TY - JOUR AU - Jones, Paul AU - Pixley, Jocelyn PY - 2010/04/26 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - TECHNOLOGY, WORK, CULTURE JF - TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology JA - TRAILS VL - IS - SE - DO - UR - https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/technology-work-culture SP - AB - Aims, Themes, Learning Outcomes:This course aims to introduce some of the central sociological questions which arise at the intersection of the three categories which make up its title: technology, work and culture. Sociologists have long had an interest in the relationship between technology and work and, separately, technology (especially communications technologies) and Culture. We aim in this subject to bring those usually separate literatures together. The major linking theme of the course is the problem technological determinism (TD) and its tendency to diminish democratic decision-making. We trace TD’s role through a number of different fields. At the end of this course you should be able to distinguish technologically determinist explanations from other – usually more complex - types of social explanation in many fields of ‘technological innovation’. We are keen to demonstrate the advantages of bringing more sophisticated sociological approaches to bear on the somewhat haphazard and poorly developed ‘pop sociology’ that often arises in public debate about contempory technologies and even in academic writing as well. At stake in all these issues is the discussion of the very kind of future we wish to live in. ER -