Issue 1

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/2003/26723

It is standard practice to launch new journals by claiming to focus on a new sub-disciplinary domain or to introduce a new approach to the analysis of a familiar field. With this journal we start a less ambitious but nonetheless innovative enterprise. Science Technology & Innovation Studies (STI Studies) is the first internationally oriented journal for the German speaking STI community and the colleagues working in European or international research and higher education organizations located in this area. It will fill the gap which has evolved after the "Jahrbuch Technik und Gesellschaft" ceased to appear once the tenth volume had been published in 1999. As the working language of STI Studies is English the journal will also help increase the visibility of theoretical discussions and research projects which emerge in the German speaking environment.

The journal seeks analytical, theoretical and methodological articles that focus on the creation and use of scientific knowledge and its relation to society, on the development of technology and its social impact and control, and on innovation in industry and in the public sector.

STI Studies is a conventional scholarly journal as regards high quality standards and anonymous peer review. We invite and encourage paper submissions which are addressed to an international audience. Our ambition is to establish a reputation which attracts a worldwide readership. We hope that the - still somewhat unconventional - option to try and reach the readership via a free online journal will turn out to be the best way.

STI Studies will be published bi-annually including special issues edited by guest editors. We invite all colleagues to submit manuscripts or proposals for special issues. The success of this journal is contingent on your initiative and support as authors, reviewers and guest-editors. We will be happy to assist and collaborate.

Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer

Raymund Werle

Johannes Weyer

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Reflexive Stimulation or Disjointed Incrementalism?
(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2005-07) Dolata, Ulrich
Are national technology and innovation policies becoming obsolete under the conditions of an increasing internationalization of science, technologies and industry? The paper supports the argument that despite globalization and Europeanization, national technology and innovation policies remain the most important and effective level of governance in this area of policy. The argument will be elaborated in four steps: firstly, the paper presents a brief overview of the discussions and controversy concerning the future governance of technology and innovation policies. Secondly, the effects of changing general conditions on national policies are discussed, especially the policy implications of the development of new technologies, of the internationalization of industry and of the growing importance of public discourses. Thirdly, the relations between the national and the European level of governance are analyzed and an answer is given to the question why there has not been a significant shift of competencies and resources from the national to the European level until now. Against this background and with a special view regarding the German case, the paper finally analyses strategic reorientations, new elements and instruments of the national technology and innovation policy and discusses their impact on science, industry, and society.
Science, Technology & Innovation Studies Vol. 1 (2005), No 1 (July)
(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2005-07) Schulz-Schaeffer, Ingo; Werle, Raymund; Weyer, Johannes
It is standard practice to launch new journals by claiming to focus on a new sub-disciplinary domain or to introduce a new approach to the analysis of a familiar field. With this journal we start a less ambitious but nonetheless innovative enterprise. Science Technology & Innovation Studies (STI Studies) is the first internationally oriented journal for the German speaking STI community and the colleagues working in European or international research and higher education organizations located in this area. It will fill the gap which has evolved after the "Jahrbuch Technik und Gesellschaft" ceased to appear once the tenth volume had been published in 1999. As the working language of STI Studies is English the journal will also help increase the visibility of theoretical discussions and research projects which emerge in the German speaking environment. The journal seeks analytical, theoretical and methodological articles that focus on the creation and use of scientific knowledge and its relation to society, on the development of technology and its social impact and control, and on innovation in industry and in the public sector. STI Studies is a conventional scholarly journal as regards high quality standards and anonymous peer review. We invite and encourage paper submissions which are addressed to an international audience. Our ambition is to establish a reputation which attracts a worldwide readership. We hope that the - still somewhat unconventional - option to try and reach the readership via a free online journal will turn out to be the best way. STI Studies will be published bi-annually including special issues edited by guest editors. We invite all colleagues to submit manuscripts or proposals for special issues. The success of this journal is contingent on your initiative and support as authors, reviewers and guest-editors. We will be happy to assist and collaborate.
Intellectual Property, Communism and Contextuality
(Technische Universität , 2005-07) Holtgrewe, Ursula
This paper explores current changes in German copyright legislation in two fields in which the digitalisation of creative works has changed the relationship between commercial and non-profit activities: the music industry and scientific publishing. For years the music industry has been facing a decreasing demand due to Internet distribution and filesharing networks and a lock-in of traditional business models. Scientific work is confronted with a supply crisis of information. The resources of libraries, which traditionally used to mediate commercial and non-profit activities, are dwindling while the role of commercial databases and meta -information systems for academic reputation is gaining importance. These processes are well known, but both the current public debate and theoretical analyses suffer from a certain essentialism: The problem of intellectual property is mostly seen as inherent to the characteristics of knowledge goods and knowledge production. Thus, the arena appears like a zero-sum game to both commercial actors and promoters of the public domain, in which commodified goods are subtracted from the public domain and vice versa. This paper applies a processoriented and interactionist sociological perspective to the shifting relationship of markets and public spheres. Knowledge goods and intellectual property institutions thus are mutually constitutive. In establishing them, situated flows of knowledge and meaning are bracketed institutionally and technologically for a time. However, current changes in copyright legislation tend to privilege commercial exploitation and thus may end up establishing the very zero-sum configuration that so far has been challenged theoretically.
How Experts Draw Boundaries
(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2005-07) Bogner, Alexander
Categorical distinctions such as healthy/sick or dead/alive serve to provide orientation and to facilitate decision-making in medicine. This is a major issue in the theory of reflexive modernisation. Recently, new scientific insights within genetics have increasingly prompted the re-drawing of such boundaries. Taking the example of prenatal testing, with particular reference to late term abortion, I investigate the governing rationalities of experts' boundary politics. It will be shown that boundary drawing is structured with reference to society's guiding principles and notions of normality. In those problematic cases where the medical frame is unable to deliver sufficient interpretative power, this reference to societal value orientations turns out to be functional for maintaining the experts' professional authority. In the case of prenatally diagnosable disabilities, for example, experts often do not know how to deal with such diagnoses. This ambiguity is for the most part understood as (cognitive) uncertainty amenable to more research, rather than interpreted as non-knowledge with reference to the level of social action which results from the interpretative failure of biomedical frames. Thus, the interpretation of non-knowledge appears to become unambiguous, which undermines any pending politicisation of non-knowledge. The alignment with society's guiding principles turns out to be functional for maintaining the claim to be able to provide adequate and relevant information and terms for decision-making processes; in other words, for maintaining professional authority. On the basis of the observation that experts have to deal with uncertainty and non-knowledge, the article asks in conclusion whether this could point to the possible emergence of a reflexive type of expert.
Social Inequalities Beyond the Modern Nature-Society-Divide?
(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2005-07) Wehling, Peter
Due to the accelerated dynamics of scientific and technological modernisation over the last few decades, the sharp and unambiguous categorical distinction and separation between "nature" and "society" that has been essential for the selfperception of Western modernity is increasingly subject to erosion or even dissolution. The article aims to explore the possible consequences of this blurring of boundaries with regard to the generation, social perception, and justification of social inequalities in "reflexive modern" societies. Using the examples of cosmetic surgery and predictive genetic testing, current tendencies of a seemingly paradoxical "renaturalisation" of inequality are outlined: contrary as well as parallel to the modern programme and promise of a "denaturalisation of society" (Jürgen Habermas), "natural" characteristics such as physical appearance or genetic constitution are gaining importance in terms of social distinction and discrimination. One should, however, not fail to see that this renaturalisation is not simply a revival of older (if by no means definitely overcome) forms of social inequalities based on (presumedly) natural collective categories (sex, race, ethnicity and so on). Rather, a hybrid, scientifically and technically manufactured human "nature" becomes a medium of novel forms of "individualised" discrimination: physical characteristics are no longer ascribed to certain groups or people as their inalterable natural qualities, but are increasingly conceived of as open to fashioning and therefore as socially achieved by the individual person. For this reason, the new inequalities "beyond" the modern nature-society divide are apparently not considered fundamentally illegitimate or "pre-modern". What seems to be needed in present-day societies is the establishment of new, socially accepted regulations and boundaries for the complex and intertwined dynamics of denaturalisation and renaturalisation of the social.
Editorial
(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2005-07) Schulz-Schaeffer, Ingo; Werle, Raymund; Weyer, Johannes

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