Shaping Technology, Guiding Policy: Concepts, Spaces and Tools

This text analyses the relationship between technology and society. It highlights both the policy implications of this relationship and possibilities for intervention by government, policymakers, managers and the public. It examines and utilizes a variety of contemporary 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.