If Thomas Edison invented electric light today, Dan Rather would report it on CBS News as "candle making industry

threatened". Newt Gingrich

In what ways do artifacts have politics according to Langdon Winner? What challenges does this pose to SCOT? Langdon Winner, a professor of Political Science, in the article Do artifacts have politics? suggests that technical objects ought to be attended to more closely as the contexts in which those objects are situated cannot be ignored. For the sake of the article he defines politics as arrangement of power and authority in human associations as well as the activities that take place within those arrangements. In this article, Winner suggests that technologies are accustomed to be seen as neutral tools that can be used well or poorly, for good, evil, or something in between. But we usually do not stop to inquire whether a given device might have been designed and built in a way that it produces a set of consequences logically and temporarily prior to any of its professed uses. In his article, he proves his point that technologies have politics as they serve more than the mere purpose that meets the eye, by giving the example of McCormicks machines and Robert Mosess bridges. Both these technologies encompassed purposes far beyond their immediate use. Both the examples are of artifacts built with particular intentions embodied in physical form serving political purposes. Winner depicts in this article that all artifacts possess politics; the artifact does not have to be a conscious conspiracy or be of malicious intentions. An artifact whose political nature causes imbalance can also result in the invention of artifact that acts as a restoration of balance in society. An example of such scenario is the increase in difficulties faced by handicapped individuals due to the increase of buses, buildings, sidewalks etc, thus excluding them from the public life. Whole ranges of artifacts are not being redesigned and rebuilt to cater to this minority. 1

Winner claims that technologies are ways of building order in the world. Consciously or not, deliberately or inadvertently, Societies chose structures for technologies that influence how people are going to work, communicate, travel, consume and so forth over a very long time. He suggests that the same careful attention one would give to the rules, roles, and relationship of politics must also be given to such things as the building of highways, the creation of television network and the tailoring of seemingly insignificant features of new machines. According to Winner, technologies are relatively flexible in design and arrangement and variable in their affects. He also suggests that certain kinds of technology do not allow flexibility and that to choose it is to choose a particular form of political life. Some technologies are entirely political: they are more conducive to particular patterns of power and authority than others. An example provided in this article of such an artifact is of the nuclear power. Some kinds of technology require their social environment to be structured in a particular way. It is a form of a practical necessity. Another argument presented by Winner suggests that a given kind of technology is strongly compatible with, but does not strictly require, social and political relationships of a particular stripe. Atom bomb is an inherently political artifact. As long as it exists at all, its lethal properties demand that it be controlled by a centralized, rigidly hierarchical chain of command closed to all influences that might make its workings unpredictable. Challenges posed to SCOT In the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) the developmental process of a technological artifact is described as an alternation of variation and selection. Advocates of SCOT argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology. Regardless of the bridge between humans and technology, Langdon Winner proposes that all

artifacts have politics whether deliberately or unconsciously. They are sometimes designed, deliberately or not, to open certain social options and to close others SCOT is a multidirectional model. In the SCOT descriptive model, relevant social groups are they key starting point. The phrase is used to denote institutions and organizations as well as organized or unorganized groups of individuals. All members of a certain social group share the same set of meanings, attached to a specific artifact. A challenge posed to SCOT is the structural exclusion. SCOT does not include all relevant social groups in technical choice and settings of technological agendas. Therefore, this might leave room for possible errors when studying an artefact. Technical artifacts do not exist without the social interactions within and among social groups. The design details of artifacts are described by focusing on the problems and solutions that those relevant social groups have with respect to the artifact. Another challenge posed to SCOT model is the narrowness of scope. It studies technical change of the artifact only by focusing on the design stage. SCOT model does an in-dept analysis of how the technology rose, yet it does not talk about the affect it had on technology after its invention. A crucial concept in SCOT is interpretative flexibility. The theoretical concept of technological frame of a social group is employed to explain the interactions within and between social groups that shape artifacts; these technological frames share and are shaped by these interactions. A challenged posed on SCOT is that it disregards the social structure and the larger power relations within which technological change takes place. It analyses on micro-level in order to explain dynamics of technological choice. It only focuses on the idea that society moulds technology and disregards the presumption that society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values

There is no sense of right and wrong in the SCOT model, whereas Langdon Winner suggests that because there is politics associated with every artifact, it raises the point of being right or wrong. An example is of the overpasses deliberately designed by Robert Mosses in New York, to achieve a particular social affect. It was built supporting racial discrimination.

