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Today we’ll be considering theories of technology and society which consider the ways in which science and technology interact with our social world. We’ll discuss science and technology almost exclusively within the field known as Science and Technology Studies (STS).

Jason will introduce STS and one of its leading theories, Actor-Network Theory (ANT), as well as the developments and theories that lead up to ANT. When considering ANT, he’ll focus on 3 of the main contributors to the theory. Dana will be guiding the discussion around the critical view of technoscience and materiality of technology, along with critical constructivism. Dana will further ANT as it relates to Freenberg, along with the Social Construction Of Technology (SCOT). Lastly, Dana will discuss communicative capitalism and the social construction of reality.

STS, also sometimes referred to as Science, Technology, and Society, generally accepts that the relationship between science, technology, and society is a worthy focus of study. Since technologies are the central focus, these theories are materialist in nature yet at the same time see the social world as, if not synonymous with the material world, at least intricately linked. So intricately, in fact, that the social world cannot be understood in isolation from science and technology. STS is defined by a constructivist ontology, however, the nature of that construction differs greatly between theories, traditions, and contributors. This multiplicity of views is possibly owing to the fact that STS is also highly interdisciplinary. Also, technology is generally multi-directional, that is to say, technologies are not or not fully determined by natural laws but could have manifested a different morphology or function. Finally, STS tends to examine actual historical or contemporary technologies to uncover the heterogeneous and complex components that contribute to the social world. So, in like fashion, we’ll also be analyzing specific existing technologies to uncover aspects of the social world.

STS is the “interdisciplinary field that is creating an integrative understanding of the origins, dynamics, and consequences of science and technology” (Hackett, Amsterdamska, Lynch, & Wajcman, 2008). As such, many important questions are of recurring interest to almost all researchers in STS. These questions seem to unite researchers, however, the answers are diverse.

Some of the most important and relevant questions in the field are:

1. What is science and what is technology? Though this is an important question to ask, many, some more than others, see the pursuit of an answer as futile.

2. Should science and technology be treated separately? Much disagreement exists between various STS theories.

3. Who are the actors at play? Since STS has deep roots in sociology, it is concerned with identifying, delineating, characterizing, and studying individuals and groups, however, each theory uses different criteria and identifies vastly different groups.

4. Does human action determine technology or does technology determine human action? STS is constructivist and fundamentally concerned with the interaction between technology and society. Some theories agree with the former, others with the later, and still others say they both influence one another.

5. Why does a technology or a scientific fact take a certain shape?

6. Why does a technology or a scientific fact survive and another fail? STS tries not to apply a “Whig history” assuming that things had to work out one way and not the other. But instead understands that the complexities of the interactions cause a multitude of possibilities and the criteria applied to explain why one technology succeeded must be applied to ones that failed.

7. Who/what is doing the constructing and who/what is being constructed? Once the actors are identified, STS researchers try to understand the influence that each one has on the other.

8. Who/what should do the constructing and how should that be decided? Some theories and fields in STS care less about this question than others. Critical and political traditions in STS care a great deal about such normative, ethical, and political questions. In fact, political and social activism can be a key preoccupation and interest for many researchers.

We’ll start by very briefly looking at some of the ideas, thinkers, and schools of thought that eventually contributed to the rise of STS. Up until the 1960s, science was seen, more or less, as a method of discovery and technology as an applied science. Positivism and scientific realism dominated science’s self-image. Very little distinguishment was made between the ideal of how science should be done and how science is actually done. Though there was great disagreement around what science really is and how scientific knowledge is acquired, the key trend during this time is that while there might be better and worse scientific methods, it is possible, through the most optimal scientific methods, to discover the natural world. Its true nature can be known. This idea, which the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers and natural scientists in the 1920s and 30s, labeled as logical positivism, was one espousing empiricism and logical scientific methodologies (The Cambridge dictionary of philosophy., 1999). Karl Popper, made famous largely for his idea of falsificationism, also thought that through the right methodology, one of bold falsifiable claims, natural phenomenon could be uncovered. And Martin Heidegger, though quite different from those of the Vienna Circle, saw technology as science applied, though in the service of power (Sismondo, 2010).

The field of STS is thought to have formally arisen in the 1970s. However, a key date that could be used to mark its ideological birth is 1962. This marked the first publication of the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) written by Thomas Kuhn. For Kuhn, science is merely what scientists do. It is a social activity that is guided by norms, values, power structures, theories, ideas, and above all, paradigms. In this way, they are constructing facts.

While other thinkers before Kuhn did establish some ideological foundations in the study of science and technology, Kuhn’s ideas are seen as the radical push that changed the way science was studied and perceived. He was not a just a social scientist or a philosopher jealousy criticizing the physical sciences, often a view that allowed physical scientists to discount external criticism. Kuhn, in fact, had a Ph.D. in Physics, what’s often viewed as the purest or truest of the physical sciences. As such, he was now an insider critiquing his own domain. Physical scientists were now more obliged to listen, and his ideas revolutionized the study of science. Kuhn’s publication The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) represents a major shift in social and philosophical studies of science.

“Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition” (Kuhn, 1962). Here we see in Kuhn’s suggestions that scientists are influenced by beliefs and traditions. Surprisingly, this raised much controversy amongst his colleagues.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Kuhn laid out a comprehensive picture of science. One that he constructed through a historical analysis of science. He saw that for most of the history of science, most scientists are engaged in what is known as normal science most of the time. Normal science is science that is governed by a paradigm, which is a constructed framework of both a shared worldview, containing theories and taken-for-granted knowledge, and a form of life, or the habits and accepted practices of the particular discipline. Paradigms are essentially pre-existing boundaries on what is allowable and what can be seen. Eventually, there are instances where it cannot account for observed phenomena. These are called anomalies which once enough of them pile up, a crisis will occur, and eventually a scientific revolution after which a new paradigm is established often by an incoming generation of young scientists.

While Kuhn was primarily focused on science, Wiebe E. Bijker and his Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) is more concerned with technology. SCOT is a sociology of technology and is, as the name suggests, constructivist. Specifically, social constructivist which sees human action as the determinant of technology. In SCOT, it’s important to study the history of technologies symmetrically, any criteria applied to explain why one technology succeeded must also be applied to ones that failed. It is multi-directional in that an established technology could have taken other shapes given slightly different social conditions. And, as Pinch and Bijker explain, “there is not just one possible way or one best way of designing an artifact”, and in this way, technologies have interpretive flexibility. This flexibility is dependent on the value system at the time and the relevant social groups.

Wiebe Bijker is a sociologist of science and one of the creators of SCOT.

Social constructivism dominates SCOT. As Pinch and Bijker state, “[B]oth scientific facts and technological artefacts are to be understood as social constructs” (Pinch & Bijker, 1984). Meaning that society shapes technologies. But how does it do this?

To answer this question, we can examine a technology that we might classify as successful, based on how many people have adopted it, for how long, and with what effect. We might also ask if that same technology has an analog with slightly different design that has failed. Then we can compare the two to try to understand what social factors contributed to success or failure. A great example used by Pinch and Bijker is the development of the bicycle and the seeming competition between two designs: the Penny-farthing and the “safety bicycle” (Pinch & Bijker, 1984). For SCOT, success and failure of a technology is interpreted and evaluated differently by relevant social groups. And because technologies are multi-directional and have interpretive flexibility, they are not predetermined or inevitable. Technologies are instead primarily influenced by the social values relative to a culture and time. In order to “succeed” they need to be stabilized by closure mechanisms, such as rhetoric. In the case of the bicycle, advertisers claimed that the “safety bicycle” was, well, safer than the Penny-farthing. A successful technology can also become stabilized by the closure mechanism of redefining the problem. For the relevant social groups, if the primary problem was one surrounding the value of safety, then the “safety bicycle” would win. If however, it was speed, the penny-farthing would win. And if it was aesthetics, the rubber air tire, a necessary addition to the “safety bicycle” to make it fast, would loss. However, because safety and speed were valued above aesthetics, the rubber air tire was added to the safety bicycle, and it blew away the competition.

Pinch and Bijker (1984) propose a 3-step empirical process for studying technology:

1. Demonstrate how the technological artefacts are culturally constructed and flexible in their interpretation and design

2. Map the closure mechanisms that stabilize an artefact and make the problem disappear

3. Relate the content of an artefact to the wider socio-political milieu. Focus on the relevant values which give meaning to the artefacts

In this way then, SCOT provides us with a methodology for understanding how some technologies die and other survive.

Use the SCOT method to try to understand why the 737 MAX might “fail”. Keep in mind that the 737 is seen as the most successful commercial jet ever.

Identify the:

· Relevant social groups

· Cultural values

· Alternative formations

· Closure mechanisms

Actor-Network Theory (ANT), also less known as the sociology of translation, was developed by Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, and John Law in the 1980s (Sismondo, 2010). It’s a framework that attempts to understand science, technology, as effects if a network. It sees technoscience as the creation of increasingly larger and stronger networks. ANT is primarily an ontology of relational materialism. It presents facts, objects, and actors all as effects of a heterogeneous network, and in this way is constructionist. Though not in the same sense as SCOT.

Bruno Latour is one of the founders of the Actor-Network Theory and one of its most influential voices, both in the past and today. For this reason, we’ll pay special attention to his career and how ANT has developed and emerged as one of the most influential perspectives on science and technology.

To Latour, “technology is society made durable” (Latour, 1992). By durable he means stable networks. Notice, also, how he makes no strong distinction between technology and society

Even more influential that his formal education was probably his experience during his military service in the Ivory Coast in the early 1970s where he was affiliated with an organization which tried to stimulate economic growth in poor countries by educating locals in science and technology (Blok, 2011). During this time he worked with the highly successful anthropologist Marc Augé. The influence from this time is evident in Latour’s next, and highly successful project in the late 1970s. With formal training in anthropology from Augé, and the task of training western science and technology to those from a non-western culture, Latour was ready to use an anthropological methodology, and an outsider’s view, to study how science is actually done.

Latour’s findings from a 2-year anthropological study of a lab in California, can be found in the book Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (1979), which I see as a bit of an extension of Kuhn’s work. Though Kuhn used an historical approach and Latour used an anthropological one, they both seem to be asking the same question: “How do scientists actually do science?” According to Latour, “Prior to the ethnographic studies of laboratories, we had only the scientists’ own accounts of their work to rely on” (Blok, 2011). By listening to scientists' self-descriptions we only get a description of the ideal of science, not science as it actually exists. By conducting field studies, treating the laboratory and those workers within it as a tribe or a distinct culture, and making rigorous observations of their traditions (cultural practices), Latour could uncover how science as an activity actually works to output various forms of scientific or technical knowledge. What Latour uncovered during this 2-year study, forms much of the foundation for Actor-Network Theory. So, before digging into ANT we’ll spend some time discussing these laboratory findings, thus providing us with powerful explanations of ANT.

