TA POSITIONS AND TA STORYLINES - TOWARDS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST FRAMEWORK OF TECHNOLOGY-ASSESSMENT

This paper addresses Technology Assessment (TA) from a social construc tionist viewpoint. It will be argued that there exist a variety of TA practices and discourses instead of one single TA approach. Moreover i t will be argued that doing TA is essentially a process of labelling a scientific or political practice as TA. Part one of this paper will p resent an analysis of the different institutionalizations of TA. There will be an emphasis on management and methodology issues. In part two , we will discuss social constructionism and its relevance for underst anding and better organizing TA. Part three will present the outline o f a new social constructionist theoretical approach of TA: positioning theory, Following positioning theory, a study of TA should start with the study of TA discourses using the concepts TA-positions, TA-acts a nd TA-storylines. Understanding the relationship between technology an d social change implies a better understanding of the ways in which TA -storylines develop. The paper will end with a discussion of the pract ical consequences of this theoretical approach! Especially from the po int of view of how institutions can better organize TA.