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

[Sam Tobin]

Here here.  I'm certainly not sure that we/us all can agree what
"technology" or "sociology" is anyway. Maybe overlaps are where we
meet, be it this list, as interlocutors or just downloading the same
.pdf for class.

Samuel Tobin
PhD Candidate: Sociology, NSSR
www.samueltobin.com

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Chris Anderson <cwa2103 at columbia.edu> wrote:
> I guess I am curious (and I know I am opening a can of worms here) why the
> "sociology of technologies" is not some of all of those things, rather than
> anything unique in and of itself? In other words, maybe it exists ONLY in
> the overlaps. What's wrong with that, apart from the administrative
> difficulties such an answer may cause?
>
> Chris Anderson
>
> --
>
> PhD Student, Communications
> Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
> cwa2103 at columbia.edu
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Andrea Tapia <atapia at ist.psu.edu> 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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