| Chapter 1: | Converting Consumers: The Conceptual Dependence of Controversial Artifacts |
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Within this framework, technological change is characterized by a contest of meanings from which one interpretation emerges to shape the technological form of the artifact. Trevor Pinch sums up the core of technological change according to SCOT:
According to SCOT, these developmental paths diverge primarily because meanings advocated by each social group differ radically from one another. Each meaning generates a different type of technical content.16 A primary task of the SCOT analyst is to ensure that the groups are homogeneous with respect to the meanings they represent.17 All members of a group agree on a particular artifact’s look and function. Thus, in many ways, one social group represents one worldview. According to Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker,
Here a group-level analysis becomes critical to explaining technological change and diffusion. However, it remains unclear how and why the remaining social groups would concede to the choice of the prevailing group. This question also remains unanswered in Basalla’s notion of selecting agents, in which people would conceivably have more things to choose from because of the inherent propensity of technological artifacts to diversify. Why would the remaining groups simply accept the artifact chosen by the “victorious” group? In the final stage in the developmental process according to SCOT, do relevant social groups merge and become one relevant social group relative to the artifact’s meaning, or do groups simply dissolve?
Group membership in SCOT tends to be well established throughout the developmental process and, in Basalla’s model, fairly exclusive. Basalla’s group of selectors do not represent the general populace, while SCOT posits that shared meaning is sufficient to maintain group integrity throughout the developmental cycle.