Untitled - socium.ge

130 Steve Woolgarthe early stages, rather little social science expertise was included. Theresearch funded under the Virtual Society? program asked why electronictechnologies take the form that they do. This series of investigations (22projects) aimed to identify which social processes help shape new technologyand what sorts of expectation are built into the development and implementationof these ICTs.Accordingly, the main aims and objectives of the program were to:• form a UK research community in the social context of new electronic technologies;• help the ESRC fulfill its mission “to promote and support high-qualityresearch which meets the needs of users and beneficiaries, thereby contributingto the economic competitiveness of the UK, the effectiveness of publicservice policy, and the quality of life; to provide advice on, and disseminateknowledge and promote public understanding of the social sciences;”• help shape policy and practice through a better understanding of electronictechnologies and information infrastructures in their development and use;• enhance and promote new and better forms of interaction between differentconstituencies: technical and social scientific expertise, academics and journalists,researchers and the business and policy communities;• and provide a key response to the UK Foresight exercise.The research program and its questions thus emerged and were articulated inspecific social and political contexts. The term “virtual society” stood as oneexpression of the more general problem of significant change resulting fromthe new electronic technologies.RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTSAt the time of their first announcement, many of the program’s research resultswere counter-intuitive. The research demonstrated that the new technologieswere not being taken up at the rate we had been led to believe, nor by thepeople and groups we had anticipated, nor were they being used for thepurposes envisaged. In a relatively short time, many of these outcomesbecame received wisdom, partly under the influence of the program.In response to the changing environment of expectations and views aboutnew technologies, the overall research findings were organized in terms of“Five Rules of Virtuality” (Woolgar, 2002). This way of organizing the resultsdraws attention to the enduring tension between claims about the supposedlytransforming character of the technologies (“virtuality”) and the alleged actualityof their use (“reality”). The “rules” are intended as thematic research