Final SOC3116

In what ways do artefacts have politics according to Langdon Winner? What challenge does this pose to SCOT?
Langdon Winner suggested that technologies embody social relations such as power; moreover, He poses the question such as 1“Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Meanwhile Winner defines politics 2“I mean arrangements of power and authority in human associations as well as the activities that take place within those arrangements.” According to Langdon winner, 3“In what follows I shall offer utilities and illustrations of two ways in which artifacts can contain political properties.”
4“First are instance in which the invention, design or arrangements if a specific technical device or system becomes a way of setting an issue in a particular community.” It indicates that first way associates with technical arrangements and social order, it is appealed when the invention, design, or arrangement of artifacts as an approach to solving the issues in the society, which 5“transcends the simple categories of ‘intended’ and ‘unintended’ altogether, representing “instances in which the very process of technical development is so thoroughly biased in a particular direction that it regularly produces results heralded as wonderful breakthroughs by some social interests and crushing setbacks by others” (Winner, p. 25-6, 1999). It implied that the process of technological development plays a significant role on defining the politics of an artifact; therefore, the artifact itself is not political but its invention, design or arrangements is aiming to open certain social options to stakeholders and close them for others in order to create some sort of social order, it 6“determines the politics of an artifact; hence the importance of incorporating all stakeholders in it.” There is an obvious instance to clarify this theory, namely, parkway bridges. The invention, design or arrangements of parkway bridges are so low and its function is out of preventing public transportations or large vehicles from passing, because public transportations are lower class citizens or black people are their main transportations, and under such circumstance only middle or upper class citizens who take tiny carriage as their mode of transportation could pass through it. Shortly, lower class citizens without private vehicles found themselves being discriminated as the politically social order existed. Therefore, the process of technological development plays a significant role on defining the politics of an artifact, meanwhile, the social technology is created by human beings which equipped with certain features and changes to the public world, it potentially establish patterns of authority and create social order.
7“Second are cases if what can be called inherently political technologies, man-made system that appear to require, or to be strongly compatible with, particular kinds of political relationships.” , which means that certain order or arrangement is necessary in authority in the presence of the artifact. And there are two types of inherently political artefacts. First are 8“those that require a particular sociological system and those that are strongly compatible with a particular sociological system (Winner, p. 29, 1999).”
9“A further distinction is made between conditions internal to the workings of a given technical system and those that are external to it (Winner, p. 33, 1999). This second way in which artifacts can have politics can be visualized as a 2-by-2 matrix, consisting of four ‘types’ of artifacts: those requiring a particular internal sociological system, those compatible with a particular internal sociological system, those requiring a particular external sociological system, and those compatible with a particular external sociological system.”
Generally, the artefacts around itself with interactions or stakeholders must be formed in an organized way in order to deal with effectiveness. For instance, 10“the adoption of a given technical system unavoidably brings with it conditions form human relationships that have a distinctive political cast-for example, centralized or decentralized, egalitarian or inegalitarian, repressive or liberating.” In a word, the technology needs organized stakeholders to manage or operate it. As to nuclear power, the necessity of authoritarian order plays a significant role on managing the dangers around the nuclear technology itself. Furthermore, as to train technology itself, the necessity of centralized and hierarchical operating form plays a critical role on managing the complexity of the technology in order to reduce the either predictable or unpredictable accidents.
The argument of “do artifacts have politics” challenges the SCOT, somehow it is neutral object. As to Social constructivists who suggested that social technology does not determine human beings’ behaviours, but somehow, human beings’ behaviours shapes the social technology. The SCOT model is oriented to the design process of technological artifacts, focus technology on the interpretive flexibility and relevant social groups and dealing with the problems and conflicts. There are limitations to SCOT approach which is posed by Langdon Winner, such as it focus on the development of technology, however, the effectiveness of the technology is neglected, which does have few matters with the essence of technology itself. With regardless of the politic facts during the design or developments of artifacts, the relationship between technology and society is not so obvious. The SCOT model demonstrated by Langdon Winner focus more on immediate needs, interests and problems of RSGs influence who technological choice, however, with regardless on the other social elements such as culture, intellectual and so on. It does not take a consideration of ways in which political aspects of the artefacts will affect the use by RSGs; under such circumstance, the problem exists due to insufficiently consider the social aspects.
What is a gender script? Give and discuss an example of a gender scripted artefact.
The gender script is 11“The images of future users and the societal context projected by the designers include cultural presuppositions about the difference between men and women, between masculinity and femininity. When these presumptions are inscribed in the design of the artifact, one can speak of gender script.” It means that gender script gives an artefact human characteristic based on adoption of technology by user whether masculinity or femininity is, namely, defining the user of artefact into a specific gender. The design of gender script can be either explicit or implicit; it demonstrates the impact on RSGs and environment.
