What is STS?

STS is a multidisciplinary field in which scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and behavioral sciences examine the social contexts from which science and technology emerge, the intertwined organizations of people and things used to implement scientific and technological systems, the social consequences of these systems, and the cultural reactions to them. Science and technology studies of the automobile, for example, analyzes the social as well as the technical reasons for the emergence of the internal combustion engine, the reorganization of factories and reconceptualization of labor fueled by mass production techniques, the impact of the automobile on the design of cities and the development of suburbs, and the iconic status of the car in American culture.