​The exploration of ways to conceptualize the shaping of the present by socio‐technical futures is the aim of this volume. Therefore it brings together contributions from Science and Technology Studies and Technology Assessment, which focus all on the question how socio-technical images of the future shape present processes of innovation and transformation starting from empirical case studies and generalizing specific findings or by tackling conceptual questions from the outset. A white paper of 23 authors, which aims to sensitize researchers and practitioners completes the volume.

This book deals with the connection between media and the future. It is about the imagination of futuristic media and what this says about the present, but it also shows how media are imagined as means to control the future. The book begins by describing different theories of the evolution of media and by exploring how this evolution is tied to expectations regarding the future. The authors discuss the theories of imagination and how the imagination of media futures operates. To do so, they analyse four concrete examples: the imaginations once related to interactive television and how they were performed in an important piece of media art; those on “ubiquitous computing,” which remain present today; those on three-dimensional, especially holographic, displays that are prevalent everywhere in cinema, and lastly the contemporary imaginations on quantum computing and how they have been enacted in science fiction. The book appeals to readers interested in the question of how our present imagines its technological futures.

Dreamscapes of Modernity offers the first book-length treatment of sociotechnical imaginaries, a concept originated by Sheila Jasanoff and developed in close collaboration with Sang-Hyun Kim to describe how visions of scientific and technological progress carry with them implicit ideas about public purposes, collective futures, and the common good. The book presents a mix of case studies—including nuclear power in Austria, Chinese rice biotechnology, Korean stem cell research, the Indonesian Internet, US bioethics, global health, and more—to illustrate how the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries can lead to more sophisticated understandings of the national and transnational politics of science and technology. A theoretical introduction sets the stage for the contributors’ wide-ranging analyses, and a conclusion gathers and synthesizes their collective findings. The book marks a major theoretical advance for a concept that has been rapidly taken up across the social sciences and promises to become central to scholarship in science and technology studies.

Counting on Computers: New Information Technologies and Curricular Change in East Germany, 1960s to 1990 is a compelling exploration of socialist ambitions for a computerised future and how computer technology was imagined to reshape education and socialist society in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It delves into the positive visions of a computerised future embraced by the country's one-party leadership, and examines how these visions influenced educational policy and curricula as computers were introduced into workplaces and schools. The book provides readers with a comprehensive perspective on the historical development of computer education in the GDR, highlighting the crucial links between the integration of computers in different sectors of the educational system, as well as in society and the socialist economy at large. By uncovering this lesser-known aspect of East German history, the book sheds light on the intricate and multifaceted relationship between technology, ideology, and education.

For better and worse, the future is often conceived in technological terms. Technology is supposed to meet the challenge of climate change or resource depletion. And when one asks about the world in 20 or 100 years, answers typically revolve around AI, genome editing, or geoengineering. There is great demand to speculate about the future of work, the future of mobility, Industry 4.0, and Humanity 2.0. The humanities and social sciences, science studies, and technology assessment respond to this demand but need to seek out a responsible way of taking the future into account. This collection of papers, interviews, debates grew out of disagreements about technological futures, speculative ethics, plausible scenarios, anticipatory governance, and proactionary and precautionary approaches. It proposes Hermeneutic Technology Assessment as a way of understanding ourselves through our ways of envisioning the future. At the same time, a hermeneutic understanding of technological projects and prototypes allows for normative assessments of their promises. Is the future an object of design? This question can bring together and divide policy makers, STS scholars, social theorists, and philosophers of history, and it will interest also the scientists and engineers who labor under the demand to deliver that future.

Digital politics is rarely explored holistically and interdisciplinary beyond a focus on digital activism, digital warfare or Internet governance. Digital Politics, Digital Histories, Digital Futures addresses this gap, initiating conversations about digital politics to a range of disciplines, developing new pedagogy for the field.

This volume offers a cross-section of a good fifteen years of research in the sociology of technology and innovation at the Department of Sociology of Technology headed by Werner Rammert at the TU Berlin. All contributions in this volume were initiated or discussed there and thus bear in a certain sense a "Berlin signature" - not in the sense of a clearly delimited scientific school, but rather in the form of an open discussion group with different, but mutually related focal points. The Berlin Key, which gives it its title, imposes on all its users the program of action objectified in its mechanism: "User, if you want to take the key back to yourself after unlocking the door and go your way, you must lock the door again first. Unlike that Berlin key, the "Berlin Keys to the Sociology of Technology" presented here offer a set of keys to different but interconnected conceptual and methodological approaches in social science research on technology and innovation.

Climate, Science and Society: A Primer makes cutting-edge research on climate change accessible to student readers. The primer consists of 37 short chapters organized within 11 parts written by Science and Technology Studies (STS) and other social science scholars. It covers a range of key topics including communication, justice and inequality, climate policy, and energy transitions, situating each one within the context of STS studies. Each reading translates a focused area of climate change research into short, accessible, and lively prose. Chapter authors open debates where relevant, consider policy implications, critique existing areas of research, and otherwise situate their reading within a larger body of research relevant to climate change courses. Designed as a jumping-off point for further exploration, this innovative book will be essential reading for students studying climate change, STS, environmental sociology, and environmental sciences.

This book requires an interdisciplinary understanding of creativity, ideal for the formation of a digital public culture. Educating students, young professionals and future engineers is to develop their capacity for creativity. Can creativity be learned? With this question, the relations of technology and art appear in a new light. Especially the notion of "progress" takes on a new meaning and must be distinguished from innovation. The discussion of particular educational approaches, the exploration of digital technologies and the presentation of best practice examples conclude the book. University teachers show how the teaching of creativity reinforces the teaching of other subjects, especially foreign languages.

Longer-term developments shape the present and endogenous futures of institutions and practices of science and technology in society and their governance. Understanding the patterns allows diagnosis and soft intervention, often linked to scenario exercises. The book collects six articles offering key examples of this perspective, addressing ongoing issues in the governance of science and technology, including nanotechnology and responsible research and innovation. And adds two more articles that address background philosophical issues.