How does the social shaping perspective help us to understand the social and organizational implications of technological change? Answers should draw on either Ruth Schwartz Cowans account of the industrialisation of housework or Janet Abbates work on the origins of packet switching technology.
(This is the whole topic) And also there are some instruction.
This question invites students to draw on empirical examples to consider the idea that technological change is socially shaped in accordance with complex social/cultural choices. Students should familiar with the social shaping perspective with the critiques of technological determinism offered by authors such as MacKenzie and Wacjman, and Langdon Winner. They should also be familiar with both Schwartz Cowans work on the industrialisation of housework in the C19th and early C20th and on Abbates account of packet switching during the 1960s.
Basic answers will show how apparently technological developments were in both cases shaped by a) the broader social/political context of innovation and b) the social/political agendas and choices followed by particular actors. Better answers will draw on the empirical accounts to show how technologies are crucially influenced at critical junctures. Better answers may also show how the innovation process is informed by multiple actors working within societies, institutions and organizations. The very best answers might note that apparently technological developments are informed by particular ensembles of technical and non technical factors, thus questioning inherently determinist and quasi-unversalist notions of technology as an inexorable force for change.