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

[Keith Johnson]

Ron:

    You and the group may be familiar with the National Academies Press;
their publications are generally searchable free on their website. 
Your useful reference is available at their site:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6482#toc

    Thanks for the tip.  Keith Johnson


> 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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>>CITASA at list.citasa.org
>>http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
>
> 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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