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Instructors: Frederik Herget
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
02.149.16811
Credits:
3,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Contents:
What do Quantum Supremacy, Cryptocurreny, personalized medicine, unhackable internet or anti-aging medicine have in common? They all found their way on the MIT’s list of the “10 breakthrough technologies” in 2020. These ten topics were carefully selected as those technologies that will most likely leave their mark on society in the foreseeable future. While it is somewhat speculative to predict what technologies will be influential, it is not a matter of speculation that some of them will change society as much as the car, the internet, radio, the doorknob, or the domestication of wild animals has.
It is an almost trivial statement that technology affects our way of living and that new technologies can trigger social change. The more interesting question is how and why. This is the topic Sociologists face when they are studying technology and innovation. The lecture aims at introducing students to the sociological treatment of technology as an issue of the study of social phenomena.
However, the fact that the lecture introduces the sociology of something makes it necessary to bridge the realm of this something. Technology can not be narrowed down to something that simply influences society and neither can sociology of technology and innovation be narrowed down to the study of technology influencing society. In order to understand the influence of technology it is also necessary to look at the production of technology as a social phenomenon and the influence of technology on the study of social phenomena.
Finally, the lecture will also address governance and ethics issues around technology and innovation.
Recommended reading list:
There will be a reader for the lecture.
Additional information:
The lecture will end with an exam based on the course material.
Digital teaching:
Depending on the situation the lecture will either be online or hybrid.
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