Findings follow framings: navigating the empirical turn |
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Authors: | Thomas J Misa |
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Institution: | (1) University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA |
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Abstract: | In this paper, I outline several methodological questions that we need to confront. The chief question is how can we identify
the nature of technological change and its varied cultural consequences—including social, political, institutional, and economic
dimensions—when our different research methods, using distinct ‘levels’ or ‘scales’ of analysis, yield contradictory results.
What can we say, in other words, when our findings about technology follow from the framings of our inquiries? In slightly different terms, can we combine insights from the fine-grained “social shaping of technology”
as well as from complementary approaches accenting the “technological shaping of society?” As a way forward, I will suggest
conducting multi-scale inquiries into the processes of technological and cultural change. This will involve recognizing and
conceptualizing the analytical scales or levels on which we conduct inquiry (very roughly, micro, meso, macro) as well as
outlining strategies for moving within and between these scales or levels. Of course we want and need diverse methodologies
for analyzing technology and culture. I find myself in sympathy with geographer Brenner (New state spaces: urban governance
and the rescaling of statehood, 2004, p. 7), who aspires to a “theoretically precise yet also historically specific conceptualization
of technological change] as a key dimension of social, political and economic life.” |
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Keywords: | Historiography of technology Scale Social constructivism Agency-structure problem |
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