Tbis article reconstructs the social networks linking early personal computing pioneers in order to identify the social and political representations and images that defined these social networks. Using interuiews of key actors and, guided by social network theo y, we describe the linkage between technical development and cultural representations, particularly those of the user, in the case of personal computers.From this reconstructed perspective, the personal computer as a technology can be seen both as a machine and as a culture, enabling us to analyze the way our own activity as today's computer users has been socially constructed. Focusing on the translation of ideas from the Stanford Research Institute to Xerox PARC in the 1970s, we report on ourprogress in rebuilding these networks and the representations they contained.How did the creators of personal computer technology envision the user? How did they perceive the future of computers within the larger social matrix? What technical options were included, or excluded, from the hardware, systems software, and applications on the basis of these representations? How have technical designs based upon the values and visions of early technical innovators shaped the way users integrate present computers into their work?In this study, we argue that the creators of personal computer technology linked their innovations to ideologies or representations that explained and justified their designs. Those visions have become invisible, latent assumptions to latter-day users of the microcomputer, even though they shape these users'

The purpose of this paper is to focus on two main conceptions at the origin of hypertext technology, and contrast the associationist and the connectionist views. From the starting point provided by this conceptual opposition, it surveys the relationships between users and developers of new computerized communication technologies as inscriptions at the interface. Upgrading Brenda Laurel's models of the interface, it proposes a new conception of the personal interface that acknowledges the virtual presence of the designer, and locates the space of the screen as a dialogic space of mutual engagement.

L'auteur fournit dans cet article une synthèse critique de deux approches courantes en sociologie de la technique - l'approche de la traduction et celle de la diffusion des innovations - en portant une attention particulière à deux conceptions distinctes mais complémentaires de la notion de réseau socio-technique. En insistant sur les faiblesses respectives de ces deux approches au regard de l'évolution actuelle des technologies de la communication, il propose d'infléchir le tournant sémiotique à l'aide de la notion d'affordance (du côté de la traduction) et d'envisager plus en détails l'interface des réseaux de la diffusion de l'innovation avec ceux de son développement (du côté de la diffusion). Enfin, la brève étude du cas des « boutons de la souris » lui permet de démontrer concrètement comment un tel changement de nos cadres explicatifs pourrait être traduit méthodologiquement.

This article uses the translation approach to analyze the Green Revolution in Bali, Indonesia. The translation approach reopens the controversy about a classical topic in development studies: the failure or success of the Green Revolution. The translation method helps us to understand how the previous explanations of the failure or success of the Green Revolution in Bali were socially constructed and how the presence and the identity of social groups involved in agriculture on Bali were negotiated during the controversy. J. Stephen Lansing's recent computer model of Balinese agriculture is examined as a new component of the Green Revolution technological package. The analysis shows that the success of Lansing's model is better understood as a result of his communication strategy than as a scientific achievement. This case study investigates a sociotechnological network of agricultural and information technologies. I propose to deconstruct this network by comparing classical analysis of the Green Revolution and the results of the anthropological work of J. Stephen Lansing. Lansing used a microcomputer to model the traditional, &dquo;religious&dquo; management of irrigation in Bali. His work demonstrated the &dquo;technological rationality&dquo; of this traditional management, which stresses efficient use of water and pest control.The rice ecosystem simulation model designed by Lansing and his colleagues created a new communication channel between two institutions interested in the management of irrigation that had previously been invisible to each other. On the computer screen, the priests involved in religious irrigation management and the Green Revolution experts communicated with one another.My analysis treats the computer model as a new component of the Green Revolution technological package. The translation method helps us understand how previous explanations of the failure or success of the Green Revolution in Bali were socially constructed, and how the presence and identity of social groups involved in agriculture on Bali were negotiated during this controversy. Lansing's results were important in fostering communication ; in fact, the success of his strategy can be explained better in terms of communication than in terms of the model's technological or scientific achievements. Translation AnalysisThe case study of the Green Revolution in Bali is analyzed here in terms of attempts to translate different systems of knowledge (indigenous vs. scientific), or different technological and sociological ways of interpreting the same set of phenomena. Translation is the process that constitutes a sociotechnological network. To translate is to displace and transform the elements of a so-called &dquo;technological package,&dquo; and to transform the strategies of the actors involved in negotiations over the future of a network (Callon 1986). The translation approach, developed by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, proposes an alternative to explanations of sociotechnological innovation in terms of diffusion.

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