Things to know about Science and Technology Studies (STS)

• STS is useful in describing the interaction and mutual shaping of culture and technology.

• STS seeks to explore the middle ground between the social and the technological and argues that neither determines the other, rather they shape one another in 'complex knots' (Michael, 2000).

• STS questions the assumption that only humans have agency -- the ability to act on things or people to make things happen. For example, the oversized hotel key fob implores, persuades or compels the guest to return it to reception not take it away in their pocket. Things can make people do things.

• STS helps us to see the mundane and ordinary objects that research often overlooks, and can demonstrate how they constitute, in part, practice.

• STS views the distinction between producers/designers and users/consumers as difficult to maintain. The material and social forces that shape or constrain designers and technologists are as important to appreciate as those that pattern what consumers might do.

• Consumers are not passive, and do not merely adapt to the directives of the producer/designer. Rather they manipulate, domesticate, train and tame new technologies.

  STS eschews ideas of consumer behaviour. In this sense it is anti-consumer research, favouring practice orientated approaches.