Theories of the Social Construction of Technology - Essay Example

?How can theories of the social construction of technology (SCOT) help inform the innovation processes by which novel technologies are produced? Introduction The demands of the social must be met with generation of new technologies. New social realities which could overcome the limits of the present society must be created through innovation in technology. One has to always bear in mind that “the engineering and the sociology are inseparable. Neither the technical vision nor the social vision will come as mutually exclusive” (Sismondo, 2010, p. 81). Social reality and technological reality are not isolated from each other. And, dialectically speaking advancements in one become the development of the other. It could happen in the other way around too; regressive societies could not only hinder technological reconstruction but also gave birth to regressive technologies as happened in Fascist Germany. The paper intends to analyze the complex paradigm in which social construction of technology and innovation and creativity in technological development go hand in hand. Social Construction of Technology, Innovation and Smart Technology Social reality must be identified as inherently pluralist. Berger and Luckmann note that “pluralism encourages both skepticism and innovation and is thus inherently subversive of the taken-for-granted reality of the traditional status quo. One can readily sympathize with the experts in the traditional definitions of reality when they think back nostalgically to the times when these definitions had a monopoly” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 115). Social construction of technology changes according to the nature of the prevailing paradigms of knowledge production. According to Thomas Kuhn, scientific development is no miraculous leaps by great scientists because “a new theory, however special its range of application, is seldom or never just an increment to what is already known. Its assimilation requires the reconstruction of prior theory and the re-evaluation of prior fact, an intrinsically revolutionary process that is seldom completed by a single man and never overnight” (1996, p.7). Certainly, many great technological interventions are known with name of individual scientists. However, every scientists work within a paradigm which is collectively constructed. Therefore, it is possible to argue that technologies are socially constructed. For instance, computer logarithms are the product of late capitalism but it would not have been possible without the ancient Indian invention of zero. Here, it is important to remember that science is not supreme or infallible. Science and technology are necessarily social constructs and social products. Moreover, “science emerges as very human and – by necessity – constrained enterprise, even if its findings are subsequently presented as canonical” (Irwin, 1995, p.49). The terminology and language related to the technological discourses are crucial for understanding the social construction of technology. Therefore, Berger and Luckmann argue that “the common objectivations of everyday life are maintained primarily by linguistic signification. Everyday life is, above all, life with and by means of the language I share with my fellowmen. An understanding of language is thus essential for any understanding of the reality of everyday life” (1966, p.37). Language plays a major role in the social construction of technology as technology is a cultural product too. And, technology, on the other hand, changes language. For instance, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have caused a metamorphosis in the way people use English language. Social construction of technology challenges the monopolistic claims by science and scientific community on the production of technologies. Non-deterministic “accounts of artifacts and technologies show that scientific knowledge plays little direct role in the development of even many state of the art technologies. Historians and other theorists have argued that there are technological knowledge traditions that are independent of science, and that to understand the artifacts one needs to understand them” (Sismondo, 2010, p. 93). Still, many people have the misconception that technological development is solely a matter of advancements in science. Even religious reforms such as the Protestant reformation in the Europe were instrumental in the great awakening which was materialized as Enlightenment. Without the Enlightenment, it would have been nearly impossible to imagine a Europe which is scientifically advanced and technologically sophisticated. Technology is not only reified but also it reifies human beings from other human beings, nature, society and from himself/herself. Technology creates and recreates the world as ‘objective’ and therefore alienated. It is possible to argue that “as soon as an objective social world is established, the possibility of reification is never far away. The objectivity of the social world means that it confronts man as something outside of himself. The decisive question is whether he still retains the awareness that, however, objectivated, the social world was made by men—and, therefore, can be remade by them” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p.36). However, it is important to remember that human beings make technology. But, in turn, technology cannot make human beings. Moreover, what is important is to retain and reclaim the organic ties between humans as producers and human as consumers of their own products. The consciousness of human beings as the authors of technology and human world must always be upheld. To inject innovation in the field of technological production, it is necessary to make it free from unscientific practices within. The division between masculine knowledge and feminine knowledge must be blurred along with the supposed superiority of the masculine knowledge. The larger processes of masculinization of technology as an oppressive tool and the feminization of technology as a hegemonizing tool must be resisted. Moreover, there needs to be an urgent call for the humanization of all technologies. Humanization of technology must involve bringing all technology under human control, being fully conscious of technology and its effects on the human world. In brief, technologies must be for the human beings, not the other way around. Sismondo puts it eloquently, “the masculine and feminine are not men’s knowledge and women’s knowledge respectively. Instead there is a relationship between gender and scientific knowledge. For example, the scientist/nature relation may be coded as male/female one, and a stereotypical key to the relation between the scientist and nature is domination; this can be seen in uses of metaphors of domination and control, rape and marriage, where (male) scientists dominate, control, rape, or marry a (female) nature” ( 2010, p. 77). Without going beyond the archaic relations in society, we cannot encourage free development of the technology. Conclusion It is important to realize that “technologists need scientific and technical knowledge, but they also need material, financial, social, and rhetorical resources. Even ideology can be an input, in the sense that it might shape decisions and the conditions of success and failure” (Sismondo, 2010, p. 93). Scientific advancement presupposes the existence of an advanced culture which could infinitely encourage free criticism, open debates and democratic public spaces. Moreover, human beings are not only motivated by their intellect to pursue scientific knowledge but also by their emotions. It is the human desire to be creative and innovative in order to go beyond the existing which leads them to the social construction of technologies. What is needed for the social construction of novel technologies is nothing but a culture that could be maximum accommodative to innovation and creativity. References Berger, P and Luckmann, T 1966, The social construction of reality. New York, Anchor Books.  Irwin, A 1995, Citizen science: A study of people, expertise and sustainable development. London, Routledge.  Kuhn, T 1996, The structure of scientific revolutions, 3rd ed., Chicago, University of Chicago Press.  Sismondo, S 2010, An introduction to science and technology studies, 2nd Ed., Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell.  Read More