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THE MAJESTY OF DAYLIGHT

Published on Nov 30, 2015

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Of Bicycles Bakelites and Bulbs:

Towards a theory of sociotechnical change

THE MAJESTY OF DAYLIGHT

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF FLUORESCENT LAMPS 
Photo by Anton Fomkin

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT ?

This chapter is to demonstrate that all relevant social groups do participate. Other chapters bicycles and bakelite was constructed at the workbench. Flourescent lighting at diffusion stage. Demand side of the market was not cohesive. Emerged in a science based industry
Photo by Anton Fomkin

STRUCTURE OF ELECTRIC LAMP INDUSTRY

 
Antitrust legislations
Patent liscencing made small social groups - Manufacturers and utilities, fixure manufacturers, small independent firms, MRs. Housewife
GE indirectly controlled about 97%.
This could have been possible only in the highly industrial nations.

Photo by Anton Fomkin

History of fluorescent lamps

Photo by Anton Fomkin

Electrified America

Technology as the fundamental a The photographer Paul Strand (see figure 4.11) claimed
that humans had "consummated a new creative act, a new Trinity: God
the Machine, Materialistic Empiricism the Son, and Science the Holy
Ghost."44 Machines were everywhere, and their impact went beyond
their physical existence to challenge perceptions of the self and the
world, and thus to imply a whole new culture.
it. "As America
electrified, in the imagination it became electrifying" (Nye, 1990:
Nye, 1990: 382).
Electrical terminology suffused popular language with metaphors of
power, and in the Depression years, American leaders were expected
to be "live wires" to recharge the American economy. These "human
dynamos" could stage "electrifying performances" after having "powered
up" in the morning with a strong cup of coffee, called "battery
acid." If they were man and woman, their first meeting might "give off
sparks" and one could "feel the electricity."
The Majesty of Daylight: The Social Construction of Fluorescent Lighting . 223
Figure.

Newyork fair - GE stall - audible light visible sound

Tint lighting Vs Daylight lamps

which these lamps produce colored light have never been approached"
(Anon., 1939: 45).
T
that all had power factor correction incorporated could be securedwithout the utilities being able to claim the
selling of more (useful) electric power.
Although this may seem a rather straightforward
Photo by adam_moralee

Social construction of fluorescent lighting

respective technological frames influence, for example, the way
these goals are translated into problem-solving strategies.
The theoretical base of the Mazda companies' fluorescent frame was
formed by electricity and gas discharge physics, where the utilities obviously
used, primarily, power electricity physics. Neither played an explicit
role in the course of events I am describing. The utilities' frame
was supplemented by what they called the "Science of Seeing," which
focused on the quality of lighting, including such things as brightness,
contrast, shadows, diffusion, and various kinds of glare. 77 This theoretical
part of the utilities' frame did play a role: emphasis was placed on
seeing and the prescription of lighting that would contribute maximum
visibility to the task at hand. As the
hint at an important element in the
problem-solving strategy of the utilities: they pictured themselves as servants
of the public, or even as teachers of that public. 79 Thus an important
goal was to increase public confidence in lighting technology and
flourescent council of war at nyla park - 50 foot candles
Closure stabilization
certification scheme - sheilding
As an A.E.I.C. report summarized:
Certification does:
(I) Provide a method of dealing with manufacturers as a group.
(2) Offer a means of improving the quality of fluorescent fixtures.
(3) Provide a means for constructive national advertising.
(4) Help the utility to distinguish between fixtures of reasonably good quality and
the large mass of slightly identified and locally produced fixtures on the market.
(5) Provide a design service for the smaller manufacturers, and a medium for
prompt dissemination of news of new developments.
(6) Provide another means of insuring good-power-factor equipment. 108
Photo by Anton Fomkin

Inclusion and interaction

A tension like the one within the General Electric organization is likely
to occur among actors having different degrees of inclusion in one technological
frame. The General Electric Supply Corporation was bound to
have a relatively low inclusion as compared to the Lamp Department,
because the latter was more intimately involved in the establishment of
the new fluorescent frame of the Mazda companies
One of the ways in which the relevant social groups of utilities
and

Mazda companies interacted was by arguing over the "true" costs of fluorescent
lighting as compared to incandescent lighting.
One of the ways in which the relevant social groups of utilities and
Mazda companies interacted was by arguing over the "true" costs of fluorescent
lighting as compared to incandescent lighting.
The utilities scorned the lamp manufacturers, because for years they
had stressed the fact that electricity cost was a negligible factor in good
lighting, so that "it seems a little ridiculous now to advertise appreciable
reduction in this negligible cost, particularly if
General
Electric's strategy in the first trial was to make Hygrade completely
stop its production of fluorescent lamps. The Antitrust Division's objective
in the second case was to demolish General Electric's licensing system.accompanying it there is
retrogression with respect to already attained levels of illumination or
absence of the raising of these levels."
Photo by tiexano

