Social Construction of Communication Technology

This entry presents a brief overview of the development of social constructionist theory as adopted by the organizational communication discipline when studying technology use in organizations. The discussion begins with a summary of the major ideas in technological determinism, a paradigm to which social constructionist thinking responds. The major sections review seven theoretical traditions: social construction of technology, large technological systems, actor–network theory, technology as occasion for structuring, adaptive structuration theory, social influence theory, and sociomateriality theory. Throughout the discussion the entry focuses on contextualizing theories in the historical contexts in which…