In what sense can technology be considered masculine? What might be the impact of this? Masculinity suggests pertaining to characteristic of men. Since always men have been associated with strength, boldness, power and have been more technologically advanced as compared to women. Over time there have been many great debates on gender inequalities and stereotypes associated with the two genders. According to the feminists perspective there are gender inequalities in all areas of social life. They also believe that there lies a series of constraints such as courtship customs, sexual norms, womens roles, and gender relations and forms of resistance in womens lives in social institutions. There are various reasons of the exclusion of women from technology. Women usually show a lack of interest and technical competence when it comes to technology. There is a gendered division of labor and job segregation, especially in the past when there were more men required due to their physical strength where as women were considered weak. This vicious cycle still has not recovered today. Technology has always been the area where men excelled as they proved to be more hands on and drawn towards it more. Although women have also made contribution to technology but it often has gone unnoticed due to it be being coded too feminine for the use of men. Technology is traditionally regarded as a male arena of activity. Masculine connotations are associated to the traditional concept of technology. Social impact of technology is an important concept as all artifacts have the tendency to socially change the courtship customs, sexual norms, womens roles, and gender relations. Masculine, feminine or gender-neutral qualities of a 4

technology are dependant on scription. Gender can be an explicit or an implicit element in the design process. Scription refers to how technical objects enable or constrain relationships between people and things as well as human relations. The designers in-script an assumed vision whereas users of the technology de-script it when using the technology. Gender script is the inscription and de-scription of images of masculinities and femininities in artifacts. Gender symbolism plays a key role in technology. A technology can be considered masculine whose traits are similar to men, that is, it physically appears to be strong, well built and bold. The qualities that are in-scripted are suggestive of masculine nature whereas when it is being de-scripted by the user it also is successfully viewed as having masculine connotations. Usually color also plays a pivotal role since colors are also associated to gender. Technology can be seen as masculine when it shows the traits and colors associated to men, such as black, blue, grey. Whereas, if the technological artifact is of the color pink or red, the artifact in question will automatically fall in the feminine category. An example of a masculine technology is buildings. These days people are designing new and innovative technology to make skyscrapers. Throughout cities and countries there has been a silent race going on where every time the new skyscraper made is more fancy, durable and higher than the one made previously. This has resulted in skyscrapers of different sizes and shapes all over the world. A few of these exquisite buildings include; The Petronas Twin Towers in Paris, 30 St Mary Axe in London and in 2009 Burj Dubai, the tallest skyscraper till date will be added to the long list as well. The skyscraper is a masculine technology as it depicts traits that are associated to the male gender. Skyscrapers stand tall high above the rest of the city with deep strong foundations. They are intimidating yet they raise curiosity in the eyes of the onlooker. Another interesting fact that rose in one of the SOC3116 class lectures by Professor Larose is the

shape of the skyscraper being similar to an organ possessed only by males. It can be argued that it is not the intention of the designers to inscript skyscrapers in this particular shape, and it is mainly due to factors such as air resistance, but many de-script it in a way when arguing about size and shape thus associating skyscrapers with a masculine trait. The impact of such technology is a rise of women elevating the issue of gender inequality in society. With the increase in gender technologies it might induce people to be more attracted towards technologies related to their own gender; an example is that, as kids, girls are given Barbie dolls to play whereas boys are given building blocks and cars. This moulds their interest to specific technologies only. Giving the technology gender limits what people can and cannot do. It also raises stereotypical behavior that is associated with gender. It induces barriers and restrictions among what a gender is supposed to do. As a result if people do not follow the norms set by society then it can later infuse taboos. In long term which will limit the potential of future generations who abide by the genderscript.

