Social Responses to Large Technical Systems

Social Responses to Large Technical Systems
Author: Todd R. La Porte
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9401134006

This volume stems from the efforts of scholars who seek to understand the social dynamics of large technical systems. The purpose is to develop concepts and empirical knowledge concerning the dynamics of such systems, with particular emphasis on the processes ofcontrol and/or management in a variety of national settings, and to improve the basis of public policy so that future developments might be less distressing in consequence and more shaped to the desires of their "host" societies. One vehicle for this enterprise is a series of international conferences on the Evolution andDynamics ofLarge Technical Systems (LTSs). This series was instituted to encourage the coalescence of the multidisciplinary group of scholars who are actively engaging in the empirical study of these phenomena. Their disciplines span history, sociology, political science, and economics studies. They come Australia, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany. And they possess strong backgrounds in the empirical study of specific technical areas and a taste for conceptual and theoretical integration.

The Development Of Large Technical Systems

The Development Of Large Technical Systems
Author: Renate Mayntz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2019-07-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000315878

This book is an outcome of the conference on the development of large technical systems held in Berlin in 1986. It focuses on the comparative analysis of the development of large technical systems, particularly electrical power, railroad, air traffic, telephone, and other forms of telecommunication.

The Social Construction of Technological Systems

The Social Construction of Technological Systems
Author: Wiebe E. Bijker
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 1989
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780262521376

"The impact of technology on society is clear and unmistakeable. The influence of society on technology is more subtle. The 13 essays in this book have been written by a diverse group of scholars united by a common interest in creating a new field - the sociology of technology. They draw on a wide array of case studies - from cooking stoves to missile systems, from 15th-century Portugal to today's Al labs - to outline an original research program based on a synthesis of ideas from the social studies of science and the history of technology. Together they affirm the need for a study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions"--Back cover.

Changing Large Technical Systems

Changing Large Technical Systems
Author: Jane Summerton
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-06-13
Genre:
ISBN: 9780367166588

Working at the forefront of historical and social science research on the dynamics of large technical systems, the authors specifically analyze how and why the systems undergo change. In some cases, new technologies are solving old problems and presenting opportunities for system growth.

The Technological Fix

The Technological Fix
Author: Lisa Rosner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135938504

The term "technological fix" should mean a fix provided by technology--a solution for all of our problems, from medicine and food production to the environment and business. Instead, technological fix has come to mean a cheap, quick fix using inappropriate technology that usually creates more problems than it solves. This collection sets out the distinction between a technological fix and a true technological solution. Bringing together scholars from a variety of disciplines, the essays trace the technological fix as it has appeared throughout the twentieth century. Addressing such "fixes" as artificial hearts, industrial agriculture and climate engineering, these essays examine our need to turn to technology for solutions to all of our problems.

Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice

Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice
Author: Boel Berner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2003-08-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134450427

Modern technological systems entail risks and uncertainties of hitherto unknown dimensions. This book discusses the construction of risk and safety within a variety of empirical contexts where technologies and their risk are debated and handled by individuals, groups or organizations. With contributions from leading scholars from Europe and the USA, it presents original theoretical discussions, linked to detailed empirical case studies.

A Vast Machine

A Vast Machine
Author: Paul N. Edwards
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 547
Release: 2013-02-08
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262518635

The science behind global warming, and its history: how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere, to measure it, to trace its past, and to model its future. Global warming skeptics often fall back on the argument that the scientific case for global warming is all model predictions, nothing but simulation; they warn us that we need to wait for real data, “sound science.” In A Vast Machine Paul Edwards has news for these skeptics: without models, there are no data. Today, no collection of signals or observations—even from satellites, which can “see” the whole planet with a single instrument—becomes global in time and space without passing through a series of data models. Everything we know about the world's climate we know through models. Edwards offers an engaging and innovative history of how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere—to measure it, trace its past, and model its future.

Rethinking Infrastructure Across the Humanities

Rethinking Infrastructure Across the Humanities
Author: Aaron Pinnix
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2023-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 383946983X

Infrastructure comprises a combination of sociotechnical, political, and cultural arrangements that provide resources and services. The contributors to this volume show, in their respective fields, how infrastructures are both generative forces and the materialized products of quotidian practices that affect and guide people's lives. Organized via shared conceptual foci, this volume demonstrates infrastructuralist perspectives as an important transdisciplinary approach within the humanities.

Handbook of New Media

Handbook of New Media
Author: Leah A Lievrouw
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2006-01-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781412918732

Thoroughly revised and updated, this Student Edition of the successful Handbook of New Media has been abridged to showcase the best of the hardback edition. This Handbook sets out boundaries of new media research and scholarship and provides a definitive statement of the current state-of-the-art of the field. Covering major problem areas of research, the Handbook of New Media includes an introductory essay by the editors and a concluding essay by Ron Rice. Each chapter, written by an internationally renowned scholar, provides a review of the most significant social research findings and insights.

Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation

Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation
Author: Helga Nowotny
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1782389644

Underlying the current dynamics of technological developments, their divergence or convergence and the abundance of options, promises and risks they contain, is the quest for innovation, the contributors to this volume argue. The seemingly insatiable demand for novelty coincides with the rise of modern science and the onset of modernity in Western societies. Never before has the Baconian dream been so close to becoming reality: wrapped into a globalizing capitalism that seeks ever expanding markets for new products, artifacts and designs and new processes that lead to gains in efficiency, productivity and profit. However, approaching these developments through a wider historical and cultural perspectives, means to raise questions about the plurality of cultures, the interaction between "hardware" and "software" and about the nature of the interfaces where technology meets with economic, social, legal, historical constraints and opportunities. The authors come to the conclusion that inside a seemingly homogenous package and a seemingly universal quest for innovation many differences remain.