Wang, Cong (2022) The brain of the smart transportation system : exploring the role of future expectations and sociotechnical imaginaries in cutting-edge science and technology policymaking in China. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Abstract
The brain of the smart transportation system: exploring the role of future expectations and sociotechnical imaginaries in cutting-edge science and technology policymaking
In recent years, Big Data has developed rapidly, improving the efficiency and safety of the transportation system, but varied understandings of Big Data have shaped contextualised expectations and imaginaries, which has introduced new tension in the policymaking of technology. Additionally the mixed use of concepts such as “future expectation” and “sociotechnical imaginary” in future-oriented STS studies makes the relevant case studies unclear at the theoretical level. Thus, this thesis endeavours to distinguish these concepts within a specific situated context, to shed light on how they work in China’s science and technology policymaking process, and to understand the nature of Big Data. To do so it explores a new technology that emerged in China since the 2000s – the Smart Transportation System – a hybrid of the traditional transportation system and Big Data. This thesis draws on a mixed-methods approach, including an analysis of governmental policy documents from 2016 to 2020, 29 semi-structured qualitative interviews with engineers, academics, and local government officials, conducted in seven Chinese cities.
This thesis contributes three advances to knowledge of future-oriented studies, science and technology policymaking studies, and Big Data studies in the Chinese context: 1) by showing that future expectation is related to the paradigms and the interests of two scientific communities of the Smart Transportation System field, while sociotechnical imaginary links to the epistemology and knowledge used in the decision-making process; 2) by outlining a two-way, dynamic circle in which the sociotechnical imaginary of the central government creates an intended institutional void, leaving space for local governments interpretations, and these interpretations in turn drive the birth of a new sociotechnical imaginary of central government; 3) by furthering our understanding of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence via revisiting the nature of Big Data from the perspective of traditional Chinese culture.
| Item Type: | Thesis [via Doctoral College] (PhD) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Electronic computers. Computer science. Computer software T Technology > TE Highway engineering. Roads and pavements |
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Big data, Intelligent transportation systems -- China, Science and state -- China, Technology and state -- China |
| Official Date: | January 2022 |
| Dates: | Date Event January 2022 UNSPECIFIED |
| Institution: | University of Warwick |
| Theses Department: | Department of Sociology |
| Thesis Type: | PhD |
| Publication Status: | Unpublished |
| Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Fuller, Steve, 1959- ; Mah, Alice |
| Format of File: | |
| Extent: | 363 pages : illustrations (colour) |
| Language: | eng |
| URI: | https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/174622/ |
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