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.

“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.

scholarly journals Frontline police employees’ social construction of client service

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Karel Stanz ◽  
G. J. Schwart ◽  
W. J. Schurink
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
South African ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
South African Police Service ◽  
The Social ◽  
South African Police ◽  
Satisfaction Model

The social construction of frontline employees’ client service plays a major role in organisational success. This study illuminated why frontline personnel are reluctant to accept organisational change which is in line with new policing philosophies. Applying modernist qualitative methodology, and particularly grounded theory within a case study design a ‘process satisfaction model’ was developed with the aim to improve employee satisfaction with internal processes and ultimately service delivery. This model may be used for change in the South African Police Service SAPS) and other government departments.

Social Construction of Technology

Entanglements ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Tosoni ◽  
Trevor Pinch
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
Technological Artifacts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relevant Social Groups ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
Nonhuman Agency ◽  
Interpretative Flexibility

The chapter focuses on the Social Construction of Technology approach (SCOT) by Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, introducing the reader to its initial formulation (1984), and to the subsequent extensions – and sometimes reformulations – elaborated in more than 30 year of empirical research. It first clarifies how the Empirical Programme of Relativism, elaborated by the Bath School to address the social construction of scientific facts, was adapted to technological artifacts. In particular the concepts of relevant social groups, interpretative flexibility, closure or stabilization are in-depth discussed. Regarding relevant social groups, the chapter dedicates a peculiar attention to users, sellers and testers, all understudied in the original formulation of SCOT. The chapter then clarifies SCOT’s take on materiality, and discusses its main differences with the idea of nonhuman agency proposed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Finally, it goes back to the Golem Trilogy to discuss with the author the specific take on politics implied by SCOT.

The Networked Effect of Children and Online Digital Technologies

2018 ◽  
pp. 7312-7326
Author(s):  
Teresa Sofia Pereira Dias de Castro ◽  
António Osório ◽  
Emma Bond
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
Social Shaping

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document