In order to better understand how GM technology can affect our social lives, and how social actors— like ourselves— can, in turn, shape the trajectory of technoscientific innovation, we must first take a logical step backward and inform our viewpoint from the main approaches to science, technology and society relations. More specifically, this chapter discusses the concepts of technological determinism and social constructivism, Thomas Misa's “mesolevel approach,” Thomas Hughes's “technological momentum” and Sheila Jasanoff's idiom of “co- production.” As the purpose of this chapter is to offer the reader a clear understanding of key concepts in science, technology and society relations— which they can refer to as the discussion on GMOs unfolds in the ensuing chapters— I use the main text for the development of the major arguments and use footnotes for the analysis of finer points. While not an exhaustive set of approaches to the investigation of the interplay between science, technology and society, these five viewpoints constitute the most prominent and distinct avenues for the study of the problematic under discussion. By the end of this chapter, it is hoped the reader will have become familiar with each approach's main tenets and will have also acquired a critical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Technological Artifacts, Scientific Knowledge and the Social Order

What is technological determinism?

While the term technological determinism is used quite extensively in science and technology studies (STS), it is a construct that one comes across not only in theoretical works, but it can be easily discerned in the discourse of everyday life in many popular phrases or beliefs: “the automobile created suburbia,” “the robots put the riveters out of work,” “the Pill produced a sexual revolution,” “the personal computer changed the world of politics and business” and so on. In all such statements, complex events are construed as inevitable results of one single technological innovation. In effect, advancing technology is seen as a steadily growing, well- nigh irresistible, force that determines the course of events (Smith and Marx 1994, xi, xii).