Abstract
The social shaping of technology (SST) approach to analysing technological development lends itself to an understanding of the relatively negotiated, heterogeneous, and local character of technologies, politicising the mediated nature of sociotechnical change. Here, conditions of actor engagement lie at the heart of analysing technology in social context—that is, the occasions, strategies, and scope of influence that are afforded different actors, by way of how particular problems come to be defined and resolved. In this paper we examine the framing of a number of concrete technology assessments (TAs) from Denmark, from the realms of general TA and health technology assessment (HTA). Our examination of the TA initiatives is directed towards the relatively open-ended and consequently explorative and qualitative stance that SST takes in characterising the boundaries between the technical and the social. The paper goes on to discuss a possible place of ethical inquiry in TA, based on the understanding of technological development that SST affords. In the reflexive approach to addressing technology’s relation to society, technology no longer maintains a universally reducible character in time or in social space. Through the possibility of analytically and practically opening up for otherwise seemingly locked actor-positions SST gives room for a more differentiated questioning and treatment of ethical issues in which technology may be implicated.
Zusammenfassung
Der SST (Social Shaping of Technology) Ansatz zur Analyse technologischer Entwicklungen dient dem Verständnis des relativ verhandelten, heterogenen und lokalen Charakters von Technologien und politisiert die vermittelte Natur soziotechnologischen Wandels. Die Bedingungen für das Engagement von Akteuren – das heißt, die Gelegenheiten, Strategien und der Einfluss, die verschiedenen Akteuren durch die Art, wie man bestimmte Probleme definiert und löst, gewährt werden – stehen hier im Mittelpunkt der Analyse von Technologie im sozialen Kontext. In diesem Kapitel untersuchen wir die Rahmenbedingungen verschiedener konkreter Technologiefolgenabschätzungen (TAs) in Dänemark, aus den Gebieten allgemeine TA und HTA. Unsere Untersuchung der TA-Initiativen richtet sich auf die relativ offene und daher explorative und qualitative Haltung der SST, wenn es um die Charakterisierung der Grenzen zwischen dem Technischen und dem Sozialen geht. Weiterhin diskutieren wir in diesem Beitrag einen möglichen Platz, den ethische Hinterfragung aufgrund des Verständnisses technologischer Entwicklungen, das der SST-Ansatz bietet, einnehmen kann. In der reflektierenden Annäherung an die Frage der Beziehung zwischen Technologie und Gesellschaft ist Technologie nicht mehr eine universal reduzierbare Ziffer in Zeit oder gesellschaftlichem Raum. Durch die Möglichkeit, sich analytisch und praktisch für sonst scheinbar feste Akteurpositionen zu öffnen, erlaubt SST eine differenziertere Erforschung und Behandlung ethischer Fragen in Zusammenhang mit Technologie.
Résumé
L’approche concernant le façonnement social de la technologie (SST, social shaping of technology) pour analyser le développement technique se prête à la compréhension du caractère relativement négocié, hétérogène et local des technologies, et politise la nature médiate du changement socio-technique. Les conditions d’un engagement des acteurs sont ici au coeur de l’analyse de la technologie dans un contexte social, c’est-à-dire les occasions, les stratégies et la portée de l’influence accordées à différents acteurs, par la manière dont des problèmes particuliers sont définis et résolus. Nous examinons dans cette section les conditions cadres d’un certain nombre d’évaluations technologiques (ET) concrètes au Danemark, tirées du domaine général comme de l’évaluation technologique de la santé. Notre étude des initiatives d’ET s’oriente sur l’attitude relativement ouverte et donc exploratoire et qualitative du SST pour caractériser les limites entre technique et social. L’article poursuit avec une discussion sur la place possible des études éthiques dans l’ET, sur la base de la compréhension du développement technique que le SST exige. Dans l’approche réfléchie de la relation entre technologie et société, la technologie ne conserve plus un caractère universellement réductible dans le temps ou l’espace social. Par les possibilités de s’ouvrir par l’analyse et la pratique à d’autres positions d’acteur apparemment inébranlables, le SST permet une étude et un traitement plus différenciés des questions éthiques dans lesquelles la technologie est impliquée.
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Notes
There have been differences within the SST tradition, as to how ‘the social’ may be addressed and grappled with. It would be beyond the scope of this paper to differentiate among these; suffice it here to note that the differences have concerned to what extent the social (as defined by social actors and their a priori interests) remains at the core of analysis. Some within SST take what is deemed for others to be a much too radical path where the non-social (the natural, material, technical, etc.) are part and parcel of what constitutes ‘the social’. The difference has bearing on what it indeed means to construe technology as beingsocially negotiated, whether this unfolds out of a priori interests that influence technology development, or it concerns interests that are built into existing sociotechnical embeddedness of power relations where such interests, in and of themselves, undergo transformation affecting and being effected by technological change. We refer the reader to Williams and Sørensen (2002) for an account of the SST field’s recent move toward a ‘convergence’ of analytic focus with respect to such prior differences within the field.
