MacKenzie, Donald and Wajcman, Judy, eds. (1999), The social shaping of technology. 2nd ed., Open University Press, Buckingham, UK.
This book aims to discuss the different influences of technology, how and why it is shaped and driven. Introducing the topic by defining technological determinism as the intertwining of social context and technology, it lists a range of potential influences such as economics, politics, science, the state and gender, giving examples from history to support this. The rest of the book goes into more detail of the impact of this idea on women, ethnic minorities and manual workers.
Questions
Many reasons are given for the development of technology. Given that the article strongly sides on linking social theory with technology, what are the implications for the role of media (traditional and social) and entertainment within this approach?
What about considering technology as aspiration, influenced by notions of the future, i.e., when is the hoverboard from back to the future being made?
Military and state funding are obvious systems for pushing technological advances but with the advent of crowdfunding, charities, celebrities, where is the power now in funding technology?
The first image is Michael J Fox trying on the world’s first pair of self tying laces, developed by Nike in collaboration with the Michael J Fox foundation who are aiming to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease. It raises interesting points related to the article regarding technological determinism and the aims of technology.
The next two images are related to women and technology, a point considered throughout the chapter. These images also link to cultural uses of technology. The myflow app and device devised in the US that seeks to reduce toxic shock syndrome by utilising Bluetooth to sanitary products, this was developed through crowdfunding. The next image is Arunachalam Muruganathan from India and the machine he self funded and created to create cheap sanitary products. Two identical aims, related to women in technology but the cultural context and funding have very different outcomes.
Here’s a link to the article about Arunachalam, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26260978 and to the my flow website, http://www.trackmyflow.com/
Lou Loves Learning 
Hi Louise – thanks for this an admirable summary of the article. Re technological determinism – I’m not 100% sure if how you define it above is what I’d say it means (but it may be to do with the expression). To me technological determinism is the ‘dominant’ account of technology in society, particularly in the media that suggests that technology shapes society rather than the other way around. It’s an interesting question I think and MacKensie and Wajcman suggest there may be a ‘partial truth’ in this idea. If you’re interested in the gender arguments Judy Wajcman went on to write some great sutff around ‘technofeminism’ which you might be interested in?
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Wow! There is an app which can tell you when your tampon is full?! That’s what I saw when I just looked at the website. Thank you for highlighting this to me … I can’t quite get my head around it. I’m not sure I need an app for that? What does everyone else think about it? I kind of get the point about toxic shock syndrome and I’m aware there are health/body conscious apps already that can monitor your calorie intake for example but really? What are the ethics around this? I can choose to share my menstruation details with who I like but all that data is stored somewhere and ultimately that means the data collected could be manipulated without a person’s consent. For example, in the future, could your employee check when you have your period and conclude your output is less because of it? Could a partner log in and check the data and realise that actually you aren’t fed up because they haven’t done the dishes but because you have your period?! Is this one step closer to robots taking over the world?! I’d be really interested to know everyone else’s thoughts.
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