Power and construction of technology

When we try to find a foothold for analyzing the role of power in
technical development, we uncover an intriguing gap in existing research
traditions. The few economists who explicitly address the role of technical
change hardly ever refer to "power," even though their studies of
market competition, corporate strategies, entry barriers, and state intervention,
for example, pertain directly to matters commonly associated
with economic power. On the other hand, in the large sociological literature
on power there is no detailed analysis of technical development.
"Power" sometimes is a
quality ("Harrison had power"), a relation ("was G.E. powerful enough
with respect to the utilities"), a domain ("arenas of power"), an outcome
("artifacts are important in constituting power"), or an agent ("power
seems to play a role"). This variety of meanings suggests that the term
"power" is not, in common language, very precise. I would indeed
rather argue for abstaining from its usage completely. At best the term
"power" can be a practical shorthand for more detailed and rich
descriptions of situations, outcomes, relations, etc
As a useful starting point I will take Giddens's (1979) definition of
power as the transformative capacity to harness the agency of others to comply with
one's mds.
what Latour ( 198 7) called a
diffusion image of technology, so can we contrast the interactionist concept
of power with the causal "push and shove" image
For the semiotic power conception, I draw on Laclau and Mouffe.
For the semiotic power conception, I draw on Laclau and Mouffe
(1985) and Clegg (1989). To the extent that meanings become fixed or
reified in certain forms, which then articulate particular facts, artifacts,
agents, practices, and relations, this fixity is power. Power thus is the
apparent order of taken-for-granted categories of existence, as they are
fixed and represented in technological frames. This semiotic power forms
the structural side of my power coin. The micropolitics of power describes
the other side-how a variety of practices transforms and structures the
actions of actors, thereby constituting a particular form of power. In
Foucault's ( 197 5) study of the development of discipline, this micropolitics
of power results in producing obedient human bodies; in my
framework the focus will be on producing technological frames.
(1985) and Clegg (1989). To the extent that meanings become
fixed or

reified in certain forms, which then articulate particular facts, artifacts,
agents, practices, and relations, this fixity is power.
In terms of the power discourse, one might say that
technological frames represent how the discretion is distributed of who
may do what, when, where and how, to whatever objects or actors. A
technological frame is at the same time constituted by interactions of
members of the relevant social group, and result in "disciplining" the
In my analysis patents may have at least two
different functions. First, they represent the routines and capabilities
themselves, being elements of semiotic power; second, they may function
as micropolitical devices in a broad spectrum of interactions such as
negotiations about joint ventures, informal market agreements, or scientific
claims. 147
members of that relevant social group.
Patents are a particular form in which routines may appear. The

patent system has been created to give to a firm a temporarily exclusive
ownership of some specific routines.
One other way in which this power analysis may shed light on the
shaping of technology is by recognizing some artifacts as "obligatory
passage points."
Finally, artifacts may represent specific interests. Interests, in our constructivist
perspective, are not fixed attributes that can be imputed to
relevant social groups on the basis of some theory of society. Rather,
they are temporarily stabilized outcomes of interactions. This stabilization
partly occurs in the form of artifacts. Whether the auxiliary condensers
and switches for starting the fluorescent lamps are produced with
the lamp or integrated into the fixture has implications, for example, for
the interests of fixture manufacturers.
After the closure and stabilization processes, a redistribution of power
had occurred. The new artifact fixed some of the power relations; new
technological frames embodied new power; new relations within and
between relevant social groups mirrored changes in the distribution of
power
The early emphasis on color lighting, the controversies over load and
power factor, the World Fair as external cause-this all had disappeared
from the story. The new distribution of power is fixed by the artifact:
daylight color, high intensity, auxiliaries according to a certification
scheme. These elements together define the power relation between the
relevant social groups of Mazda companies, utilities, independents, consumers,
fixture manufacturers, and the government.
Photo by ecstaticist

Conclusion

Seamless web
Symmetry
hetrogenerous sociotechnical system
Three configurations
1.Problem redefinition
2.Functional failure Presumptive anomalies
3.Rhetoric as a closure mechanism - Amalgamation of vested interests

SCOT

Criticism - Langdon Winner

Photo by Tau Zero