Shaping Technology, Guiding Policy: Concepts, Spaces and Tools

This book makes significant advances in analysing the relationship between technology and society. It highlights both the policy implications of this relationship and new possibilities for intervention by government, policymakers, managers and the public.

Shaping Technology, Guiding Policy examines and utilises a variety of recently emerging concepts which highlight the scope for local discretion and choice in the way that technologies are designed and used as well as the broader structures and systems that may serve to restrict choice. By applying these concepts to an analysis of case studies of various social and technical settings, the book explores their utility for understanding the ways in which contemporary technologies are developed and applied and how they are made to influence society.

Academics and researchers from a wide variety of perspectives will find this new book fascinating reading, including scholars from science and technology studies, technology policy and the management of technology. Technology policymakers and practitioners would also find the book of interest.

Edited by Knut H. Sørensen, Professor of Sociology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway and Robin Williams, Professor of Socio-Economic Research, The University of Edinburgh, UK