Postgraduate Course: Understanding Technology (PGSP11353)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Postgrad (School of Social and Political Studies) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | Many of the students taking the MSc in Science and Technology in Society will have no prior training in the interdisciplinary field of science, technology and innovation studies. Focussing on different approaches to the social study of technology, this course introduces theoretical approaches, concepts and key empirical studies that form the canon and state-of-the-art in social research and critical thinking on technology.
While this course can be taken as a standalone course for students enrolled on other programmes, this course is designed to work in tandem with the partner core course, ¿Science, Knowledge and Expertise¿. Where possible, the contents of the two courses develop in parallel week by week, in order to encourage students to explore both the differences and intersections of science and technology. In doing so we avoid reifying distinctions between science and technology. The final week of each course will focus on ¿the future and relevance of science, technology and innovation studies¿, and will include reflections on the limitations of the field and its relevance for the wider world.
This core course asks what is the relationship between technology, innovation and society? Students are introduced to different social science approaches for understanding the design, development, use and circulation of technologies ¿ from those we encounter in everyday, domestic life to industrial contexts, and from local to national, regional and global settings. In addition to theoretical and conceptual approaches, the course provides students with relevant methodological skills for studying technologies and other artefacts. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2012/13 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| No Classes have been defined for this Course |
| First Class |
First class information not currently available |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
- have a substantive knowledge and understanding of a range of theoretical approaches, conceptual tools and methodologies for studying the relationship between technology, innovation and society, and a critical appreciation of the contending viewpoints and claims of those theories
- be able to apply and critically evaluate this learning in relation to a variety of empirical cases
- be aware of how an appreciation of the social dimension of technology can help to inform public and policy debate
- have developed their skills in finding, evaluating and analysing information about technology and its role in the modern world
- have developed their abilities to convey complex ideas through written and oral means ¿ particularly through essay writing and seminar presentations. |
Assessment Information
| Assessment will be: (i) a book review of 1000 words worth 25% due at the end of week 5, and (ii) an essay of 3500 words on a topic to be agreed between the student and the course convener. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
The course will be delivered over 10 weeks using a lecture-plus-seminar-discussion format. Each two-hour sessions will typically consist of a 1 hour lecture intended to signpost major theories, concepts and literature in specific areas of the field, followed by a 1 hour seminar organised around classroom discussion, student-led presentations, and case study work. The lectures as somewhat longer than normal to permit adequate coverage and explication of interdisciplinary perspectives that will be strikingly novel to many of the students. The role of the seminars is (i) to ensure that students have a good working understanding of the concepts and perspectives developed in the lectures, and (ii) to give them an opportunity to explore how those concepts and perspectives may be used to analyse a range of empirical case studies of the role of technology in society.
Weekly Outline
1 What is technology?
2 The politics of technology
3 How do we know the properties of technology & testing?
4 Sociotechnical transitions and social change
5 The agency of objects
6 Gender, class and race in/of technologies
7 Technology in everyday life
8 Technology policy and regulation
9 Global/big technologies and the state
10 The future and relevance of science, technology and innovation studies |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Avgerou, C., Ciborra, C., & Land, F. (2004). The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology: Innovation, Actors, and Contexts. Oxford University Press.
Bijker, W., Pinch, et al. (1987). The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology.
Bowker, G.C., & Star, S.L. (1999). Sorting things out: classification and its consequences. The MIT Press.
Ciborra, C. (2002). The Labyrinths of Information - Challenging the Wisdom of Systems. Oxford University Press.
Cockburn, C., and S. Ormrod (1993). Gender and technology in the making. London: Sage.
Dourish, P. (2001). Where the Action is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT/Triliteral.
Feenberg A. & Hannay A. (eds.). Technology and the Politics of Knowledge. Indiana University Press.
Kallinikos, J. (2006). The Consequences of Information - Institutional Implications of Technological Change. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.
MacKenzie, D. and J. Wajcman, Eds. (1999). The social shaping of technology. Buckingham, Open University Press.
Phillips, P. W. B. (2007). Governing transformative technological innovation: Who's in Charge?
Pinch, T. and W. Bijker (1984). "The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other." Social Studies of Science
Pollock, N. & Williams, R. (2009) Software and Organisations: The Biography of the Enterprise-Wide System - Or how SAP Conquered the World. Routledge
Stirling, A. (2008). "Opening Up and Closing Down: power, participation and pluralism in the social appraisal of technology¿." Science Technology and Human Values.
Suchman, L.A. (1987). Plans and situated actions ¿ The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge University Press.
Winner, L. (1989). Do artifacts have politics? . The Whale and the Reactor
Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1986). Understanding Computers and Cognition ¿ A new foundation for design. Ablex Publishing Corporation.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Robin Williams
Tel: (0131 6)50 6387
Email: R.Williams@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lindsay Hunter
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: L.Hunter@ed.ac.uk |
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© Copyright 2012 The University of Edinburgh - 31 August 2012 4:31 am
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