
Information Society ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Technology And Society ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Social

Science and Technology Studies (STS) have developed over the last four decades very rich and deep analysis of the interaction between science, technology and society. This paper uses some STS theoretical and methodological insights and findings to identify persistent misconceptions in the specific literature on ICTs and society. Technological deterministic views, the taken-for-granted image of technological designs, the prospective character of many studies that focus mainly on potential effects, a simplistic view of uses and users, and an uncritical distinction between the technical and the social, are discussed as some of the most remarkable theoretical flaws in the field.

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