| To improve the ability of policy-makers to understand and manage the development of new technologies, the concept of social organizational properties of technologies is introduced and explored through comparison of French telecommunications and radio and television broadcasting, and an examination of the technical policy-making context in which they are situated, including an assessment of the special role of French engineers and their training in mathematics. These two technical and organizational infrastructures are examples of large-scale information network technologies of great technical and organizational complexity. After conceptual distinctions among types of technologies are presented, in which large-scale network technologies are identified as a special class, the histories of these systems are presented in detail. The case histories, which cover the development of these systems form their origins to the present, illustrate their social organizational properties, which vary on the following dimensions: geographically comprehensive, require well-defined standards, exist in large-scale policy environments, require highly reliable operation, engage in efforts to control their environments, and are embroiled in struggles over the control of message content.;Various mechanisms to control and manage these technical systems are discussed. The success of recent French telecommunications after decades of stagnation, and the relatively poor performance of French broadcasting is assessed. The explanation for success or failure is the degree of fit between a technical system's operating requirements, identified as social organizational properties, and its political and institutional context. Poor historical performance of French telephones stems from a poor fit of social organizational properties and context, which changed in the late 1960s, enabling dramatic improvements, culminating in successful deployment of the first mass videotex system. French radio and television broadcasting, on the other hand, have not yet enjoyed a comparable appropriate fit. |
