JTE v4n1 - Book Review- Technologies & society: The shaping of people and things
Volume 4, Number 1
Fall 1992
BOOK REVIEW
Westrum, Ron. (1991). Technologies & society: The shaping of
people and things. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Compan
$24.50 (paperback), 394 pp. (ISBN 0-534-13644-3)
Reviewed by Alan C. Finlayson
Technology educators and university students will find
no better general introduction to the broader social issues
and contexts of technology than this new book. What seems to
be an acceleration in the rate of catastrophic failures of
technological systems (Chernobyl, Bhopal, Challenger, and
Three Mile Island to name but a few) has made the need for
such a text all the more urgent. Westrum's general thesis is
that the pace of technological change is more rapid than is
the transformation of covalent social structures and
institutions: "We have third generation machines [but] first
generation minds." [p.5]
This work gives us a superb "grand tour" of a crucially
important field that is simply not available elsewhere.
There are, to be sure, many excellent but more specialized
articles and books in the emerging field of the sociology of
science and technology and the interested reader is guided
to them by Westrum's extensive annotations and references.
Westrum's work is a fine example of applied
scholarship. The text is a generalized tool for teaching
and learning about the complexities and subtleties of the
interactive relationships between technology and society.
Westrum's writing is open and inviting and the ideas
accessible precisely because the author has rigorously
purged his work of the "priestly language" which is,
unfortunately, the taken-for-granted hallmark of "serious
scholarship."
Not only is this an excellent text for academic
application, it could also be very usefully read and
effectively employed by practicing engineers and managers of
technologically intensive businesses and organizations.
People in roles as diverse as military command and hospital
administration could use the insights and broadly-drawn data
from this book to improve their understanding and use of
technologies.
The book opens with a review of the history of our
understanding of the relationships between culture, social
organization, and technology. This ranges from Marx's
emphasis on the inherent political content of technologies
to the autonomous and deterministic theory of technology
propounded by William F. Ogburn in the early 1920's to the
presently growing influence of the view that technologies
are "socially constructed." Westrum's own treatment is an
even-handed and sustained synthesis of all of these more
radical and uncompromising perspectives.
This book is about the mutual shaping of people and
things. It explores the interaction of people and
technology in a changing society.It examines the social
relations between people and milk bottles, parking meters,
nuclear power plants, and many other technologies. It
explores how people and technologies shape each other...
[p.5]
The work is so well organized and transparently written
that it is easy to overlook the fact that Westrum has
accomplished one of the most difficult tasks in analytical
sociology. His exegesis of the social/technical nexus
weaves seamlessly through all levels of social organization
and does so from multiple perspectives. A historical review
of the role of innovative individuals flows into a
discussion of how varying social structures and cultural
environments influence the rate and direction of
technological development. One chapter opens with a
micro-study of the small firm that developed liquid hand
soap, segues into an expanding analysis of the triangular
dynamics of technology, corporate organization, and markets,
moves on to examine the causes and conditions of social
resistance to technologies, and closes with a look at the
evolution of technological niches. Similar deft and
thoughtful treatment is given to the interactive
relationships with technology of our political, regulatory,
and educational institutions.
Applied in its intended context this text will be a
extremely useful and effective piece of work. Westrum's
target audience is undergraduate students majoring in
technological fields such as engineering and students who
plan to concentrate on social studies of science and
technology. It should also be a required text in courses
that prepare technology educators for the nation's K-12
schools. Ideally, the course should be taught by a person
well-versed in the sociology of science and technology.
Like the best of such books, Westrum's work is thought-
provoking and will surely give rise to questions that are
not directly answered in the text.
However, it would be a pity if the readership of this
superb and thought-provoking work was bounded by the walls
of the academy. We live in a thoroughly and relentlessly
technological world of our own construction. Every aspect
of our lives is in some way dependent upon and affected by
technology. The clothes we wear, the housing that shelters
us, the work we do, the food we eat, even the air we breathe
reflect our socially mediated technological choices. Anyone
who's life and work intersects with technology--inventors,
developers, designers, entrepreneurs, stylists, marketers,
regulators, sponsors, opponents, competitors, users, and
consumers of technology--could profit from an open-minded
reading of Westrum's work.
---------------
Alan C. Finlayson is currently in the doctoral program in
the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY.
Permission is given to copy any
article or graphic provided credit is given and
the copies are not intended for sale.
Journal of Technology Education Volume 4, Number 1 Fall 1992