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Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 17, No. 3, 282-312 (1992)
DOI: 10.1177/016224399201700302

Technological Dramas

Bryan Pfaffenberger

University of Virginia

This article examines the technological construction of political power, as well as resistance to political power, by means of an "ideal-typical" model called a technolog ical drama. In technological regularization, a design constituency creates artifacts whose features reveal an intention to shape the distribution of wealth, power, or status in society. The design constituency also creates myths, social contexts, and rituals to legitimate its intention and constitute the artifact's political impact. In reply, the people adversely affected by regularization engage in myth-, context-, or artifact-altering strate gies that represent an accommodation to the system (technological adjustment) or a conscious attempt to change it (technological reconstitution). A technological drama, in short, is a specifically technological form of political discourse. A key point is that throughout all three processes, political "intentions," no less than the facticity and hardness of the technology's "impact," are themselves constituted and constructed in reciprocal and discursive interaction with technological activities. Technology is not politics pursued by other means; it is politics constructed by technological means.


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