Book 2
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This document introduces the concept of technological determinism, which views technology as developing autonomously according to its own internal logic or laws, and then having direct impacts on society. However, the authors argue that technology is shaped by social factors and that its development and effects are influenced by economic, political, and cultural values. They propose that technology should be seen as shaped by society as much as shaping it.
Book 2
- 1. Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman Introductory essay: the social shaping of technology Book section Original citation: Originally published in MacKenzie, Donald and Wajcman, Judy, eds. (1999) The social shaping of technology. 2nd ed., Open University Press, Buckingham, UK. ISBN 9780335199136 息 1999 Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28638/ Available in LSE Research Online: August 2012 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright 息 and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the authors submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publishers version if you wish to cite from it.
- 2. 1 Introduction Technology is a vitally important aspect of the human condition. Technologies feed, clothe, and provide shelter for us; they transport, entertain, and heal us; they provide the bases of wealth and of leisure; they also pollute and kill. For good or ill, they are woven inextricably into the fabric of our lives, from birth to death, at home, in school, in paid work. Rich or poor, employed or non- employed, woman or man, black or white, north or south - all of our lives are intertwined with technologies, from simple tools to large technical systems. When this intertwining is discussed in newspapers or other mass media, the dominant account of it can summed up as technological determinism. Technologies change, either because of scientific advance or following a logic of their own; and they then have effects on society. The development of computer technology, for example, is often seen as following trajectories that are close to natural laws, the most famous being Moores law, describing how the number of components on a state-of-the-art microchip doubles in a fixed, predictable period of time (originally a year; now 18 months). This defining rule of the modern world (Malone, 1995) fuels an information and communication technology revolution that, numerous pundits tell, is changing and will change the way we live. Technological Determinism as a Theory of Society