technological+momentum+(Brucato)

=Technological Momentum=

Background
According to Thomas Hughes, technological determinism overemphasizes the autonomy of technology, neglecting the ways in which human actors participated in shaping them and continue to exert some influence upon. The social construction of technology (SCOT) approach exaggerates the importance of the design stage and lacks considerations for how technological systems take on intractable properties that significantly constrain autonomous human action. Instead, many varieties of individuals and organizations of humans and a variety of artifacts and environments interact to form systems and subsystems that work in a feedback loop, and the levels and direction of influence change over time. Typically, designers exert more influence early in development, but as systems complexify and are diffused, the systems begin to exert influence on human populations. Thus, Hughes sought to form a middle path with his discussion of technological systems (1987; 1994). Systems gain momentum as they are implemented and succeed in their goal-orientation. Technological momentum was to focus a much needed attention consistent in some ways with the SCOT approach but toward systems that reach and maintain some 'lock-in' and regular, predictable interaction. Technological momentum also pays particular attention to how large systems can change and how it resists it.

Definition
In physics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It refers to a power residing in an object that has both mass and is in a state of motion (including at rest). "Technological systems, even after prolonged growth and consolidation [...] acquire momentum. They have a mass of technical and organizational components; they possess direction or goals; and they display a rate of growth suggesting velocity" (1987: 76).

Soft Determinism
Thomas Hughes rejects technological determinism, but acknowledged that as systems develop momentum, they exert considerable influence and constrain the agency of individual human actors, groups and subsystems. "Large systems with high momentum," Hughes wrote, "tend to exert a soft determinism on other systems, groups, and individuals in society" (1987, p. 54-5).

Change in Technological Systems
Momentum implies the importance in technological systems of //time//, //pace//, and //scale//, and thus change across time is one of its important powers of explanation.

Technological systems evolve in predictable ways, “in accordance with a loosely defined pattern” (1987, p. 55). "The history of evolving, or expanding, systems can be presented in the phases in which the activity named predominates" (ibid., p. 56):
 * invention
 * development
 * innovation
 * transfer
 * growth
 * competition
 * consolidation.

"As systems mature, they acquire style and momentum," but these "phases in the history of a technological system are not simply sequential; they overlap and backtrack …. invention, development, innovation, transfer, and growth, competition, and consolidation can and do occur throughout the history of a system but not necessarily in that order" (ibid., p. 56-7)

//**The phases can be further ordered according to the kind of system builder who is most active as a maker of critical decisions. During invention and development inventor-entrepreneurs solve critical problems; during innovation, competition, and growth manager-entrepreneurs make crucial decisions; and during consolidation and rationalization financier-entrepreneurs and consulting engineers, especially those with political influence, often solve the critical problems associated with growth and momentum **//(p. 57).

Hughes offers a robust theoretical explanation for growth, along with numerous examples. To boil it down to a simple explanation avoids the richness and contextual qualities of the processes, but, in short, growth is evoked by the complex of political, economic, managerial, and technical needs for diversity yet is confined by its style. "Durable physical artifacts project into the future the socially constructed characteristics acquired in the past when they were designed. This is analogous to the persistence of acquired characteristics in a changing environment" (p. 77).

Radical Inventions
Radical inventions “are inventions that do not become components in existing systems…. Even though radical inventions inaugurate new systems, they are often improvements over earlier, similar inventions that failed to develop into innovations" (p. 58).

“Radical inventions, if successfully developed, culminate in technological systems" (p. 62). It is in this stage where dominant styles and interests must interact with the artifacts, techniques, organizations and systems, and Hughes points to Noble for evidence of how “management styles” become integral components in the systems (p. 63).

Reverse Salients
The reverse salient is a concept introduced by Hughes, which he claims only works in conjunction of his conceptualization of technological systems. Reverse salients "emerge, often unexpectedly" (ibid., p. 74), and suggest "uneven and complex change," referring to what happens as a system expand and components in "have fallen behind or are out of phase with the others" (ibid., p. 73). "Reverse salients are comparable to other concepts used in describing those components in an expanding system in need of attention, such as drag, limits to potential, emergent friction, and systemic efficiency" (ibid.)

Reverse salients have the ability to spawn new systems. "When a reverse salient cannot be corrected within the context of an existing system, the problem becomes a radical one, the solution of which may bring a new and competing system" (ibid., p. 75).

Criticism
Technological momentum employs a largely metaphorical discourse in an attempt to retain some of the explanatory power of technological determinism while correcting for its problems. However John Dwyer argues that Hughes has mischaracterized technological determinism and misrepresented Jacques Ellul, writing:

//**Ellul was not the simplistic technological determinist that Hughes pictures him as being. In fact, he had something of a momentum theory of his own, but one that was much more sophisticated than Hughes. He argued that the emphasis on technique (read efficiency, specialization, expertise and supra-human values into this term) has been gathering momentum in Western society since the medieval period. In other words, technological momentum is not something that can be confined to particular technological systems but was a movement that embraced all of Western culture and that was embodied in Western rationalism. That momentum reached a particular and momental moment in the nineteenth-century when it became linked to technology and self-perpetuating **//(2001).

To write metaphorically, Dwyer seems to suggest Hughes is fighting phantoms.

See also: Agency Reverse Salient Systems

__Works cited__: Dwyer, J. (2001) "Thomas Hughes, 'Technological Momentum'," available at: http://opencopy.org/lectures/science-technology-and-society/13a-thomas-hughes-technological-momentum/. Hughes, T. (1987) "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems" available at: http://conceptsinsts.wikispaces.com/file/view/hughes_1987.pdf