Abstract
This book is about software, a very particular type of technology or as Quintas (1994) calls it, an “atypical technology” (p: 29). It is technology, which, on its own, is mere text, not an artefact which can be switched on and off or modified in order to achieve a different goal (cf. De Laet and Mol 2000). As such, software appears to be a passive technology, acting only as a text = unless brought into contact with hardware. Together with hardware, software becomes a “virtual machine” (Quintas 1994b: 29), an actor which influences our day-to-day lives. Thus, software is not only an ‘atypical technology’ but also an ‘atypical text’, which does not necessarily shape or is shaped by society through the reader but rather by being read, interpreted and enacted through the machine.
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© 2012 Gabler Verlag | Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH
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Grimm, C. (2012). Discussion of Existing Knowledge. In: Inside a Secret Software Laboratory. Gabler Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8349-7176-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8349-7176-0_2
Publisher Name: Gabler Verlag
Print ISBN: 978-3-8349-3386-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-8349-7176-0
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