IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022 - 50

Feature
Co-construction of heterogeneous
engineers groups and technologies
As previously mentioned, " co-construction of
society and technology, " which describes the intertwinement
of society and technology, is Feenberg's
alternative approach to the three approaches of SCOT,
systems, and heterogeneous engineering.
In
this
essay, we attempt to augment Feenberg's approach
in a more detailed way. Considering the co-construction
of HEs and technology, there is a global network
of various groups of HEs and various technologies
throughout the world. In this network, two types of
co-constructions are revealed: first, the co-construction
of " HE groups " with each other by the mediation
of technology and then the co-construction of " technologies "
by the mediation of HE groups. A historical
review of the evolution of technology will help us gain
a better understanding of this idea.
Before the emergence of some modern communication
technologies, there were a number of
" local co-constructions " among local HEs (including
the interests of social groups, politics, culture,
nature, etc., belonging to a society in a specific
region) and some local technologies. Due to the
lack of current communication technologies, weak
relations among different societies prevented the formation
of the above-mentioned global network. In
the decades that follow, the emergence and expansion
of transportation technologies such as trains
and airplanes, and information and communication
technologies like the telephone, radio and TV, and
finally the internet,8 lead to the strengthening of relations
throughout the world. Consequently, a network
is formed from HE groups as well as from various
societies and local and international technologies.
To elaborate these global networked co-constructions
of HE groups and technologies, it is necessary
to pay more attention to the controversies of these
HEs concerning the formation of technologies.
Therefore, the two foregoing co-constructions
(technology-mediated co-construction of HE groups
and HE-mediated co-construction of technologies)
will be explained in the following sections.
Technology-mediated co-construction
of HE groups (HE↔T↔HE)
Suppose that a technology has been developed
in a group of local HEs and that during this process,
8It is noteworthy that Feenberg [11] has recently published an article that is devoted
to the analysis of the internet and some of its social aspects.
following the competition between these HEs, the
desired values of the prevailing factors have been
embedded in this technology. This technology is
then transferred to another society, maintaining its
relation with its original builders. By introducing
this technology into a new society with new local
HE group, the co-construction of this group and the
imported technology begins. Here, a confrontation
between the values of the HEs of the destination
society and the values embedded in the imported
technology might occur.
This challenge persuades the HEs of the destination
society to seek a way of modifying that technology
and constructing an adapted product that
is appropriate to their own will. As a result, a new
controversy occurs over this technology among
the origin and destination HE groups. Each of the
groups that prevails over the other will determine
the next version of that technology. Therefore, the
victor's values, which are now embedded in the
new version, will affect the politics, culture, the
economy, environment, and even the interests of
the social groups of the vanquished society, due
to the co-construction of this technology and the
failed HE groups. Indeed, a technology-mediated
co-construction between these two groups of HEs
has occurred. It is worth mentioning that according
to what has been explained before, especially in
" the paradox of action, " the relation between these
two HE groups is not unilateral. Due to the process
of co-construction, the vanquished group will also
influence the winner's HEs, but in less effective
ways, of course.
HEs-mediated co-construction of
technologies (T↔HE↔T)
The emergence of giant technology companies
has caused a new type of co-construction: the
co-construction of two technologies mediated by a
group of HEs. Suppose that two rival technologies, T1
and T2, focusing on the same targeted society (HEs
group), compete for acquiring more customers and
then T1, which is a product of a giant multinational
company, vanquishes T2. Therefore, according to
what has been explained earlier, specially " the paradox
of the means, " T1 can modify the identity of that
targeted HE group. Now this group, affected by T1 or
in more exact words, by the values incorporated in
T1, co-constructs with T2 as an alternative technology
and embeds these values in T2.
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022

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