Social Construction of Technology

The standard view of technology, popularly known as “technological determinism” and “technological constructivism,” was largely motivated by a reductionist approach. According to this approach, it is possible to analyze technological change along a fixed unidirectional path with reference to economic laws or some inner technological logic. Under the framework of this approach, respective societies adapt to newly introduced technologies. However, the constructivist approach began to take hold in the mid-1980s. This new stance toward technology shaped social models that provided room for social factors that could affect the growth of technology as opposed to technology following its own momentum. Accordingly, technology and technological change cannot be understood without recourse to the social context. As a supporting example, it has quite often been shown that in ...