Scholars Award: Technological Innovation and Networked Movements

科学和技术研究(STS)的一个主要重点是技术系统的设计与它们所反映和影响的社会政治条件之间的相互作用，特别是对西方民主国家的关注。这个项目着眼于在非民主背景下使用和设计技术的斗争。如今，数字技术是亲民主运动如何增强力量、威权政权如何应对的核心。新媒体和其他技术的使用改变了动员和镇压的动态，正如本项目所表明的那样，它们的持续和有争议的重塑也影响到了动员和镇压。这一分析揭示了技术创新的实践，这些实践并不局限于西方行业，IT人才在支持民主的激进主义中的作用，以及在当代环境下如果不关注技术设计就不可能进行持续的激进主义工作。这一分析对广泛的社会和政治制度都有影响。调查结果将通过影响较大的学术出版物和面向公众的媒体传播。使用深入的案例研究分析，该项目考虑了哪些技术成为动员和镇压的核心--以及它们的使用和设计是如何重塑的，在什么条件下，由谁，以及以什么目标和效果重塑。这项研究使用定性的、归纳的、基于理论的分析，对按时间顺序组织的媒体数据进行分析，以重建民主动员和旨在压制民主的力量之间在关键技术的使用和设计上的斗争。该分析将有助于新媒体研究、STS和相关领域，记录作为更广泛斗争的一部分的有争议的和正在进行的技术重塑，并提供对技术使用和设计重塑的情景实践的深入案例研究分析。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A major focus of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has been the interplay between the design of technological systems and the sociopolitical conditions they reflect and influence, with particular attention to Western democracies. This project looks at the struggle over the use and design of technologies in non-democratic contexts. Today, digital technologies are central to how pro-democracy movements build strength and how authoritarian regimes respond. The dynamic of mobilization and repression has been transformed by the use of new media and other technologies and, as this project demonstrates, is also affected by their continuous and contested reshaping. The analysis unpacks the practices of technological innovation that are not limited to Western industries, the role of IT talent in pro-democracy activism, and the impossibility of conducting sustained activist work in contemporary settings without attention to the design of technologies. The analysis has implications for a wide range of societies and political systems. The findings will be disseminated through high-impact scholarly publications and public-facing media. Using in-depth case study analysis, this project considers what technologies emerge as central for mobilization and repression – and how their use and design have been reshaped, under what conditions, by whom, and with what goals and effects. This research uses qualitative, inductive, grounded theory-based analysis of chronologically organized media data to reconstruct the struggles over the use and design of critical technologies between pro-democracy mobilization and the forces that aim to repress it. The analysis will contribute to new media studies, STS, and related fields, by documenting the contested and ongoing reshaping of technologies as part of the broader struggle and by offering an in-depth case study analysis of the situated practices of the reshaping of technological use and design.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.