The Social and Discursive Construction of New Information Technologies

Social constructivism provides a fruitful approach for understanding new information technologies. Some leading ideas of social constructivism are introduced, and a discursive reading is given of a model that integrates them: Collins’s “empirical programme of relativism” (EPOR). The importance of discourse in the social construction of technologies is illustrated by the construction of meanings for the “information superhighway”, or “infobahn” in some American popular magazines.

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