Sorry more responses from Denise. Per Mark Johns it's useful to look for metaphors. A metaphor I quite enjoyed: Pffafenberger, B. (1992). Social anthropology of technology. Annual Review of Anthropology. 21: 491-516. Sure it's dated, but he explicates a brilliant metaphor called the 'technological drama' "A technological drama is a discourse of of technological "statements" and "counterstatements" om which there are three recognizable processes: technolgical regularization, technological adjustment, and technological reconstitution." p.505 The drama starts "when a design constituency creates, appropriates, or modifies a technological production process, artifact, user activity, or systme in such a way that some of it's technological fetures embody a political aim -- that is, an intention to alter the allocation of power, prestige or wealth. (etc.) But I also liked this earlier statement even better (p.504) ". . . one can argue that the dimention of an artifact identified by archeologists, historians and collectors as "style" once formed part of a now lost ritual system, and for that reason now stands out oddly and mysteriously against the artifacts' supposed "function." (see Hodder, 1985). Ok, this reflects my interest in function. I think with the focus exclusively on MEDIUM we leave out very interesting discussions about the functions of technology in other venues - STS, anthropology, philosophy etc. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, Ph.D. submitted, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tuesdays: Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html