Science and technology studies
[1] Like most interdisciplinary fields of study, STS emerged from the confluence of a variety of disciplines and disciplinary subfields, all of which had developed an interest—typically, during the 1960s or 1970s—in viewing science and technology as socially embedded enterprises.
In the 1970s Elting E. Morison founded the STS program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which served as a model.
[5] A decisive moment in the development of STS was the mid-1980s addition of technology studies to the range of interests reflected in science.
During that decade, two works appeared en seriatim that signaled what Steve Woolgar was to call the "turn to technology".
[9] The "turn to technology" helped to cement an already growing awareness of underlying unity among the various emerging STS programs.
This is especially evident in work in STS analyses of biomedicine (such as Carl May and Annemarie Mol) and ecological interventions (such as Bruno Latour, Sheila Jasanoff, Matthias Gross, Sara B. Pritchard, and S. Lochlann Jain).
Social constructionists about X tend to hold that: Very often they go further, and urge that: In the past, there have been viewpoints that were widely regarded as fact until being called to question due to the introduction of new knowledge.
[12] With methodology from ANT, feminist STS theorists built upon SCOT's theory of co-construction to explore the relationship between gender and technology, proposing one cannot exist separately from the other.
[9] Sociotechnical imaginaries are what certain communities, societies, and nations envision as achievable through the combination of scientific innovation and social changes.
[16] The term was coined in 2009 by Sheila Jasanoff and Sang-Hyun Kim who compared and contrasted sociotechnical imaginaries of nuclear energy in the USA with those of South Korea over the second half of the 20th century.
[16] Jasanoff and Kim analyzed the discourse of government representatives, national policies, and civil society organizations, looked at the technological and infrastructural developments, and social protests, and conducted interviews with experts.
[16] The concept has been applied to several objects of study including biomedical research,[17][18] nanotechnology development[19] and energy systems and climate change.
[26] Recent work on artificial intelligence considers large sociotechnical systems, such as social networks and online marketplaces, as agents whose behavior can be purposeful and adaptive.
It states that fields are linked and grow together, and scientific knowledge requires an infrastructure of technology in order to remain stationary or move forward.
Technoscience excels at shaping human thoughts and behavior by opening up new possibilities that gradually or quickly come to be perceived as necessities.
More recently, the term was coined by Joseph Bessette in his 1980 work Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government, where he uses the idea in opposition to the elitist interpretations of the United States Constitution with emphasis on public discussion.
Deliberative democracy allows for "a wider range of public knowledge", and it has been argued that this can lead to "more socially intelligent and robust" science.
The deliberation is to enhance public understanding of popular, complex and controversial issues through devices such as Fishkin's deliberative polling,[38] though implementation of these reforms is unlikely in a large government such as that of the United States.
While the main aim is to reach consensus, deliberative democracy should encourage the voices of those with opposing viewpoints, concerns due to uncertainties, and questions about assumptions made by other participants.
[39] In a contemporary setting, the Internet acts as an example of the tragedy of the commons through the exploitation of digital resources and private information.
Also, this concept is ineffective at analyzing similar but unique modern societies such as those found in the diverse cultures of the developing world.
Examining the role of citizen participation and representation in politics provides an excellent example of legacy thinking in society.
The belief that one can spend money freely to gain influence has been popularized, leading to public acceptance of corporate lobbying.
As a result, a self-established role in politics has been cemented where the public does not exercise the power ensured to them by the Constitution to the fullest extent.
[47] Legacy thinking, however, keeps the population from acting to change this, despite polls from Harris Interactive that report over 80% of Americans to feel that big business holds too much power in government.
[48] Therefore, Americans are beginning to try to steer away from this line of thought, rejecting legacy thinking, and demanding less corporate, and more public, participation in political decision-making.
Due to pressure from grassroots movements the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has redefined the requirements for broadband and internet in general as a utility.
[51] Now AT&T and other major internet providers are lobbying against this action and are in large able to delay the onset of this movement due to legacy thinking's grip on American[specify] culture and politics.
By utilizing the "veil of ignorance", one can overcome the barrier of legacy thinking as it requires a person to imagine that they are unaware of their own circumstances, allowing them to free themselves from externally imposed thoughts or widely accepted ideas.
[60] In Europe the European Inter-University Association on Society, Science and Technology (ESST) offers an MA degree in STS through study programs and student exchanges with over a dozen specializations.
