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128 Steve Woolgarkinds of finding we unearth are ultimately unsurprising, and our theoreticalframeworks remain unchallenged. The alternative situation at which Garfinkelis hinting is one where our engagement with the new technology has aprofound, destabilizing, challenging, and perhaps transforming effect on ourtheoretical assumptions.Fifth, while much work comprises beautiful descriptions of social change,the defining question is, arguably, left hanging: what difference did the technologiesmake? Some recent work, looking at the detailed experience ofInternet use in specific situations, offers the possibility that we need to recastthe core question, that we can no longer ask it in such bald terms. Thus, writerslike Hine (2000, 2003), Bakardjieva (2003), and Campbell (2003) stressthe importance of disaggregation. Attention to the massive variation in thelocal conditions of Internet experience makes it no longer possible to speak insuch synoptic terms. What difference does the Internet make? Their workshows that this question only makes sense on some occasions to some peoplein some parts of the organization. We are, of course, struggling here with ourown implicit reliance on discourses of causality and determinism, fed in partby populistic, journalistic, and media usage. We need to unpack our use of“technology” and to try to find an alternative conception which allows us toask the question differently. We need, in other words, to find ways of interrogatingour reliance upon conventional descriptions of the technology at theheart of our research practice. These synoptic descriptions presume andperform aggregates and aggregate relationships. We need to beware of theclumping that goes with lack of disaggregation. At the same time, we do notwant simply to ditch the core motivating question: what difference does technologymake? The solution pursued by research programs like “VirtualSociety?” (see below) is that we pursue the questions, but do so with cautionand reflection and, in particular, with an eye to the audiences and contextsinvolved.These aspects of recent Internet studies suggest that we now have an opportunityto reflect carefully on what we are assuming about technology.Everyone is “against” determinism, but are we not locked, at least to somelarge extent, into a determinist discourse, in the sense that our languagedepends on presumptions of essentialism and causality? What are theprospects for a form of social research that both informs us about the new technologiesand simultaneously challenges our reliance upon traditional theoreticalvehicles?THE VIRTUAL SOCIETY? PROGRAMThe “Virtual Society?” program, a program of research funded by the UK