What does ANT say about the role of non-human actors in social change? Do you find this position useful and/or tenable? Actor-network theory (ANT) includes work of Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, Madeleine Akrich, John Law, Michael Lynch, Stephen Woolgar and Donna Haraway. Their analysis is a set of negotiations that describes the progressive constitution of a network in which both human and non-human actors assume identities according to prevailing strategies of interaction. ATN explores how sociotechnical elements are assembled and how large-scale social structures work through networks of stabilized materials. The Actor-Network theory consists of and links together both human and non-human actors. Each actor is connected with, depending on, influencing, shaping and strengthening the position of each other. For the sake of this theory, an actor is defined as, anything that has the ability to act. It includes people, but also technical devices, material objects and natural phenomena. It comprises of both humans and non- alike. Each actor is capable of connecting with one another with and depending on another. It can also influence, shape and strengthen the position of every other. Actor is a network of heterogeneous elements. The two systems of association can narrow down to people and things. People include everyone who is involved in the design, construction, distribution, and use of an artifact, therefore, working as a Sociogram. Things are the materials that are brought into place in order to connect the people, thus, working as a Technogram. The Actor-Network is the structure and operation of an actor-world. Actor-World is the world of entities, human and non-human alike, generated by an actor-network. In the video A Crude Awakening, It can be seen that in the world today oil is the nonhuman actor. All the people who fall in the relevant social groups go down under the category of human actors. Some of the relevant social groups include consumers, Oil refiners across the 7

world and Government of various countries. I agree that when applying the Actor-Network Theory to this issue it can be stated that the non-human actors definitely play a vital role in social change. This is because technology is vastly dependant on oil since it is our main source of energy. There is no alternative of comparative scale to oil. Our reliance on oil instigates a series of conflicts among relevant social groups. Oil has made people so dependent on it that without its existence it will so deeply affect social change that it will result in chaos. Regardless of the presumed catastrophe it will create when the world would run out of this precious and non-renewable artifact, it has given rise to technology that has changed the world socially. It is used in everything from cooking to providing means of transportation to technology. This non-human actor has played a vital role in social change as it has promoted technological advancements since its existence. Non-human actors and human actors have an impact on one another, that is, every action from an actor spawns a reaction from the relevant actor. An example of such situation is the public data misleading and misrepresenting of how much oil is left for political reasons. In this case, the politicians work as the human-actor. These politicians make money off of a non-human actor as in 20 years they dont care what happens to the actors or what impact this have socially. As a result in this case the price bearing actor (tax payer) pays more for a commodity than its actual worth hence, creating a whole new dimension which encompasses a very diverse set of human and non-human actor interactions. This proves that human actors take advantage of nonhuman actors in social change. Moreover, implementing alternative sources of energy is expensive and time consuming; we see that as a result of finding alternatives to oil all industries are facing social change. Thus industries play a role of non-human actors in their attempt to survive and thrive out of their

addiction to oil. The actor-network theory suggests that all actors are intertwined. An example is: oil; which is a non-human actor, gives rise to organizations which condemn oil abuse; which in return is another non-human actor. The non-human actor, oil, subsequently gives rise to other non-human actors due to social change. Every minuscule human and non-human interaction results in some form of impact on society. Actor-Network Theory emphasizes that non-human actors weigh equal to human actors in social change.

Bonus Question How many ANT scholars does it take to change a light bulb? At least half a dozen ANT scholars will ponder on this and come to a conclusion thatIt is not only about changing the bulb, it is about the reasons preceding, the actors at work and the consequences to follow as he who commits the act of changing the bulb shall weigh no more than the human/non-human actors demanding the change. They will then draw straws; whoever gets the smallest will change the bulb!