This is not to say that TA and HTA are in and of themselves free of politics and politicisation—quite the contrary. Through a notion of how (H)TAframes particular issues concerning technological change, we are open to the possibility that things may indeed be framedotherwise. Our intention is hereby again to focus on a broader understanding of the issues entailed and of what may be deemed salient, in the investigation and assessment of the possibilities of choice and room for dynamics in technological change (Yoshinaka et al. 2003).
SST’s preoccupation with the emergence orcoming into being of the material order of social practices, including technological practices, problematises precisely the lack of a clear-cut delineation between what may be deemed solely social, technical, economic or otherwise, as a priori points of references. These are lines of distinctions, whose clear demarcations come to be stabilised through the course of technology’s implementation and domestication in concrete practices, where they may be proposed (by some actors), contested (by others), negotiated and subsequently aligned into a cohesive framework of reference for those involved.
Berg (1998) emphasises the importance of being attentive to the (sometimes unexpected) transformative aspects in work/worker relations that are involved in technology implementation, i.e. that it is not adequate to appraise technological change in the workplace along the lines of technology optimism versus pessimism per se, as these carry deterministic connotations. For Berg participatory design must account also for possibly unexpected (yet positive) transformations, where the mutual shaping between the technical and the social retains some element of positive surprise (to those participating).
Our treatment of these examples from Danish TA relate to SST, although we must, in fairness to those who undertook the TAs originally, note that the ‘social shaping’term has been used explicitly, only in a few of these TAs themselves.
By drawing out the social shaping relevance of this particular social experiment, we do not wish to appear to downgrade the relevance of on-site veterinary visits. Our point here has been that the video link was an idea which to some degree could help mediate otherwise problematic access of veterinary services and communications between the farmer and the vet, not to say that IT could mediate the on-site interaction. For the case of (human) telemedicine, see a similar problematisation within dermatology, in which visually mediated and formalised forms of knowledge exchange via telemedicine are shown to mediate only particular ‘takes’ on the patient condition and the clinicians scope of accessing and mobilizing relevant patient information. In this case, the particular design of the IT application is shown to marginalise and exclude pertinent medical information otherwise integral to clinical professional practice (Mort et al. 2003).
Research into ICT-based management concepts suggests that the participatory aspects are even less prevalent in the U.S. versions of these concepts than in the (northern) European adoption of these concepts.
The actors of pertinence in this regard range all the way from the constructed group of ‘lay’ on the panel, the public at large (through the media coverage, etc.), participating technical experts and their professional affiliations, as well as politicians with (future) involvement and possible interested in areas relating to the technological issue.
This takes place under the active facilitation and guidance of the organisers, but on the initiative and interest of the lay panel.
Consensus conferences on medical technologies have taken place in Denmark but with the use of a (professional) hearing panel rather than the citizen’s panel that is otherwise characteristic of the Danish tradition as elaborated in this paper. These medical consensus conferences (which have addressed more socio-economic aspects of technological choices also) have been under the auspices of Danish Health Sciences Research Council and The Danish Hospital Institute under the County Council in Denmark, rather than the Danish Board of Technology.
The present sketch will be restricted to the domain of technology’s shaping as to the surgical technique itself. Somewhat broader issues of both a practical as well as discursive nature (such as the technology’s implication in the issue of post-surgical length of stay, the indeterminate nature of the costs entailed up to the technique’s routinisation, patient experiences with minimally invasive surgical trauma/scars, etc., will not be touched upon).
IOC deals with taking an X-ray of the bile duct anatomy during the operation to make sure that it is the correct part of the structure (the cystic duct and not the common bile duct) that is being stapled and dissected to detach the gallbladder. The X-ray also reveals any bile duct stones that may be present, where in OC it was common practice to remove any such stones during the same operation.
Technology as mediating particular social relations, but itself being borne by particular social arrangements that holds the key to the framing of ethics and risk, is exceptionally elaborated on in these works, dealing with fetal surgery, CPR and the distribution of thalidomide, respectively.
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Clausen, C., Yoshinaka, Y. Social shaping of technology in TA and HTA. Poiesis Prax 2, 221–246 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10202-003-0046-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10202-003-0046-1