Science and Technology in Society From Biotechnology to the Internet [Paperback]

This thoughtful and engaging text challenges the widely held notion of science as somehow outside of society, and the idea that technology proceeds automatically down a singular and inevitable path. Through specific case studies involving contemporary debates, this book shows that science and technology are fundamentally part of society and are shaped by it.

• 
  
• Draws on concepts from political sociology, organizational analysis, and contemporary social theory.
  
• Avoids dense theoretical debate.
  
• Includes case studies and concluding chapter summaries for students and scholars.

Acknowledgments.

Abbreviations.

1. Science is Political/ Technology is Social: Concerns, Concepts, and Questions.

Why is Thinking about Science and Technology so Hard?.

Technoscience is Social.

Technoscience is Political.

2. Ceding Debate: Biotechnology and Agriculture.

Biotechnology and the Social Organization of Agriculture and Agri-business.

The Discursive Landscape in the Debate over Biotechnology.

Conclusions.

3. Rethinking Information Technology: Caught in the World Wide Web.

Understanding the Digital Divide.

High Technology Education.

Politics, Civil Action, and the Internet.

Conclusions.

4. Owning Technoscience: Understanding the New Intellectual Property Battles.

Intellectual Property, Social Common Sense, and the Knowledge Commons.

Intellectual Property and the Information Technology Revolution.

Owning Life: Ilc0