Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society
About: This article is published in Journal of Interdisciplinary History.The article was published on 1984-01-23. It has received 1371 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Electrification.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the question of how technological transitions (TT) come about and identify particular patterns and mechanisms in transition processes, defined as major, long-term technological changes in the way societal functions are fulfilled.
5,020Â citations
Cites background from "Networks of Power: Electrification ..."
...Much of this work, however, has a focus on theemergence of LTS (e.g.Hughes, 1983, 1987; Mayntz and Hughes, 1988) with little attention for thetransition from one LTS to another (only to some extent inSummerton, 1994). elsewhere (Kemp, 1994; Schot et al., 1994; Rip and Kemp, 1998; Kemp et al., 1998;…...
[...]
Book•
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In Sorting Things Out, Bowker and Star as mentioned in this paper explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world and examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary.
Abstract: What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.
4,480Â citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this paper, Arcangeli, Paul David, Frank Engelman, Christopher Freeman, Massimo Moggi, Richard Nelson, Luigi Orsenigo, Nathan Rosenberg, Michele Salvati, G. N. von Tunzelman, two anonymous referees, and the participants at the meeting of the Committee on Distribution, Growth, and Technical Progress of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), Rome, November 16, 1985, have helped with various redraftings.
Abstract: Fabio Arcangeli, Paul David, Frank Engelman, Christopher Freeman, Massimo Moggi, Richard Nelson, Luigi Orsenigo, Nathan Rosenberg, Michele Salvati, G. N. von Tunzelman, two anonymous referees, and the participants at the meeting of the Committee on Distribution, Growth, and Technical Progress of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), Rome, November 16, 1985, have helped with various redraftings. A particularly grateful acknowledgment is for the insightful and patient help of Moses Abramovitz. This work has been undertaken at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, as part of the research program of the Designated Research Centre, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Earlier support to the research that led to this paper by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) is also gratefully acknowledged. The statistical research has been undertaken with the assistance of Stephano Brioschi, Ilaria Fornari, and Giovannu Prennushi.
4,373Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make four contributions to the approach by addressing some open issues in the sectoral systems of innovation (SOSI) approach, namely, explicitly incorporating the user side in the analysis, suggesting an analytical distinction between systems, actors involved in them, and the institutions which guide actor perceptions and activities.
3,221Â citations
01 Aug 1992
TL;DR: The actor-network theory as discussed by the authors is a body of theoretical and empirical writing which treats social relations, including power and organization, as network effects and argues that society and organization would not exist if they were simply social.
Abstract: This paper describes the theory of the actor-network, a body of theoretical and empirical writing which treats social relations, including power and organization, as network effects. The theory is distinctive because it insists that networks are materially heterogeneous and argues that society and organization would not exist if they were simply social. Agents, texts, devices, architectures are all generated in, form part of, and are essential to, the networks of the social. And in the first instance, all should be analyzed in the same terms. Accordingly, in this view, the task of sociology is to characterize the ways in which materials join together to generate themselves and reproduce institutional and organizational patterns in the networks of the social.
2,439Â citations