The example of the shavers indicates the concept of gender script, there is an obvious instance between male and female shaver users; Philips introduces two types of electric shavers, one for men which is right-angled and dark and the other which has a rounded shapes and pastel colors for women. The shaver for man has buttons with inscriptions such as “charge control”, it allows the male users to charge the shaver in any wall socket, and however, the ladyshave can only be charged in its station holder, unlike men shave can allow users take with them anywhere. Morover, the packaging of men shave focus on gadgets and packaging of ladyshave shows the function of shaver itself. According to the shaver users’ behaviour and taste, the design of shaver also demonstrates the elements of masculinity or femininity; for example, 12“Women prefer pastel shades and round shapes, don't want to tinker with technological objects; don't like gadgets and prefer to stay at home. In contrast, men prefer dark colors and right-angled shapes; like to tinker with technological objects, love gadgets, and have a mobile life style.” Generally, as to shaver’s function which is more or less the same for both genders, they both enable the male or female users remove the hairs, however from different parts of the body. Men are expected to remove beards and ladies are expected to remove hairs from their legs or armpits, the usage of the shavers indicates the cultural and traditional ideals of aesthetics that are described into gender. And the value of the product is diverse on the basis of gender user, for women, shavers were regarded as beauty sets, whereas for men they are labeled as electronic device. Furthermore, 13“Compared to the distribution of tasks, the attribution of competences shows a much more profound gender pattern.” The technical competences are assigned to men instead of women, for example, the design of men shavers allows the users to open the shaver to repair or clean it, and it seems that men enjoy more physically looking shavers based on its utility; comparatively the design of ladyshave does not equip with this function, somehow it shows that women rather enjoy more colourful and bright shavers, the aesthetically attractive designs are more oriented to women. The socialized image attributed to women has constrained men to use the ladyshave and so do the men have limited women using the men shaver. The design of the two types of shaver indicates how gender element has been socialized with women and men’s values.
To sum up, both women and men have conformed the (gender) script, by choosing the stereotypical representations of shaver suited to them which separates the shavers from the essential element of masculinity or femininity.
How can we apply ANT to analyze the foreseen impacts of Peak Oil as sketched in A Crude Awakening? How do these impacts provide an illustration of the breakdown if an actor-world?
ANT- Actor-network theory 14“Explores how sociotechnical elements are assembled and how large-scale social structures work through networks of stabilized materials” It implies the influences and relationships among sociotechnical elements. “Although it is called a “theory”, ANT does not usually explain “why” a network takes the form that it does. It is much more interested in exploring how actor-networks get formed, hold themselves together, or fall apart. It is not, in other words, a theory "of" anything, but rather a methodological stance that researchers can take in their analysis” It demonstrates the influences and behaviours among the actors, and incorporates the principle of generalized symmetry which means that actor can be like humans, who can use tools, or non-human, like a hammer that will cause the user to build muscles to engage in the act of thrashing. 15“Historically, the dividing line between people and machines, and between people and animals, is subject to negotiation and changes; People are who they are because they are themselves a patterned network of diverse interacting materials.” Thus, no matter humans or non-human functions themselves within the same framework. According to network theory, the actor network exists in constant making and re-making, namely, 16“people: everyone involved in the design, construction, distribution, and use of an artifact. Sociogram (SCOT and RSGs); things: the materials brought into place in order to connect the people. Technogram.”, which means that Material resources are part of what make large-scale society possible and feasible, and the process of technology should be continuous otherwise network would disappear. The break-down of an actor-network is the point where the existing social order has been ceased when certain actors are removed. Pertaining the documentary of A Crude Awakening to the theory, the removal of oil when the Peak Oil is reached would result in break-down of order in society.
A Crude Awakening illustrates the actor-network, namely, the relationships between people and crude oil, which indicates how human beings rely on oil as well as the importance of oil to human being on every aspects of life, such as transportation, petrochemicals, energy, cosmetics, and even clothing and clean tap water and so on are all out of oil. When Peak Oil is reaches, an unavoidable issue would exist based on the consequence or results when cheap oil cannot be sufficiently offered, how people could conquer the issue. In the movie, the actors involved are users (everybody) and oil, the non-human actor-oil-act upon the community which influences each aspect of people’s life. For example, due to enormous advances in the modern oil technology, the productivity of manufacturing and prosperity by lowering the costs of production has been crept upon a certain level, especially people can produce and get oil in a financially affordable price, it gives economics incentives to develop itself; thus oil is one of necessary elements to promote economics. However, once the peak oil reached, the oil becomes scare, which means that people cannot get oil in a cheap price to provide significant amounts of energy on economics, under such circumstance, as demand increased and prices increased, the productivity will creep down due to machines that run on fossil fuels run out of cheap fuel. The documentary illustrated all challenges people would face when people cannot use cheap oil, for example, the network among oil, tractors, farmers, and consumers would break down due to shortages of food, the price of food would be increased and productivity would be reduced in this case. Moreover, more wars would be breaking out; the instance that Iraq war (in 2003) provides significant evidence on this issue, because the essence of war that was aroused by US government is to obtain the cheap oil. There is no doubt that oil plays a crucial role on country’s economy, without sufficiently cheap oil, it would suffer depression on economy. And normally, people-the users-would continue exploiting the oil until the alternative resource of oil is developed or the resource of oil is diminished.
Finally, the break-down of an actor-network between human actor, users and non-human actor, crude oil would lead to disappear of social order, because the society on which actors exist run out of cheap oil., and it can be clearly indicated through the pattern of people’s life. For instance, when society runs out of cheap, it would bring negative impact on transportation; people cannot travel freely and economically due to expensive oil. Moreover, the social order would be dramatically ordered due to decreased productivity, people cannot finish the producing tasks efficiently and somehow chaos would be occurred in society.
Bonus Question
How many ANT scholars does it take to change a light bulb?
A network of ANT scholars involved in changing a light bulb, which included actors and technologies (nonhuman actors), each of the actor can change on the other.