Latour noticed that all activity in the laboratory that he studied, was aimed at producing facts that would be canonized in a published scientific article. This article could now leave the laboratory and be used by many. It is an inscription which is a type of immutable mobile. All these people buzzing around the laboratory, interacting with one another, with the instruments, with papers, with chemicals, with animals, with fundamentally material objects, would end up as words and images on a few pieces of paper. A process Latour calls literary inscription. This process used inscription devices, instruments or apparati that transform material substances, like a chemical compound, into a sign, like a word, formula, or diagram.

The inscription devices, however, play a vital roll. “Specific to this laboratory is particular configurations of apparatus that we have called inscription devices. The central importance of this material arrangement is that none of the phenomena "about which" participants talk could exist without it. Without a bioassay, for example, a substance could not be said to exist” (Latour, 1979). The inscription devices, like the bioassays, actually bring the substance into existence.

Like Kuhn, Latour’s analysis of the scientific activity was controversial for the main reason that it seemed to imply that the natural sciences were nothing but social constructions that were no more reflective of reality than were random hunches or guesses. Facts were constructed through the interaction between human (scientists, technologists, typists, etc.) and non-human actors (chemicals, inscription devices, etc.).

“The artificial reality, which participants describe in terms of an objective entity, has in fact been constructed by the use of inscription devices… It follows that if our observer was to imagine the removal of certain items of equipment from the laboratory, this would entail the removal of at least one object of reality from discussion” (Latour, 1979). The inscription devices, which are non-human actors, are clearly playing a very large role in the lab. But who is the original mover in the construction of facts?

Originally, the book was called Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts, which would suggest that the human actors do the constructing first. Humans after all created the machines and inscription devices in the first place.

However, he later changes the title to Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Changing the title of your book is a pretty big deal and may represent a significant ideological shift. Maybe the social is not primarily responsible for shaping technology, nor is it the other way around.

In the book, Latour also noticed that scientists fixate on comparing 2 types of texts. The first is external. Data and scientific papers not produced in their lab. The second, are internal. Inscriptions they have produced in their lab like assays, diagrams, photos, sketches, and so on. By juxtaposing these types of documents they work at creating a new inscription or immutable mobile which they can export.

Latour then takes notice of and focuses on statements made in the texts and in conversation between the scientists. He places these statements on a scale of 1 to 5. Type 1 statements are vague speculations. Things we might hear between scientists when they are attempting to get ideas flowing to solve a new problem. Type 5 statements are forms of tacit knowledge, or things that all members of the lab accept to be true. They are no longer questioned. These statements are found in material form, in scientific articles or textbooks, and even in inscription devices. And this is important. Once statements have been upgraded to a type 5, and have been incorporated into an inscription device, it reproduces and stabilizes itself. It has now become naturalized. It’s as if it were a black box.

Latour notices that scientists in the lab do not simply sit there thinking and debating thoughts. They spend considerable time working with instruments, inscription devices, inscriptions, and other non-human physical objects like chemicals, test tubes, and more. All of these non-human physical objects come together to make the scientists scientists, they construct a person’s social role. However, the scientists in the lab, or the engineers at their desks, cooperate with the non-human physical objects and the human actors to construct other non-human physical objects, also known as technologies. Thus, through a negotiation between all of these actors, including the non-human ones, each with their own interests, facts are produced if and only if they all come to some sort of allied consensus. Already, nearly all of the essential components to form the Actor-Network theory are in place.

Moving away from Latour for a moment we take a look at John Law, one of the other founders of ANT. Law is and English sociologist but like most STS scholars, is highly interdisciplinary. He focuses more so on how translation works to form actors.

Law, like most ANT advocates, assumes “that the world is materially heterogeneous, a mix of the social, economic, material, human, 'natural', and technical” (“Professor John Law | OU people profiles,” n.d.). Because the processes are heterogeneous and thus highly complex, “we need rigorous ways of thinking and studying” them.

Law succinctly summarizes the core elements of ANT, “This, then, is the core of the actor-network approach: a concern with how actors and organizations mobilize, juxtapose, and hold together the bits and pieces out of which they are composed; how they are sometimes able to prevent those bits and pieces from following their own inclinations and making off; and how they manage, as a result, to conceal for a time the process of translation itself and so turn a network from a heterogeneous set of bits and pieces each with its own inclinations, into something that passes as a punctualized actor”. This last point is of particular interest, actors are merely concealed networks.

To understand how this works, let’s simply as the question, who is John Law? According to John Law, John Law is a sociologist but “If you took away my computer, my colleagues, my office, my books, my desk, my telephone I wouldn't be a sociologist writing papers, delivering lectures, and producing ‘knowledge’” (Law, 1992). According to John Law, John Law is “an effect generated by a network of heterogeneous, interacting, materials” (Law, 1992).

Yes, Law is a network presenting the illusion of a punctuated actor! This is why the theory is called Actor-Network. An actor IS a network and vice versa.

