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Getting caught between discourse(s): Hybrid choices in technology use at work

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posted on 2023-08-30, 16:25 authored by Chris Ivory, Fred Sherratt, Rebecca Casey, Kayleigh Watson
Winner (1977:77), in defense of technology determinism, cautioned against ‘throwing out the baby with the methodological bathwater’. His concern was that in so doing STS research would underplay, or be unable to account for, the effects that technology change does have on society. We similarly now find that powerful explanatory concepts like ‘structural-discourse’ have been largely expunged from the contemporary STS analytical lexicon; with consequences, we believe, for our ability as researchers to interpret and explain the rapid change we see in contemporary work places. In this paper we make the case for the continued use of a strong structural-discourse theory alongside other emergent forms of discourse. We show how workers, responding to conflicting and different types of discourse, produce varying hybrid responses – actions that react to and combine elements of emergent and structural discourses. Our work considers the implications of this finding for contemporary STS theory.

History

Refereed

  • Yes

Volume

35

Issue number

1

Page range

80-96

Publication title

New Technology, Work and Employment

ISSN

1468-005X

Publisher

Wiley

File version

  • Accepted version

Language

  • eng

Legacy posted date

2019-07-17

Legacy creation date

2019-07-11

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

Faculty of Science & Engineering

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