Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society Michael E
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Media Technologies Inside Technology edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, W. Bernard Carlson, and Trevor Pinch Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet Atsushi Akera, Calculating a Natural World: Scientists, Engineers and Computers during the Rise of U.S. Cold War Research Morana Alač, Handling Digital Brains: A Laboratory Study of Multimodal Semiotic Interaction in the Age of Computers Stathis Arapostathis and Graeme Gooday, Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain Charles Bazerman, The Languages of Edison’s Light Marc Berg, Rationalizing Medical Work: Decision-Support Techniques and Medical Practices Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law, editors, Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change Wiebe E. Bijker, Roland Bal, and Ruud Hendricks, The Paradox of Scientific Authority: The Role of Scientific Advice in Democracies Karin Bijsterveld, Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century Stuart S. Blume, Insight and Industry: On the Dynamics of Technological Change in Medicine Pablo J. Boczkowski, Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers Geoffrey C. Bowker, Memory Practices in the Sciences Geoffrey C. Bowker, Science on the Run: Information Management and Industrial Geophysics at Schlumberger, 1920–1940 Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences Louis L. Bucciarelli, Designing Engineers Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes, and Yannick Barthe, Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy H. M. Collins, Artificial Experts: Social Knowledge and Intelligent Machines Park Doing, Velvet Revolution at the Synchrotron: Biology, Physics, and Change in Science Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America Andrew Feenberg, Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot, editors, Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society Michael E. Gorman, editor, Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise: Creating New Kinds of Collaboration Herbert Gottweis, Governing Molecules: The Discursive Politics of Genetic Engineering in Europe and the United States Joshua M. Greenberg, From Betamax to Blockbuster: Video Stores and the Invention of Movies on Video Kristen Haring, Ham Radio’s Technical Culture Gabrielle Hecht, Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War Gabrielle Hecht, The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II Kathryn Henderson, On Line and On Paper: Visual Representations, Visual Culture, and Computer Graphics in Design Engineering Christopher R. Henke, Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California Christine Hine, Systematics as Cyberscience: Computers, Change, and Continuity in Science Anique Hommels, Unbuilding Cities: Obduracy in Urban Sociotechnical Change Deborah G. Johnson and Jameson W. Wetmore, editors, Technology and Society: Building Our Sociotechnical Future David Kaiser, editor, Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio, Biomedical Platforms: Reproducing the Normal and the Pathological in Late-Twentieth-Century Medicine Eda Kranakis, Constructing a Bridge: An Exploration of Engineering Culture, Design, and Research in Nineteenth-Century France and America Jens Lachmund, Greening Berlin: The Co-Production of Science, Politics, and Urban Nature Christophe Lécuyer, Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930–1970 Pamela E. Mack, Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance Donald MacKenzie, Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change Donald MacKenzie, Mechanizing Proof: Computing, Risk, and Trust Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets Cyrus C. M. Mody, Instrumental Community: Probe Microscopy and the Path to Nanotechnology Maggie Mort, Building the Trident Network: A Study of the Enrollment of People, Knowledge, and Machines Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City Helga Nowotny, Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation in a Fragile Future Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachmann, editors, Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology, and European Users Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor Pinch, editors, How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology Shobita Parthasarathy, Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care Trevor Pinch and Richard Swedberg, editors, Living in a Material World: Economic Sociology Meets Science and Technology Studies Paul Rosen, Framing Production: Technology, Culture, and Change in the British Bicycle Industry Richard Rottenburg, Far-Fetched Facts: A Parable of Development Aid Susanne K. Schmidt and Raymund Werle, Coordinating Technology: Studies in the International Standardization of Telecommunications Wesley Shrum, Joel Genuth, and Ivan Chompalov, Structures of Scientific Collaboration Rebecca Slayton, Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949– 2011 Chikako Takeshita, The Global Politics of the IUD: How Science Constructs Contraceptive Users and Women’s Bodies Charis Thompson, Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technology Dominique Vinck, editor, Everyday Engineering: An Ethnography of Design and Innovation Media Technologies Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected]. This book was set in Stone by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Media technologies : essays on communication, materiality, and society / edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot. p. cm. — (Inside technology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-52537-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Digital media. 2. Communication and technology. I. Gillespie, Tarleton, editor of compilation. II. Boczkowski, Pablo J., editor of compilation. III. Foot, Kirsten A., editor of compilation. P96.T42M43 2014 302.23'1—dc23 2013014966 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents About the Contributors ix Editors’ Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction 1 Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot I The Materiality of Mediated Knowledge and Expression 2 Materiality and Media in Communication and Technology Studies: An Unfinished Project 21 Leah A. Lievrouw 3 Steps Toward Cosmopolitanism in the Study of Media Technologies: Integrating Scholarship on Production, Consumption, Materiality, and Content 53 Pablo J. Boczkowski and Ignacio Siles 4 Closer to the Metal 77 Finn Brunton and Gabriella Coleman 5 Emerging Configurations of Knowledge Expression 99 Geoffrey C. Bowker 6 “What Do We Want?” “Materiality!” “When Do We Want It?” “Now!” 119 Jonathan Sterne 7 Mediations and Their Others 129 Lucy Suchman Contents viii II The People, Practices, and Promises of Information Networks 8 Making Media Work: Time, Space, Identity, and Labor in the Analysis of Information and Communication Infrastructures 141 Gregory J. Downey 9 The Relevance of Algorithms 167 Tarleton Gillespie 10 The Fog of Freedom 195 Christopher M. Kelty 11 Rethinking Repair 221 Steven J. Jackson 12 Identifying the Interests of Digital Users as Audiences, Consumers, Workers, and Publics 241 Sonia Livingstone 13 The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Networks 251 Fred Turner References 261 Author Index 309 Subject Index 319 About the Contributors Pablo J. Boczkowski is professor and director of the Program in Media, Technology and Society at Northwestern University. He is the author of Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers (MIT Press, 2004), News at Work: Imitation in an Age of Information Abundance (University of Chicago Press, 2010), and, together with Eugenia Mitchelstein, The News Gap: When the Information Preferences of the Media and the Public Diverge (MIT Press, 2013), as well as over thirty journal articles and book chapters. His projects include a study of the demise of print newspapers as a window into understanding how institutions decay. Geoffrey C. Bowker is professor at the School of Information and Computer Science, University of California at Irvine, where he directs the Evoke Laboratory (http://evoke.ics.uci.edu). Recent positions include professor of and senior scholar in cyberscholarship at the University of Pittsburgh iSchool and executive director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University. Together with Leigh Star he wrote Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (MIT Press, 1999); his most recent book is Memory Practices in the