Axiological approach on social appropriation of technologies

This paper presents a conceptual and operational framework for the study of technological appropriation. Its development requires taking into consideration a series of elements that appear throughout the work: socio-technological discourse, cultural appropriation, practical environments, group culture, technological culture, barriers and facilitators. These elements are part of an axiological dimension in which technological appropriation relates to the satisfaction of important values for each social group in its relationship with specific technologies. The set of facilitators and barriers that describes this relationship is the result of evaluating the technology in question in the context of such relevant values. This paper also presents a typology of barriers and users of technology, and describes the processes and dynamics of transition in which they get involved. Finally, technological appropriation is proposed as a relationship between the social group and the technology, based on the requirement that its use meets three particular conditions.