IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022 - 52

Feature
the central position of the builder. In the " heterogeneous
engineering " approach, Law claims that
all factors play their own role directly alongside the
builder. He calls these factors which have unequal
levels of power HEs.
Figure 9. Global networked heterogeneous
co-construction of technologies and
engineers.
even in the natural resources of a given society are
among the cases that can be studied in this way.
The above-mentioned features of our model
enable it to explain some of the national and transnational
issues where technology plays a role. Here
are some recent examples that the proposed model
can describe more comprehensively.
* Conflicts in policies toward the same technologies,
that is, the United States and India banned
TikTok, a Chinese platform.
* Differences in policies influenced by security
issues, that is, Russia and Iran banned Telegram.
* Cultural transitions and interactions because of
Internet emergence, that is, emergence of the
Korean Wave and the pervasiveness of K-Pop and
K-Drama in countries having a different culture
from South Korea.
The first part of this essay reviewed " SCOT, " an
approach about the relationship between society
and technology. Then, John Law's criticism about
SCOT, which led to an alternative approach, was
discussed. In this way, Law favors the " systems "
approach proposed by Thomas Hughes in some
way. Contrary to SCOT, Hughes claims that in different
cases there would be various factors involved in
the development of a technology, such as economic
and political factors. According to Hughes, these
factors that influence technology indirectly through
the system builders might be weighted differently
in various cases of the development of technology.
However, Law disagrees with Hughes' idea about
52
Here, the idea of Andrew Feenberg about the
relationship between society and technology is a
good approach to be adopted to proceed with. In his
article, " Ten Paradoxes of Technology, " Feenberg
provides a profound analysis of this relationship.
Feenberg and Law's ideas have been employed in
this essay to propose a new model for the relationship
between society and technology. In this model, by
considering society as HE groups, and differentiating
between various technologies, the " global networked
heterogeneous co-construction of technologies and
engineers " model was introduced, which highlights
two types of co-construction: technology-mediated
co-construction of HE groups and HEs-mediated
co-construction of various technologies.
in The firsT case, two or more HE groups co-construct
with each other through co-constructing with
a given technology. These co-constructions can
explain several social phenomena such as cultural
exchanges, political reforms, economic chaos, and
also changes in the values, behaviors, and interests
of individuals and social groups. In the second case,
different technologies co-construct with each other
through co-constructing with a given HE group (or
groups). Modification in privacy policies, updates
in feature designs, redefinitions of user experiences,
and so on are among cases that can be explained
by these types of co-constructions. A good suggestion
for future studies would be to review some
cases in recent decades to provide a better understanding
of the global networked heterogeneous
co-construction of technologies and engineers. 
 References
[1] P. Brey, " Philosophy of technology after the empirical
turn, " Techné, Res. Philosophy Technol., vol. 14, no. 1,
pp. 36-48, 2010.
[2] P. Brey, " The strategic role of technology in a good
society, " Technol. Soc., vol. 52, pp. 39-45, Feb. 2018.
[3] M. Bucchi, Science in Society: An Introduction
to Social Studies of Science. Evanston, IL, USA:
Routledge, 2004.
[4] M. Callon, " Society in the making: The study of
technology as a tool for sociological analysis, " in The
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