Question: During the COVID-19 pandemic, in what ways is the internet maintaining or changing the nature of some punctuated actors? For example, my partner is a yoga teacher and massage student, her inability to teach in person and attend massage school in person, is fundamentally altering her self-image, self-worth, and social role. However, she’s trying to host free live classes online.

Another important focus of Law’s is Power. According to Law: Power “is a (concealed or misrepresented) effect, rather than power as a set of causes” (Law, 1992). Power is the effect of translation and overcoming resistance of individual interests “to generate complex configurations of network durability, spatial mobility, systems of representation, and calculability--configurations which have the effect of generating the center/periphery asymmetries and hierarchies characteristic of most formal organizations” (Law, 1992).

If John Law is a network presenting the illusion of a punctuated actor, then other actors must be as well! This is includes nonhuman actors such as technologies. We can also think of these technologies, the successful ones, as black boxes. Things that conceal their complexities. “How are we to follow these moving objects that are transformed from hand to hand and which are made up by so many different actors, before ending up as a black box safely concealed beneath the bonnet of a car, activated at the turn of a key by a driver who does not have to know anything about Carnot’s thermodynamics?” (Latour, 1988). Generally speaking, black boxes are only really opened and deconstructed if they fail to act in the desired or anticipated way.

Black boxes take on human roles. The speed bump takes on the role of a police officer enforcing speeding laws. The automatic door takes on the role of a groom or doorman. In this way they have their own agency which has been imbued within them by countless other actors and networks.

“Science and technology produce black boxes, or facts and artifacts that are taken for granted; in particular, their histories are usually seen as irrelevant after good facts and successful artifacts are established. Once a fact or artifact has become black-boxed, it acquires an air of inevitability. It looks as though it is the best or only possible solution to its set of problems” (Sismondo, 2010).

The door is a perfect example of a black box, it appears to be a simple natural technology without much political or moral baggage. Latour says that a door with hinges “although common enough has always struck me as a miracle of technology” - taken for granted - and when using it “I do not have to do this work nor even think about it; it was delegated by the carpenter to a character, the hinge, which I will call a nonhuman” - the actors (Latour, 1992). The designer decides how to control the other actors. “This is where the age-old Mumfordian choice is offered to you: either to discipline the people or to substitute for the unreliable people another delegated human character whose only function is to open and close the door” (Latour, 1992).

ANT has a lot to say about COVID-19 and its effects globally. Since COVID itself an actor, a non-human actor, it has its own agency and influence on other actors. Question: Which black boxes, technologies or systems, is the public now unboxing as COVID-19 acts to destabilize them?

While COVID-19 was not designed by human actor or network, it is indeed putting pressure on technologies that have indeed been designed by human actors with the intent of altering human behavior. This is where we come to our final concept in ANT, prescription. Latour calls “after Madeleine Akrich’s paper (Akrich, 1992), the behavior imposed back onto the human by nonhuman delegates prescription. Prescription is the moral and ethical dimension of mechanisms… We have been able to delegate to nonhumans not only force as we have known it for centuries but also values, duties, and ethics” (Latour, 1992).

Madeleine Akrich is the Director of the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation at MINES ParisTech. She focuses on the sociology of technology with a specific interest in users and representations of targeted users. Basically, she is asking how technologies are designed to influence users and how that influence actually manifests.

Here’s where her concept of the projected user and the real user come into play. “If we are interested in technical objects,” she says “we must go back and forth between the designer’s projected user and the real user, between the world inscribed in the object and the world described by its displacement” (Akrich, 1992).

STS is concerned with actors or groups, but each tradition within delineate groups and actors with slightly different criteria. Kuhn, for example identifies groups based on discipline and age. The young scientists have less commitment to their discipline’s paradigm and are quicker to enact a scientific revolution. Bijker, however, is interested in identifying the relevant social groups that can only be described contextually based on the dominant social values. Latour and Laws are cautious to delineate at all but note that actors can be categorized as either human or non-human. Finally, Akrich is interested more so in the differences between producers and user which are mediated by technical objects. Within those groups, there are politicians, advertisers, engineers, and more, and most importantly, there are actual users and projected user.

For Akrich, interaction between groups is mediated by technical objects. It’s through this interaction that technical objects and systems become stabilized. “It is only when the script set out by the designer is acted out… that an integrated network of technical objects and actors is stabilized” (Akrich, 1992).

STS is concerned with how technologies succeed or fail, but each tradition within uses different criteria for measuring how technologies stabilize. For Bijker, whether or not a technology stabilized depends on the social value context. Latour and Law see the stabilization of a technology as an effect of human and non-human actors interacting, translating their interests, and becoming actants, until stable agreement is established. But for Akrich, the user must act out the script, only then will this new network stabilize, reinforce itself, and become naturalized. Though the producer prescribes to the projected user a script, a framework embedded within the technical object which dictates the way the actors and environment should interact, the way in which the actual user subscribes to the object’s script can be variable.

This leads us to the final question: From an ANT perspective, how much autonomy does a user have in dictating how their telecommunication devices shape them and their environment? For example, with governments and businesses forcing those who can work from home to do so, how are their computers and conference calls reshaping the physical layout of their home and their domestic social roles and relationships?

Dana

Slide 52

To start, I want to provide a brief summary of Freenberg’s core ideas in Critical Theory of Technology and his Critical Constructivism. In the presentation, we will go through the nuts and bolts, however, I want to provide this overview so we start strong on the same page.

