Science and technology governance that follows “democratic” principles during the policy-making process should include potentially-affected citizens. The majority of Science and Technology Studies (STS) research advocates greater public participation in science and technology governance in an attempt to make the relationship of science with society democratic, open, and responsive. While past views within the scientific […]
Building tools and frameworks that enable researchers to effectively describe the myriad relationships between actors, artifacts, institutions, policies, and values is a continuing challenge in studying the evolution of technological systems. STS has developed some of these new tools, such as actor-network theory, that enable flexible yet potentially specific levels of analysis. The development of […]
The Christian Science Monitor this week highlighted a story about “citizen scientists” who, as amateurs, contribute individual observations to a larger database in order to track scientific and social trends. Project Budburst was featured in the article, a group that organizes citizen scientists to report data on the blooming of trees, shrubs, and other plants […]