MDSA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Bruno Latour, Wiebe Bijker, Substantivism
Document Summary
Connected to social, political, and economic structures, enabling communication across time, across space, and with an unlimited number of interlocutors. Technologies are products and practices that assume their specific form thanks to their particular connections. Technology reflects the overall organization of the society in which it exists. Technology is a value-neutral tool that helps us achieve our goals more efficiently; a means to an end. Technology operates according to an inherent, internal logic; it can be explained without reference to society. Technology operates according to its own inherent logic at the expense of humanity. We have become slaves to technology and our desire for greater efficiency and control. Technological progress raises more problems than it solves. Negative effects of technology are inseparable from the positives. Technology is socially constructed and shaped by social forces. To succeed, technology must find a supportive environment. The fixing of the device or system into a socially recognized object.
