Subject: Sociology of Technique
(06 -
M318) Basic Information
Course specification
Course is active from 01.10.2007.. Training engineers to understand the social importance and role of technique in the society development, positive and negative impact of the technique on the development of society and people, as well as personal social importance and responsibility in creating human society. Acquisition of social knowledge about characteristics, sources, social function of techniques and creators of technical knowledge; acquisition of knowledge about the impact of nature of social systems on technical development and the impact of technique on society development; acquisition of knowledge about the impact of technique on the processes and changes in the modern society: globalization, changing the working contents and forms of working organization; changes in communication, culture, education, democracy, ways of life and opinions of people, acquisition of knowledge about negative aspects of technical development: nature destruction, alienation in work, creating the risky society. Technical knowledge: characteristics and special technical functions, sources of technical knowledge, creators of technical knowledge, spreading of the technical knowledge, scientific-technical potential, relationship between science and technique. Relationship between technique and society: social impact on the technical development and technical impact on the social development – Industrial and Informatics society. Technical impact on life, awareness and culture. Technique and globalization: causes and dimensions of globalization, technological gap, brain drain; Technique and working organization: flexible production, network organizations, knowledge economy, electronic economy. Technique and work: shortening the working hours, change of working contents, decline of the work importance. Technique and alienation in work: technical impact on the alienation in work, forms of alienation, humanization of work. Mass media and communications: global television, television impact on the society, theory of media, mobile telephony and internet, internet impact on the society, media imperialism, mass culture, cyber criminal. Technique and education: education and new communication technologies, education and technological gap, virtual universities, intelligence and educational success. Technique and democracy: global media and spreading of the liberal democracy, media and virtual reality, resistance and alternative to global media. Technique and ecological crisis: global working, genetically modified food, technical risks, technical society as a risky society. Technical intelligence: social position and impact, engineering ethics. During the lectures a problem is presented and then students start the discussion where they ask questions and give objections and supplements to the presented knowledge.
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