Report R3.5 Doing Research: Discovering Reality or Constructing Knowledge? An Introduction to the Social Studies of Science and Technology Seminar Leader: Wiebe E. Bijker, Faculty of Arts and Culture, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands W.Bijker[at]TSS.unimaas.nl Science, technology and society (STS) studies was born as a movement in the 1970s. It gained prominence in the academic world during the next decade when it was applied to studies of policy issues, innovation management, and different forms of democracy. In the 1980s, it established itself as a discipline which was characterised by the introduction of new courses in the university, increase in number of publications, appointment of faculties, and so on. The movement was strong in the UK, USA, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries. It generated concerns regarding the social responsibility of scientists, risks involving nuclear energy and nuclear arms, and environmental pollution. The seminar leader attempted to project the evolution of STS as two interwoven processes: # From politics into academia # Into the technological culture Although it grew out of the political interests against nuclear proliferation and in favour of social responsibility of science and technology, STS got nourishment in the academia. It did gather institutional success, but its failure in the world outside led to the frustration of its propagators. The seminar leader was of the opinion that in the present context STS is finding its way back into politics. Discussing STS as a field of research, the seminar leader stated that there could be two orientations--one ordered by problems such as environmental problems, disarmament, globalisation, and so on, and the other ordered by perspectives such as impact focus, sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) focus and various theory specific focuses. These could be compared to defining research in terms of practical domains (problem specific) or in terms of concepts (approach or theory specific). Drawing from STS, SSK and history of technology, there emerged a new approach to studying science and technology called social construction of technology (SCOT). In this approach the properties of scientific artefacts are studied as socially constructed rather than as intrinsic properties. During the 1970s the readings on the subject were scattered and the sociology of technology nonexistent. With the emergence of academic interests in the subject, the focus changed from the study of impact of technology on society to the study of development of technology itself. Initially the unit of analysis was the technological artefact. With the co-evolution of social and technical studies, the socio-technical ensemble and the technological culture have become the new units of analysis. The SCOT approach studies technology in society as a self-sustaining process involving many social groups. Interpretive flexibility is its core concept, which means freedom of interpretation of artefacts. It seeks to uncover the dynamics of and the values inherent in the artefacts. For example, different social groups looked at the bicycle as an artefact in the 1870s in different ways. The relevant social groups were bicycle producers, ordinary users, women users, and anti-cyclists. This gives the researcher a scope to demonstrate interpretive flexibility. Women viewed it as an unsafe machine, which entangled their skirts and led to frequent falls. Men considered it to be a machine which gave them a macho image and the power to impress women. Such interpretive flexibility diminishes over a period of time as some interpretations of the artefacts gain importance over the others and over a period of time one interpretation emerges from the whole process of social construction. The stabilisation of interpretations slowly brings in the closure of the concept. By closure, the seminar leader referred to the end point of a discordant process in which several interpretations (of the artefact) were competing for prominence. In order to facilitate a better understanding of the process of closure in SCOT, the concept of “technological frame” was introduced. A technological frame structures the interaction between the members of a social group and conditions their thoughts and actions. It is built up along with the interactions around the artefacts where the current practices lead to future practices. There was some discussion on the difference between the concept of technological frame and Kuhn’s idea of paradigm. One key difference is that paradigm considered scientific communities, while technological frame considered all socially relevant groups. It could be noted that in Kuhn’s idea of paradigm, one paradigm has no links with another paradigm. But, technological frames are overlapping considering the fact that one or more individuals can be part of multiple social groups and hence multiple technological frames. The proponents of the SCOT approach criticise technological determinism (TD). TD emphasises the following: # Technology develops autonomously # Technology determines the development of society This is a linear and one-dimensional approach to study technology in society. It suggests the non-existence of social and political interventions in the development of technology, which is unacceptable in SCOT. In SCOT, the evolution of technology and society happen together and the process of construction is continuous. Economics has also played a role in the evolution of science and technology. Neoclassical economics considered technology to be naïve, neutral, and exogenous. With the advent of innovation studies, evolutionary economics classified technology as endogenous and recognised the paradigms associated with it. SCOT identifies the potential of economic prosperity associated with a technology as an important issue in the interpretive contestation among various social groups. There is an obligation for technological culture to address the issues of development, vulnerability, and democracy. It needs to address the problems of poverty, health, and safety. Innovation and flexibility being embedded in technology, it needs to be used carefully lest it might turnout catastrophic for both human and society. The seminar leader proposed democracy as the only sustainable way to address these problems. The statement is open to debate owing to the fact that democracy is a complex phenomenon, which has several meanings. The seminar leader stated that he found himself in a strange situation. He led the SCOT movement and had been criticising TD and the scientists and engineers involved in it. Currently he has been involved in pleading for a new recognition of the key roles of science and technology in education, management, politics, and society. The seminar leader briefly discussed issues relating to doctoral education and highlighted the points where a student needs to exercise his/her judgement or caution. He stressed the need for doctoral students to have conceptual clarity. Concepts, per se, are influenced by or could influence other concepts, empirical methods, and choice of unit of analysis. In order to gain conceptual clarity, the student must attempt to analyse the meaning of concepts by reviewing various texts. He urged doctoral students to make conscious choices regarding the following: # What is the research question? # What is the unit of analysis? # Are the issues revolving between micro/meso/macro levels? # Is the topic interdisciplinary? # Have I attained the required level of technical expertise? # Where is the focus, on change or on stability? # Is the choice of subject biased? # Is empirical research properly guided by conceptual framework? # Is the choice of theory justified? # Has the dissertation been properly structured? Doctoral students need to realise the importance of conscious choices involved in doing research and own the responsibility for the choices they make. Reference Bijker, W. E. (2001). Social construction of technology. In N. J. Smelser, & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 15522-15527). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science.
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