Technology and Society – Building Our Sociotechnical Future - Hardcover

DG Johnson; JM Wetmore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262101246 ISBN 13: 9780262101240

Publisher: MIT Press, 2008

Synopsis

Technological change does not happen in a vacuum; decisions about which technologies to develop, fund, market, and use engage ideas about values as well as calculations of costs and benefits. This anthology focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values. It offers writings by authorities as varied as Freeman Dyson, Laurence Lessig, Bruno Latour, and Judy Wajcman that will introduce readers to recent thinking about technology and provide them with conceptual tools, a theoretical framework, and knowledge to help understand how technology shapes society and how society shapes technology. It offers readers a new perspective on such current issues as globalization, the balance between security and privacy, environmental justice, and poverty in the developing world. The careful ordering of the selections and the editors' introductions give Technology and Society a coherence and flow that is unusual in anthologies. The book is suitable for use in undergraduate courses in STS and other disciplines. The selections begin with predictions of the future that range from forecasts of technological utopia to cautionary tales. These are followed by writings that explore the complexity of sociotechnical systems, presenting a picture of how technology and society work in step, shaping and being shaped by one another. Finally, the book goes back to considerations of the future, discussing twenty-first-century challenges that include nanotechnology, the role of citizens in technological decisions, and the technologies of human enhancement.

About this title

About the Authors

Deborah G. Johnson is Anne Shirley Carter Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics and Department Chair, Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Virginia.

Jameson M. Wetmore is Assistant Professor at the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.

Trevor Pinch is Goldwin Smith Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University and coeditor of The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (anniversary edition, MIT Press).

Wiebe E. Bijker is Professor at Maastricht University and the author of Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press) and other books.

Thomas P. Hughes is Professor of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0262101246
• ISBN 13: 9780262101240
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 648