Torpey John
Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016 USA.
Theory Soc. 2020;49(5-6):749-769. doi: 10.1007/s11186-020-09406-0. Epub 2020 Aug 1.
This article outlines a sociological agenda for the era of "tech," a period when digital technologies have come to dominate our social lives. It argues that we should break "tech" down into two parts, the production side and the consumption side. The production side concerns the ways in which these technologies are made, the social actors involved on the design, financing, and production side, and the consumption side refers to the ways in which ordinary users make use of these technologies and the ways in which their use is transforming everyday life. The article maintains that this is an area of research to which sociologists need to pay much greater attention if they are to understand the contemporary world satisfactorily.
本文概述了“科技”时代的一项社会学议程,在这个时期,数字技术已开始主导我们的社会生活。文章认为,我们应将“科技”分为两个部分,即生产端和消费端。生产端涉及这些技术的制造方式、参与设计、融资和生产的社会主体,而消费端则指普通用户使用这些技术的方式以及其使用正在改变日常生活的方式。文章坚持认为,如果社会学家想要令人满意地理解当代世界,这是一个他们需要给予更多关注的研究领域。