Raqib Annotations

How will your own research build from, counter and compare with this text?

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 7:58am

A research-based upon the correlation between labour and technology can draw plenty of ideas from the different theories upon technological determination.  The phenomenon of technological determinism is considered the most important and contested idea in the studies of labour and technology. The answer to the question of whether technological determinism is dead or not would define the path of further research

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Describe at least three of the text’s themes or topics that are of general interest to STS scholars.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 7:57am

The main agenda of my study is to look into the correlation between labour and technology.  In this article, the author mainly focuses on the importance of technological determinism and how it becomes a mistake to equate determinism with progress.

                       I.            The normative technological determinism of Bimber, Misa and Hughes (). Equivalent to the idea of autonomous technology by Langdon Winer, "technology that has grown so big and so complex that it is no longer amenable to social control".

                    II.            The idea of technological momentum: A more mature understanding of the interplay between technology and society, gives a viable solution to understanding the labour process and market, where some are highly automated, some are complemented and yet some are not touched by 'modern' computational technology. According to the author, "technological momentum" as "a concept that can be located somewhere between the poles of technical determinism and social constructivism".

                 III.            Conceptualising the dialectical relationship of social shaping of technology and technological shaping of society. This gives a greater understanding of the impact of automation and upcoming trends or changes happening due to the interplay of labour and technological development.

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Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 7:56am

'Science and technology studies' approach and literature: She mainly draws her idea from this interdisciplinary project and knowledge system. It helps her to move beyond the constraints of rigid subject boundaries. She argues that most of the techniques and theoretical paradigms used to understand technology in STS is non-conventional and kind of neglected by its parent subjects. Even though the STS has done a great effort to understand technological determinism, she cautions about the casual and oversimplified understanding of it. She argues that keeping aside the blunders such as technological development outside of the social sphere, the people who study the STS should be more serious about technological determinism like they look into the technology. This study calls attention to one of the important challenges of STS "to conceptualize the dialectical relationship between the social shaping of technology and the technical shaping of society" 

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Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 7:55am

 The main argument of the author is that even though there are various misinterpretations regarding technological determinism, which ultimately leads to either refuting or for subtle analysis of the phenomenon, she asserts that the characteristics of technological determinism still exists. She also argues that how STS for 25 years was refuting the primary premises of technological determinism the same way as technological development is taking place outside of the social world, but failed to understand technological determinism as a whole. She argues for a serious discussion around technological determinism

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What is the main argument, narrative and affect of this text?

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 7:53am

 The main argument of the author is that even though there are various misinterpretations regarding technological determinism, which ultimately leads to either refuting or for subtle analysis of the phenomenon, she asserts that the characteristics of technological determinism still exists. She also argues that how STS for 25 years was refuting the primary premises of technological determinism the same way as technological development is taking place outside of the social world, but failed to understand technological determinism as a whole. She argues for a serious discussion around technological determinism

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What three (or more) quotes capture the critical import of the text?

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 7:52am

"[O]ne of the problems with technological determinism is that it leaves no space for human choice or intervention and, moreover, absolves us from responsibility for the technologies we make and use. If technologies are developed outside of social interests, then workers, citizens, and others have very few options about the use and effects of these technologies".

 "[W]e cannot ignore technological determinism in the hope that it will disappear and that the world will embrace the indeterminacy and complexity of other types of accounts of the technology-society relationship. I argue that we in the STS community cannot simply despair of the endurance of technological determinism and carry on with our more subtle analyses".

"[J]ust as we treat technology seriously, we must treat technological determinism seriously. It is no longer sufficient to dismiss it for its conceptual crudeness, nor is it enough to dismiss it as false consciousness on the part of actors or as a bleak, Nietzschean outlook for the future of humanity. Technological determinism is still here and unlikely to disappear".

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