Week 5 - Do Artifacts have Politics?



In 1980 Winner proposed that technologies embody social relations i.e. power. To the question he poses "Do Artifacts Have Politics?", Winner identifies two ways in which artifacts can have politics. The first, involving technical arrangements and social order, concerns how the invention, design, or arrangement of artifacts or the larger system becomes a mechanism for settling the affairs of a community. This way "transcends the simple categories of 'intended' and 'unintended' altogether, representing “instances in which the very process of technical development is so thoroughly biased in a particular direction that it regularly produces results heralded as wonderful breakthroughs by some social interests and crushing setbacks by others" (Winner, p. 25-6, 1999). It implies that the process of technological development is critical in determining the politics of an artifact; hence the importance of incorporating all stakeholders in it. (Determining who the stakeholders are and how to incorporate them are other questions entirely.)

The second way in which artifacts can have politics refers to artifacts that correlate with particular kinds of political relationships, which Winner refers to as inherently political artifacts (Winner, p. 22, 1999). He distinguishes between two types of inherently political artifacts: those that require a particular sociological system and those that are strongly compatible with a particular sociological system (Winner, p. 29, 1999). A further distinction is made between conditions internal to the workings of a given technical system and those that are external to it (Winner, p. 33, 1999). This second way in which artifacts can have politics can be visualized as a 2-by-2 matrix, consisting of four 'types' of artifacts: those requiring a particular internal sociological system, those compatible with a particular internal sociological system, those requiring a particular external sociological system, and those compatible with a particular external sociological system.

As are all typologies, this matrix is a simplification-by-boundary-work – in this case, the two boundaries are drawn between requiring and compatible, and between internal and external. It is this boundary-work that makes the typology useful for avoiding extreme technological determinism, social constructivism, and noetic flatness in conceptualizing an artifact's political qualities, and for thinking about how these qualities change through time.

Winner's thesis has been criticized by other scholars, including Bernward Joerges.

-- Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdon_Winner)



 Winner is  renowned  for  his articles on science, technology and society. Winner was of the  view that technological inventions have a direct impact on politics. His article “Do Artifacts have  politics?” , he shows two ways how artifacts can have politics. The first way he mentions  concerns more on the design perspective of the  technology while in the second he mentions more  on the relationships driven by the technology. Winner mentions that in some cases  technology  is  democratic while in others, it is autocratic. One of the most glaring examples Winner cites is that  of expressways. Moses ensured  construction  of the overpasses low to the ground so that public  buses could not pass under them, and this was done so that lower-income people could not access  the beachfront playgrounds. Moses ensured that the low classes stayed separated from the middle  and upper classes who afforded automobiles. What seems more important is the fact that  Winner is more interested in technologies which have  a large impact or are basically large  <span style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">technology systems.

Class Readings
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-top:.1pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom: .1pt;margin-left:.25in;mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0level1lfo1"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;">1. <span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">Winner, Langdon (1980) Do Artifacts have Politics. <span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">http://zaphod.mindlab.umd.edu/docSeminar/pdfs/Winner.pdf

<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">2. Woolgar and Cooper, (1999) Do Artefacts have Ambivalance? Moses’ Bridges, Winner’s Bridges and Other Urban Legends in STS. <span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin">http://www.jstor.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/stable/285412?seq=1

Homework
''Discuss the basic elements of Winner's views of politics/values embedded inside artifacts/technologies. Critique this view. Explain how your research interests might intersect with a study of values embedded in design/politics embedded in technologies .''

My write up here

Comments on the write-up is here.

Other Class discussions and presentations
1. Introduction to the article. (Here )

2. Other Resources for in-depth study (Here )