The Social Construction of Artefacts: A Response to Pinch and Bijker

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In this paper, Russell argues that science and technology are fundamentally different (one in an activity, and the other in a product), and therefore the social processes of the two ideas cannot be viewed as intertwined. Instead of attempting to develop a single, uniform model of socially understanding technology wrapped with science, he argues that we already have a model suitable for understanding technology: a Marxist form of social analysis.

At the core of Russell’s argument is that technology is not neutral, and to study it with that assumption presents two flaws: first, that an attempt at impartiality ignores the content of the technology itself, which is significant, and second, that technology has asymmetrical impact on social interests of various groups. A relativist approach is, he explains, “inadequate analytically and unacceptable politically.”

Russell argues against the Social Construction of Technology model advanced by Pinch and Bijker. He critiques the model as deterministic in its focus on use of technology, as if the technology itself were inevitable: it ignores how the technology came to be in the first place, which is entirely a social activity of selection, prioritization, inclusion and exclusion. The “whole process,” he argues, must be scrutinized in order to understand whom decided a technology should exist at all, and what things were deemed less or not important in the process of making that decision.

This is just a small part of Russell’s second assertion: that a view of technological change must always consider those involved in the larger surround of a technology. He critiques Pinch and Bijke’s off-hand reference to “social group,” which he views to be inadequate in richness to form a meaningful understanding of the impact of a technology and those who influenced it. A vague gesture to people doesn’t account for a nuanced understanding of real impact on anyone, “be it a developer, adopter, operator, consumer, sufferer of side effects, or whatever.” It is not enough to simply address the impact on these groups, either; Russell argues that an explanation of technology must show “not only what different social groups think about an artifact, but also what they are able to do about it.”

Russell suggests that there is an existing model that serves well for exploring technology change with culture; a Marxist paradigm, traditionally focused on the impact of technological introduction into a workplace, can be seamlessly reappropriated to explore the impact of technological introduction into a society at large. The elements of a more traditional Marxist framework, such as classes, economic relations, power, and interests, can be used as evaluative lenses, as can politics of the state (as well as a set of more localized interests of corporations.) A Marxist framework is one that considers a system of forces often working in conflict with one-another, and Russell argues that to understand a technology means understanding the systems in which it exists. A consideration of a bicycle is incomplete without a consideration of roads, cars, travel laws, raw materials, supply and distribution chains, labor, and so-on. And this technical system evaluation needs to be complemented with a like historic evaluation, showing the sociopolitical, economic, and precedent-technology factors that led to its creation.