Critical constructivism draws from both the Frankfurt School and Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) which Jason spoke to earlier. In essence, Freenberg’s theories which we are studying this week look at how people understand and use technology, but how this technology has undergone negotiations in its design and release to manipulate people; the manipulators being the elites. Freenberg does advocate for more equitable uses of technology that is not made to fit capitalism and efficiency, but instead to suit the needs of the masses. I will get to this all in more detail throughout this portion of the presentation.

Slide 53

To start our understanding of critical constructivism, an introduction to Andrew Freenberg as the key theorist in this area. Andrew Freenberg is a Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. He completed both his MA and PhD in Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego shere his supervisor was Herbert Marcuse. His work focuses on critical theory of technology, Marcuse and Heidegger, technology studies, online community, and online education (Simon Fraser University, n.d.). He is also a Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology (About Andrew Freenberg, 2019 March 1). In his work, Andrew Freenberg explores critically the social context of technology.

Slide 54

In doing this, he provides a definition of critical constructivism as being derived from the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory and this intersection with the field of science and technology studies (STS). As he defines immediately in his book chapter, “Critical constructivism is concerned with the threat to human agency posed by the technosystem.” (Freenberg, 2017, p. 38). This grows from social constructivism work with its focus on: (1) actors; (2) underdetermination; (3) interpretive flexibility; and (4) closure. Where critical constructivism builds on these tenets of social constructivism is in the areas of: (5) program; (6) delegation; and (7) co-production which has its roots in actor-network theory. In sum, critical constructivism works to understand how actors move through networked areas and the negotiations and delegations in these areas which the actors are in contact or conversation with.

Slide 55

As mentioned, critical constructivism’s roots are in the Frankfurt School. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Frankfurt School was started by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno (Storey, 2015). Originally started in Germany, once Adolf Hitler came to power, the founding members fled to the United States where they opened their school of thought at Columbia University in New York City. In the United States, their work was concerned with how mass audience manipulation operated in Americans’ lives, which they had seen mirrored in Nazi Germany, thereby resulting in the Nazi Party securing power and leading to the atrocities of the Second World War. Through this observation, they critiqued mass culture and argued for more authentic culture to persist, thereby challenging citizens to be more critical in their media consumption (Adorno, 1975). A key idea from the early Frankfurt School which has carried over to critical analysis of technology are issues of power, privilege, exploitation, and mass manipulation.

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Science and technology studies, where critical constructivism also draws from, explores how society, politics, and culture affect the development of science and technological innovation. As well, STS also look at how technologies emerge through processes of interaction and negotiation among relevant social groups which then result in different interpretations of the technology. This interpretation then affect the way a given technology is understood by members of society in how the technology is designed and then introduced to the broader public.

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With origins beginning with Marcuse’s book One Dimensional Man (1964), he identified that American society (however, we can see this with most Global North societies), was shaped by capitalist forces which were exhibited through technological rationality, in that the societal system as a whole operated on the basis of manipulation/domination of the masses through perpetuating the common sense belief that society must be more efficient, and this could be done with technology. (Marcuse and Kellner, 1998). In this intersection of science and technology studies with the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory, we see critical constructivism’s concern about mass manipulation and domination and advocate to make technology more equitable for everyone (as per the Frankfurt School aspect). In addition, how various social actors are interacting with science and technology and what those actors’ effect is on the technosystem as a whole through this continuously shaping relationship between society and technological developments. Critical constructivism is key in identifying the concept of domination in how it relates to the mass use of technologies in society and what that domination may mean for political disruption (i.e., broadcasting technology had led to the Nazi Party’s ability to control the masses, what could new technologies like the smartphone mean for the manipulation of the masses and domination over those masses).

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It is here that I would like to open the first discussion question on critical constructivism being, In our course, we have studied both critical thought and political economy. Both of these theoretical ‘camps’ shape critical constructivism. Please identify how critical constructivism can be applied to communication and media research as it relates to communication technologies research. How are they designed and socially shaped to help expand capitalism and more pervasive control of how people think and act?

Thank you for your participation to this question. I will now be continuing the presentation with critical constructivism and how it relates to modernity, rationality, and hegemony.

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As I have identified the historical rooting of Critical Theory as a field, to fully grasp critical constructivism, STS also must be traced. Prior to STS, the study of technology and how it related to society was done through Marxism, pragmatism, phenomenology, and modernism (Freenberg, 2017). As we have already had presentations in our course on Marxism and phenomenology, I will instead focus on modernism and pragmatism. With modernism, there are two key aspects we must understand: (1) modernity is not synonymous with contemporary; and (2) modernism is not a linear progression through time, but is instead a way of thinking and synthesizing knowledge and information.

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To the first point about modernity not being synonymous with contemporary, we can think of this in the following example. Say you have purchased a new Audi vehicle. It has rounded features, LED lights, and vegan leather seats. It is identified by marketers, bloggers, and advertisements as being the car of the modern person of the decade. Now, say your colleague is driving a 2010 Honda Civic as their vehicle. It is still a vehicle and does the job of driving them from one point to another, it may even be incredibly fuel-efficient, a key selling point when the vehicle was manufactured a decade ago. Culturally, the new Audi may be identified as being ‘modern’ in comparison to the Honda, however, the act of being able to drive and having this technological and societal infrastructural advantage is modern in and of itself. Here, we can see that both vehicles would be modern, but one may be more contemporary. Modern, therefore, is not a linear progression of a consumable good, but instead a way of knowing one’s surroundings and processing knowledge.

