[CITASA] Will the real sociology of technologies stand up?

[Ron Anderson]

Andrea,
You have raised some very interesting and useful 
questions that deserve an answer, but keep in 
mind that the historical context will shape the 
answer, perhaps more than anything. For a 
historical perspective from the point of view of 
the CITASA community you should re-read the 
articles in the Summer 2006 issue of the SOCIAL 
SCIENCE COMPUTER REVIEW, pages 139-171, 
"Symposium on the history of CITASA." They show 
how drastically the technology, as well as the 
sociology of technology, changed in less than 20 
years. In 10 to 20 years from now, the 
technology, as well as the sociology of 
technology, will be dramatically different, 
perhaps something like Gibson's Neuromancer. But 
in the present age of the Internet, i think no 
one has done a better job at showing us what the 
sociology of technology is than Manuel Castells 
in his many books. If you can find a good 
condensation of one of more of his books, it 
might provide you with something close to 
defining the essential elements of the "field."
Defining the skills is a different and more 
difficult task. I have followed the social 
movement to define "21st century skills" and some 
of it has a very relevant emphasis upon critical 
thinking about the technology itself, although 
most of the literature is oriented toward 
changing K-12 learning. I think you will find 
some useful ideas from the point of view of 
computer scientists in a 10 year old report from 
the National Academy Press, Being Fluent with Information Technology:
http://www.amazon.com/Fluent-Information-Technology-Committee-Literacy/dp/030906399X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1233599513&sr=1-3
in the section on being analytical about the 
complexity of technology and its impact. It's not 
much, but it is more than you'll find in the 
sociological literature in terms of analytical skills.
All the best,
Ron


At 11:28 AM 2/2/2009, Andrea Tapia wrote:
>Hello CITASA folks.
>
>As many of you know, I work in an I-school (Information school) and am the
>only sociologist on the faculty.
>
>Recently I have been asked to define the "sociology of technology/ies" This
>has been a surprisingly difficult task.
>What I have been doing is staking out boundaries, stating what it is not,
>therefore, what I'll have left is what it is, right?
>
>So far I have removed the following, Sociology of Technology/ies may overlap
>with--but is NOT science and technology studies, not the sociology of
>science, not the sociology of knowledge, not the sociology of
>communications, not social informatics, not a bunch of theories like
>Structuration/Actor Network/SCOT/SST/Institutionalism/network science etc.
>
>So, I ask you, what is left? What do we do that is unique? What are our core
>competencies?
>
>I've found a couple readings that have helped a bit, but I am hoping some of
>you can aid me in my quest.
>
>
>1.     Shields, Mark A. 1997. ³Reinventing Technology in Social Theory.²
>pages 187-216. Is a book chapter in...Current Perspectives in Social Theory:
>1997 By Jennifer M. Lehmann, Ben Agger Published by Emerald Group Pub Ltd,
>1997
>
>
>2.    Saskia Sassen ³Towards a Sociology of Information Technology,² Current
>Sociology, May 2002, Vol. 50(3): 365­388 SAGE Publications
>
>
>
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Ronald E Anderson, Professor Emeritus, U. of 
Minnesota, Mpls, MN 55455 <rea at umn.edu>
Web site: http://www.soc.umn.edu/~rea/         Blog: http://contexts.org/eye/
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