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Updated: Oct 27, 2026

Intracortical Inhibition Within the Primary Motor Cortex Can Be Modulated by Changing the Focus of Attention
Published on: September 11, 2017
Abstract:
This essay subjects Kranzberg's laws to a critical assessment: They show little sensitivity to the role of women in the history of technology, insufficiently engage scholarship challenging technological determinism, and the idea of formulating laws sits uneasily with humanities research. A second reading reveals a different picture. The essay recovers the laws' heuristic value, particularly their attention to context, and their implications for debates over technological determinism, social constructivism, and the role of history of technology in policymaking. Focusing especially on the first through the fourth laws, the essay asks what remains productive in Kranzberg's formulations when read against subsequent scholarship. The essay concludes that Kranzberg's laws can still serve as a valuable introduction to the history of technology for undergraduate students; for graduate students, they require the critical perspectives offered by the reflective essays in this issue of Technology and Culture as essential additional reading.
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