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Modernism had originally begun during the Age of Enlightenment where artists began to have their artistic expressions as a means of showcasing the world as it were while also trying to strive to show the potential for a better image of the world. This had been revolutionary as the original Western artists prior had the goal of their work to be an expression of God and saw their work in service to God opposed to trying to work towards an expression of how society could be (Nicholas, 2018). So how does this relate to STS?

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Prior to STS as a field of inquiry, modernity theorists had worked to understand how people were being hurt through technological advancements in society. This could be seen with the work of theorists like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As identified with tracing artists and their changing form and practice during the Age of Enlightenment, modernism is a response to authors’ and artists’ discomfort with societal structures and working towards a society which better reflects the hopes and achievements of the masses opposed to the few, or to a God. When Marx and Engels were writing on communism and critiquing Industrialization in England (Marx & Engels, 2009; Engels, 2009), their writing was one of a modernist stance.

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Based on this historical positioning of modernity, how do you understand modernity? What does it mean and entail?

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Thank you. With Marx and Engels’s critique of the Industrial Revolution and workers’ rights during this time of automation and mass production, this critique of technology and machinery on the livelihoods of society begins a framing of STS. This concern developed from the start of technocratic ideology. Technocratic ideology is the ideology of society being controlled by an elite group of technical experts, thereby creating a world which benefits these elites most (Freenberg, 2017). In a technocratic ideological society, there is a belief that a decision should be followed if it is proven to be rational. This again follows to Marcuse’s writings on technological rationality in that if a technology proves to perform in rational functions, then society is expected to follow the technology’s process. This stemmed from Marx’s critique of market rationality which was the extreme issues of letting the markets decide without government or state intervention. In these technical rational societies, the goal of the society is to achieve efficiency. This intense desire to reach efficiency then leads to a level of domination in society by imposing a hegemonic value system as Gramsci has argued. As well, no one may critique a system if it proved to be efficient in these technocratic rational societies, instead it is ‘common sense’ that they work. In addition, with this technical rationality, the usage of the technical systems is made as simple as possible in order to allow for more complex societal systems to grow from this simplification. This system is in coordination with marketers and administrators. (E.g., Instagram’s easy to use layout but complex algorithms, influencer marketing, community building with fads.)

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Thank you for your thoughts on this topic. One interesting example of technical struggle being social struggle from the 20^thCentury is the story of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. Can I see a hands-up if you know the story? <<Count to five>> For those of you who do not know, Robert Moses was an urban planner in New York City in the 1950s. He was widely celebrated at the time as being a visionary planner while alive, however, had left a taint on his reputation in the history books. Following the Second World War, countries around the world were incredibly concerned with falling into another Great Depression. To counteract this, mass consumption was advertised through the new media of the time – television – and through infrastructural design of the suburbs and leisurely spaces available only to get to via highways, thereby requiring a vehicle to travel to. In Robert Moses’s New York City, he was responsible for creating a new highway underpass. To make this underpass, he was going to wipe out an entire inner-city neighborhood as well, his plan for this underpass was not just laced with racism and classism. Through his technological design of the underpass, he was making it just short enough that it would not allow for public transport buses to move through it. What his goal, which was contested but common sense shows us, was to be racist towards Black New Yorkers and prevent them, who predominately used public transportation because of racial inequality. By not allowing public transport through this specific underpass, it meant that these Black New Yorkers would be prevented to going to a newly developed beach as one of these leisure spaces which were being developed following the Second World War (Larson, 2009). What this showed from a critical constructivism and STS perspective is the politics and social inequalities wrapped in technologies. The underpass as a technology had limited social inequality, thereby showing how technical struggle is synonymous with social struggle. This is further explored by Langdon Winner who states, “The things we call “technologies” are ways of building order in our world.” (1980, p. 127).

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I will pause here for a second discussion question; however, I want to frame it. In my graduate research, I study internet protocols and how they are coded along various websites, thereby affecting the amount of data a website consumes. You have all heard this before other than Jason and Shena as I presented this for our methods course last semester. My research looks at two internet protocols being TCP/IP and UDP/IP. UDP/IP is one which has popped up because it allows streaming services to be more efficient along physical telecommunications networks. It, however, ends up hurting internet users more than the prior standard of TCP/IP, as it can lead to cybersecurity risks, higher data charges, and less stable streams of content when websites are coded in this format. This format of code has not been regulated because it is determined by telecommunications companies as being more efficient along their networks. I will not get into the technical aspects here, but in essence, my research follows this exact positionality of an elite group, being the telecommunications companies, rationalizing that a certain technology should not be regulated because this new technology, being UDP/IP is more efficient. My research is technologically focused; however, I am curious if others on the Zoom call find this basis of power levels of elites, technological disruptions in the market, and efficiency has worked by elites to steer technological developments in the case of other communication technologies. As well, does this critical STS perspective help inform anyone else’s research?

Thank you for your responses. I think it is very beneficial to look at your own work and think of it in different theoretical frames to help everyone as researchers critically determine which theory is the best foundation for your research, which we will all be working on in social distancing.

