[Air-l] on gauges and other technical standards

[Joao Vieira da Cunha]

Allan,

Perhaps you've seen this, but Wiebe Bijker's work on the social 
construction of technology seems to be potentially helpful to address your 
questions.

Joao

MIT/ Sloan


At 11:21 PM 1/27/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>After reading the recent discussion on railroad gauges deriving from
>ancient standards, I am curious if anyone is doing work looking into
>technical standards.  I'm writing my undergrad honors thesis on technical
>Internet standards, and the need for public interest involvement in the
>standardization process, viewing this as a subset of the "technical is
>political" or "code is law" body of work.  Although my thesis is
>predominantly policy-oriented, I'd really like some theory to work with,
>aside from market failures and civic governance.  Chasing citations
>back and forth has not turned up a whole lot in this area.  If
>anyone has any suggestions for literature that delves into examining the
>larger impacts of specific technical design decisions, from any
>perspective (sociology, psychology, policy, etc) I would really appreciate
>it.
>
>Thanks for your help,
>/allan
>
>                 ... et surtout||Allan Friedman
>                  n'oubliez pas||Center for Social and Policy Studies
>                      de tomber||Swarthmore College
>                       amoureux||allan at friedmans.org
>                 http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~allan
>
>"For the umpteenth time that evening, he wished computer code responded
>to threats of physical violence..."
>
>
>
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