Some Implications

So what would a different view of the relationship between consumers and things look like? Sociologists of science and technology would frame it as follows:

Technology, things, products (often) make, not meet, consumer demand. Needs are actively constructed, in part, by these 'things'.

Take an entertainment example. The emergence of home cinema technologies, with new amplifiers and collections of sub-woofers and speakers, has been fed by, and has in turn encouraged, the parallel rise of the DVD. In the process the configuration of the sitting room (speakers behind the sofa), the gender relations of the space (more male technology), and the nature of cinema-going as well as staying-in have all been transformed. The technology has changed social practice and changes in social practice impact the spread and use of the technology and home entertainment.

Technologies, things, products (often) construct and configure their users (Woolgar, 1991).

Let's do the laundry. Washing machines demand things of their users: making specific purchases (detergent, conditioners), sorting clothes and selecting the right programme. The meaning of 'clean' is negotiated with the machine. It is neither a given nor a purely 'cultural' concept in the mind of the consumer. It is inscribed in the machine. You could argue that washing machines (and other apparatus such as pre-wash stain removal sprays and detergents), devices for making clothes whiter than white, exist to create stains, dirt and soiled-ness. They then deliver against this created need, by making our clothes 'clean'.

Similarly, the tumble dryer changes the user's relationship to the weather (wash day can be on a wet day). Products that go in the tumble dryer to create that line-dried feel and smell transform the relationship of washing (as an idea and a consumer practice) to the outdoors.

The Dyson vacuum cleaner performs a similar trick. Its Dual Cyclone technology is claimed to be powerful but it's the design which is the real innovation. It creates the idea of dirt lifted from your carpets that you can actually see and the design delivers against this brand promise.

Technological change co-evolves with social change.

The freezer and the microwave are involved in a complex relationship. The chest freezer moved out of the garage and became a fridge freezer when its companion, the microwave, took pride of place in the kitchen. The freezer, once a device to manage the seasons, became an instrument for the management of time (Shove and Southerton, 2000). As the seasons dissolved, 'convenience food' became a real possibility. Some might argue that obesity followed in the wake of such 'convenience'. Technologies, practices, attitudes and bodies are interrelated and co-dependent, their stories intertwined and evolving over time.

What is evident from this summary is that interpretive gains can be made when we stop opposing technology to people, things to humans and instead think about the ways in which they are intertwined: the social and the material are mutually determining; things and people shape one another 'in complex knots' (Michael, 2000). The STS literature helps us understand these complex relationships between things, people and culture.

But if there is an interpretive dividend to be reaped, what does this mean for the ways we do research? It suggests different ways of framing or opening up a client brief. For example, providing novel ways to define the competitive set of a product and stimulating the exploration of actual and possible relationships between a product (or service) and other products or services around it. It should encourage qualitative researchers to think again about the 'sovereign' consumer that shapes the world around them, and to appreciate an interconnected complex world of humans and non-humans.
 

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