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Up to this point, we have reviewed the Frankfurt School, STS and its modernist foundation, and how critical constructivism stems from both of these areas. I want to take a moment to offer clarity on any of this so far to the class to type your questions into the chat now if you have any. I will take 30 seconds to allow time to type these responses and/or questions.

<<Answer the questions as they begin to be typed in.>>

Slide 68

Now to continue on with finishing up critical constructivism before moving onto instrumentalization theory. Before we took a pause for a discussion and clarifying questions on critical constructivism, I was talking about how power is enacted through technical systems by the technical ideology and technological rationality which persists. Freenberg (2017) also discusses how, from a social constructivist and actor-network theory perspective, the technologies we have in society are designed in such a way with these designs undergoing negotiations for what the final output is. In such, think about your computer’s keyboard and mouse. In terms of design, these technologies have not changed a great deal over the past 60 years for a personal computer. Negotiations in the design of this technology in other spheres, however, have changed. Take for instance, the debit/credit card pin pad. Its design purpose is to quickly allow for the user to input their payment card, their security code, and agree to a transactional contract. Another instance, the video gamer’s keyboard. It is designed in such a way that the gamer is able to relax in a chair, both arms laying on rests, and only move their fingers to perform various digital game functions. Lastly, consider the new $1300 AbleNet TrackerPro 2 Hands-Free Mouse which has the performing functions of a computer guided through looking at various spots on a screen and making gestures to the sensitive camera for certain tasks to be completed in your operating system. In the first example, the pin pad, it is made as simplistic as possible with red, yellow, and green colours, only 10 numbers apparent in a sequential format (unlike the QWERTY keyboard), and only states a price to pay. Here, it serves the capitalist desire of efficiently checking someone out through a transaction with the transactional contract being a question of ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ opposed to a larger term of agreement of the transaction upon signing/inputting your pin. In the second example, the video gamer’s keyboard, it is made to be incorporated into a lazy chair, thereby encouraging the gamer to be sitting/half laying down and only consuming the videogame. It is specifically designed to encourage the purchase of other goods to keep people in a half-asleep position in a game which may ask for payments or is collecting user data to sell. Lastly, the camera mouse/keyboard replaces the functions of any additional work which must be done by a computer user. With its hefty price tag, it is only available to elites to allow them to save both time and potentially health risks from carpal tunnel syndrome from typing too much. This benefits those who are already in power. In these three examples, negotiations of how technology would be designed has been decided based on the economic needs of ensuring the user of a particular position in society would perform a task as swiftly as possible for their given circumstance (the transaction, the gamer playing games, and the elite performing routine computer tasks). This political economy approach to understanding technology is key in STS and critical constructivism as design is a form of political and economic negotiations between designers and engineers (Sandvig, 2015).

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As with all consumable items, they are not available to everyone. What this demonstrates is that technology does not move in a linear progression, but instead sporadically with different technological affordances being available to different groups at different times. As Freenberg (2017) describes, “Pinch and Bijker propose a “symmetrical” treatment of the two main designs that take account of their contemporary social meaning rather than viewing them in an imaginary chronology.” (p. 45). As Pinch and Bijker then propose that we should be viewing technology as a means of their social context instead of their progression, as the social contexts will be the ones which move forward, and not the technologies, as technologies become a reflection of the negotiations of a groups who have power in a society.

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It should be noted, however, that from a critical perspective the prevailing design would meet the needs and serve the interests of the dominating society/group in this context. With this reflection of technology being the dominating group in a society, or the dominating society in a global context (e.g., the personal computer keyboard reflects the communicative needs of anglophones specifically), this then raises the key argument of STS and critical constructivism which is, “social struggle is technical struggle.” (Freenberg, 2017). The two are hand-in-hand as technologies which are used in people’s economic, educational, social, cultural, and political lives are more prevalent, this struggle results in various social groups trying to redefine and remodel technologies to their needs. This is also referred to as the social shaping of technology (MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1999). Social shaping of technology is the process whereby technology will shape a society, but society also shapes technology as its usage increases. Mackenzie and Wajcman (1999) detail the process of social shaping of technology and identify that inventions will occur no matter what, however, a society must be ‘just right’ for an invention to actually gain use. For example, Google Glasses have been a failed product. This is likely because our society was not ‘just right’ to desire this type of technology. Technology therefore does not determine society, but instead people’s rate of accepting the technology can change society to an extent (MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1999). With regards back to “social struggle is technical struggle,” take for example, the International Telecommunications Union’s (2018) Measuring the Information Society Report: Volume 1. The following graph identifies the rates in which jobs are undergoing technological digitization. As we know from our experience right now, our jobs as students have changed drastically in terms of digitization. Had any of us not had a computer, smartphone, or tablet to use, we would not be able to complete our educations this semester on Zoom. Even posting to D2L discussions each week would be a technical struggle which would limit us if we did not have technical this access which we are afforded to by living in an urban centre. This is why the argument of social struggle and technical struggles being synonymous with one another persist.

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This then leads me to my next discussion question which is, In how you believe your digital capabilities and abilities hold, how do you identify with ‘social struggle is technical struggle’ as an argument?

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These have been the primary points of critical constructivism as it pertains to STS. From here, I will not be moving onto Freenberg’s second piece, which is Critical Theory or Technology and Instrumentalization Theory. Before I do so, however, does anyone have any lasting questions or points they would like to make? <<Count to five, or until someone chooses to speak>>.

