As a result they demand more convenient means of addressing communications needs like text messaging and are more prone to use Blackberry-like devices for their SMS needs. The development of the Blackberry came far after Hong Kong users had mastered the art of SMS on standard cellphones. The product "mapping," as Norman (1996) describes, is more intuitive on the Blackberry but the technology arrived too late to compete with the Hong Kong market. This supports what (author of "Do Artifacts Have Politics") describes as the "social determination of technology."
Sociological theories of technology suggest that artifacts may reflect political and cultural realities. Differential cellular phone usage between North America and Canada reflects a political and cultural reality: telecommunications infrastructure in the United States and Canada continues to emphasize land lines, and cellular phone services are less entrenched as a result. In Hong Kong the reverse is true: land lines were far less embedded in the culture. Consumers embraced the new technology readily in Hong Kong because unlike in North America there was no need to transfer land line services over to cellular phones. Cellular phone service is more widespread and reliable in Hong Kong and consumers there expect to use their cellular phone as a primary means of communication regardless of the rate plans. North American consumers do not use their cell phones as widely because land lines remain common and less expensive minute per minute.
Although cost does seem to deter some Canadian consumers from using their cellular phones for advanced communication features like e-mail or SMS, the differential usage cannot be explained by a Marxist theory of technology as the one Heilbroner (1967) suggests. Canadian-born respondents claimed their rate plan was chosen for price, but it must be noted that most Canadian-born respondents are more used to relying on land lines than their...
NASA and Integrated Financial Management Project Like most government organizations, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) passed through several stages of development and bureaucracy. Upon its creation in 1958, the agency was run with a combination of research freedom and tight management. This combination helped foster a strong, integrated organizational culture within NASA. Since then, however, NASA has grown into ten separate research agencies situated around the country. Each agency was
This is not hubris or the idea that the author of this response is any "better" than that of Giddens. However, sociology texts and summaries seem to leave out the idea that some actions, thought patterns and mindsets that are cultural and/or societal in nature make little to no logical or basic sense in the grand scheme of things. However, perhaps a covering of that dynamic would be too
Sociology Symbolic-interactionism is a dynamic theory of society that emphasizes process and change over institution and structure. In Symbolic Interactionism, Joel Charon describes the theory and applies it to a more general study of sociology. In Terrorism and the Politics of Fear, David Altheide applies various theories of sociology including symbolic-interactionism toward understanding how a society collectively agrees upon fear-based symbols and messages. In Chapter 11, "Society," Joel M. Charon defines society
The loss of letter writing as a feature of regular human interaction is a subtle incremental change. When sufficient changes accumulate, increasing cultural distortion leads the society toward dysfunctionality or a new state of equilibrium via cultural revitalization. One example of a revitalization movement (still underway) is feminism. Feminism arose in the West because females were given a taste of economic freedom during WWII when they successfully filled the heavy
Sociology: Changing Societies in a Diverse World (Fourth Edition) George J. Bryjak & Michael P. Soroka Chapter One Summary of Key Concepts Sociology is the field of study which seeks to "describe, explain, and predict human social patterns" from a scientific perspective. And though Sociology is part of the social sciences (such as psychology and anthropology), it is quite set apart from the other disciplines in social science; that is because it emphasizes
Technology has certainly had an impact on the history of man. Not only have the devices and processes that have emerged from advancements in technology had their effect so has the relationship of technology to politics, economics, science, and the arts. Technology has affected how man interacts with man and as history is a record of man's interactions with each other technology has affected history. Not surprisingly, historians have adopted different
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