Significant changes in modern society are being brought about by a multitude of recent developments in the communication, information, and biotech fields. To understand this transformation from within the structure and context of modern society requires one to appreciate the mediation of science and technology from an external perspective compared to those conventional approaches which stress the supposedly instrumental and value-neutral character of technology. Such is the approach of technological determinism, which portrays technology as an autonomous development tirelessly and unerringly driving society upwards towards greater and greater economic and social heights.

A recent program administrated by the University of California computer science faculty has developed different ways of articulating the relationships between science, technology, and society which in large part constitute the realities of living in a modern world. In general, programs like this one aim to analyze the socioeconomic and political factors that shape the science and technology in the public and private sectors, as both become dominant forms of knowledge and practice in modern culture. At the heart of the new approach is the methodology of `social constructivism,’ which holds that the traces of science and technology in society can only be gauged through human interpretation. According to this view, the fundamental nature of technology is considered to be essentially a social one, and it is conceived of as a construction rather than a reflection of the intrinsic properties of technology. The roots of this methodology lie in the sociology of scientific knowledge but, as was the case with the methods of social constructivism, such roots began with science studies and were then applied to technology studies, after which they were diverted in a variety of rather disparate directions.

One social constructivist approach in technology studies is what is called strong social constructivism, an approach strictly derived from the sociology of scientific knowledge which advocates for the socially constructed character of scientific knowledge. According to strong social constructivism, technological change is a genuine social construction which must be explained solely by social practices, which has produced its stabilization through the processes of interpretation, negotiation, and closure, undertaken by different social actors.

Under the label of mild social constructivism exists a more moderate approach sometimes referred to as the “social shaping of technology” camp. Although this approach still accepts that social factors shape technology, some elements of “relative autonomy” are recognized as inherent to the research and development process of new technologies. Advocates of the “social shaping” movement accept the action of nonsocial factors in technological change and attribute inherent properties and effects to the developmental process, albeit these properties and effects are usually defined in a particular social context and are due to social or political biases embodied by technology.

A third influential approach is that of the `actor-network theorists’ who try to explain the development and stabilization of scientific and technological objects as the result of the construction of heterogeneous networks, which are concrete alignments of human actors and natural phenomena which exhibit social or technical features. Throughout the process of technology stabilization, all actors in the network, either human/natural or social/technical, are analyzed through the same impartial prism using the same terms and methods which are symmetrically applied. However, special preference is given to the explanatory role of social elements, such as social groups and interpretation processes.

Although the various social constructivist approaches differ in their perspectives, they share certain characteristics. Contrary to the views of technological determinism, social constructivism incorporates contingency and flexibility in the processes of technological change, which is understood to take place in a network of heterogeneous factors which affect both technology and society under certain structural and natural constraints. From this point of view, technological change cannot be analyzed independent of human interpretation; neither can it be attributed to an imagined intrinsic logic of technology. Rather, technological change is shaped from within a common social framework consisting of individual actors, social groups, and other relevant techno-social elements, all of which come together to develop strategies to overcome the obstacles and roadblocks they face in realizing their goal of bringing about technological change.

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