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To start discussing Critical Theory of Technology, I love this quote that Freenberg (n.d.) has, “We call an action “technical” when the impact of the object is out of all proportion to the return feedback affecting the actor.” (p. 1). What I like about this quote is how our language will define something as technical if the output of an operation does not match the input. It reminds me a lot about McLuhan’s technology being the extension of man argument in that a technology can surpass us, as actors, to enable us to do far more. That is definitely a technologically deterministic claim, however, I do have a deep appreciation for the capabilities that technology has given us, especially now with teleworking each day and having social gatherings with my friends on video chats as a replacement to in-person.

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In his backgrounder, Freenberg (n.d.) continues his argument that technology and technological infrastructure in history is laced in divisions in class. In this, there is a ruler and ruled, echoing Innisian theory on empires with centralized and decentralized empires/networks (Innis, 2007; Innis, 2012). Similarly, in this viewpoint of understanding various layers and histories of technologies, is Friedrich Kittler argument of hardware, software, and wetware, in which hardware is only an intermediary for software to function within it and wetware to function alongside it (wetware being humans) (Winthrop-Young, 2010). Freenberg (n.d.) also notes that the extensive use of various technological design is latent with domination and suppression in society, as well environmental degradation.

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This multi-layered, or multi-perspective approach to studying technology is the bedrock of Instrumentalization Theory. Instrumentalization Theory states that technology must be analyzed through the, (1) Level of original functional relation; and (2) Level of design and implementation. At this first level, this is where we see the basic affordances of technology’s use. These are also described by Bucher and Helmond (2017) as being low-level affordances, which Rachel and Sam would be quite comfortable about the topic as we TA on it in the undergraduate New Media course. In this first level with these base-line affordances, technological systems are stripped to their most basic understandings – their capabilities to perform a specific task. An example of this would be the affordance of the keyboard on your computer allowing you to press buttons which then deposit words in a word processing software. Here we are not worried about the words you are writing, the sentences you are phrasing, or the jokes you are telling. Instead, we are focused on the ability to even type a word.

In the level of design and implementation, this is where we take a Heidegger definition of disclosing and revealing. In this, we integrate already existing technological designs into the devices and systems which are already existing and functioning. This secondary level then incorporates the design which simplifies the object into the natural and social world, thereby granting it physical materiality. Through this simplification of the technology/device from the newly introduced design, it allows for societies to become more complex around it. An example of this can be the layout of your smartphone. The tiles make it simple to access various app platforms simply, however, the process of completing these functions is incredibly complex and required decades of innovation and finding uncovered technologies to mold together to make this one piece of technology functional for the user. In this design, however, it should be noted that not all technology is designed in a way to control the masses as I had identified in critical constructivism. It is here that we must note, people do have agency in their technology use. When a technology is released, it was designed in a way that does reflect people and how people could and would use the technology to meet their everyday needs. Although technology absolutely also shapes our society, we also shape it. This is known as social shaping of technology (Williams & Edge, 1996).

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This idea of social shaping of technology also relates to Freenberg’s concept of ‘technical code.’ A technical code is

the realization of an interest in a technically coherent solution or problem. Where such codes are reinforced by individuals’ perceived self-interest and law, their political import usually passes unnoticed. This is what it means to call a certain way of life culturally secured and a corresponding power hegemonic. (pp. 4-5).

Where the technical code then finds fruition is through operational autonomy.

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Operational autonomy is the ability of the owner of the means of production to decide on what types of business their organization carries out, without regard to how it may impact the broader community or people, animals, and natural resources in society and/or the world. This is able to persist because of unqualified control over the labour force. It is the power to make decisions about technologies in their design and implementation. An example of operational autonomy would be company executives and/or investors, in general, highly positioned technical and business experts.

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With all of this, I want to make it clear a final point, a key interest in critical constructivism is that there is a way out of the previously mentioned total domination which is created to serve the interest of the powerful. Freenberg’s position is that users of technology can resist and struggle to have technologies be reshaped to serve broader, equitable, and democratic needs and values. An example of this can be how Albertans have reacted in the past few days to Telus’ Babylon app. In essence, this app is a first attempt to begin privatizing healthcare in Alberta through people not seeing a physical doctor (which can be helpful to actually go in for regular check-ups), as well the app has major privacy concerns and has not passed a privacy test yet. Albertans have been working over the past weekend to mass down-star this app and give it negative reviews, thereby potentially having Apple remove the app from its App Store due to such animosity in its release. As we can see here, citizens are fighting to ensure technology is used in an equitable way opposed to taking away their democratic right to public healthcare.

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In addition, for having more democratic technology, government policies can help lessen these divisions in technological aspects. In order to give people more agency with their technology, there are two opportunities: (1) open source software; and (2) the right to repair. Open source software, and open access as a whole allows for coders and developers to make modifications to existing platforms, thereby giving more agency to the person to help them build technology as an aid to solving a community’s needs. This was the practice of technology up until Bill Gates worked to privatize technology for profit in the 1990s with Microsoft. The second, right to repair, allows for people to repair their technology, as well make hardware changes to better suit their needs. These laws are more environmental and are being productively debated in the European Union.

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My last discussion question, which will be the way we finish this portion of the week is, Based on the hope of being able to control technology to an extent and work in the confides of it, how could this hope help those who would be the beneficiaries of your graduate research with regards to media technology and media distribution along these technology platforms?