This paper develops a social-theoretical approach to public demonstrations (e.g., software demos, the performances of “market pitchers,” even street protests). Public demonstrations are often viewed as proofs, persuasion tools, and theatrical performances. I argue that they play a larger set of roles in social life. Depending the spaces of their enactment, they may serve as transactional and coordination devices, cognitive and relational tools, mobilization and competition apparatuses, observatories for demonstrators, and resources for project design, management, and assessment. They constitute an important form of interaction and help to structure social relationships. My argument is based on investigations into the uses of public demonstrations by the European Commission and U.S. scientists and engineers. These studies illustrate how “demo-cracies”—regimes that use public demonstrations for the management of public affairs—have developed in industrial and postindustrial societies.
AkrichMadeleine. 1992. “The De-scription of Technical Objects.” Pp. 205–24 in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Socio-technical Change, edited by BijkerW.LawJ.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2.
AurayNicolas. 1997. “Ironie et solidarité dans un milieu technicisé: les défis contre les protections dans les collectifs de hackers.” Pp. 177–201 in Cognition et information en société, edited by ConeinB.ThévenotL.Paris: Editions de l’EHESS (Série Raisons Pratiques, No 8).
3.
BarryAndrew. 2001. Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society. London: Athlone Press.
4.
BiagioliMarioGalisonPeter, eds. 2002. Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science. London: Routledge.
5.
BloomfieldBrian P.VurdubakisTheo. 2002. “The Vision Thing: Constructing Technology and the Future in Management Advice.” Pp. 115–29 in Critical Consulting: New Perspectives on the Management Advice Industry, edited by ClarkT.FinchamR.Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
6.
BoltanskiLucChiapelloEve. 1999. Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme. Paris: Gallimard.
7.
BrandStewart. 1987. The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT. New York: Viking.
8.
BrianÉric. 2001. “Citoyens américains, encore un effort si vous voulez être républicains!” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales138:47–55.
9.
ByrnesMark E.1994. Politics and Space: Image Making by NASA. Westport, CO: Praeger.
10.
CallonMichelMuniesaFabien. 2007. “Economic Experiments and the Construction of Markets.” Pp. 163–89 in Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, edited by MacKenzieD.MuniesaF.SiuL.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
11.
CapelleCamille. 2012. Échanger, concevoir, innover: analyse ethnographique d’évaluations pédagogiques avec les technologies numériques. PhD thesis, Université de Montpellier 3, Montpellier, France.
12.
ChappazValerie. 1997. “Telecoms Are Looking towards Fifth Framework R&D.” ACTS Newsclips, 24, June1.
13.
ClarkColinPinchTrevor. 1992. “The Anatomy of a Deception: Fraud and Finesse in the Mock Auction Sales ‘Con.’”Qualitative Sociology15:151–75.
14.
ClarkColinPinchTrevor. 1995. The Hard Sell: The Language and Lessons of Street-wise Marketing. London: Harper Collins.
15.
CollinsHarry M.1988. “Public Experiments and Displays of Virtuosity: The Core-Set Revisited.” Social Studies of Science18:725–48.
16.
CoopmansCatelijne. 2011. “‘Face Value’: New Medical Imaging Software in Commercial View.” Social Studies of Science41:155–76.
17.
DavidPaul A.1986. “Understanding the Economics of QWERTY: The Necessity of History.” Pp. 30–48 in Economic History and the Modern Economist, edited by ParkerW. N.New York: Blackwell.
18.
DolzaLuisaVérinHélène. 2003. “Une mise en scène de la technique: les théâtres de machines.” Alliage: Culture—Science—Technique50–51:8–20.
EspelandWendy N.1998. “Commensuration as a Social Process.” Annual Review of Sociology24:313–43.
21.
EzrahiYaron. 1990. The Descent of Icarus: Science and the Transformation of Contemporary Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
22.
GirardMoniqueStarkDavid. 2007. “Socio-technologies of Assembly: Sense Making and Demonstration in Rebuilding Lower Manhattan.” Pp. 145–76 in Governance and Information: The Rewiring of Governing and Deliberation in the 21st Century, edited by LazerD.Mayer-SchoenbergerV.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
23.
GoffmanErving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24.
GrimaudEmmanuel. 2003. Bollywood Film Studio: Ou comment les films se font à Bombay. Paris: CNRS Editions.
25.
GuiceJon. 1998. “Controversy and the State: Lord ARPA and Intelligent Computing.” Social Studies of Science28:103–38.
26.
HankinsThomas L.SilvermanRobert J.1995. Instruments and the Imagination. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
27.
HilgartnerStephen. 2000. Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
28.
HoudartSophie. 2005 “‘Ceci est une persienne’: montrer/démontrer dans un projet architectural au Japon.” Presented at the Sociology of Demonstration Workshop, May 19–20, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Marseille, France.
29.
JasanoffSheila. 2005. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30.
KaplanSarah. 2011. “Strategy and PowerPoint: An Inquiry into the Epistemic Culture and Machinery of Strategy Making.” Organization Science22: 320-46.
31.
LamontMichèle. 2009. How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
32.
LampelJoseph. 2001. “Show-and-Tell: Product Demonstrations and Path Creation of Technological Change.” Pp. 303–28 in Path Dependence and Creation, edited by GarudR. L.KarnoeP.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
33.
LatourBruno. 1983. “Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World.” Pp. 141–70 in Science Observed, edited by Knorr-CetinaK.MulkayM.Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
34.
LatourBruno. 1993. Petites leçons de sociologie des sciences. Paris: La Découverte.
35.
LemieuxCyril. 2008. “Rendre visibles les dangers du nucléaire: une contribution à la sociologie de la mobilisation.” Pp. 131–59 in La Cognition au prisme des sciences sociales, edited by LahireB.RosentalC.Paris: Éditions des Archives Contemporaines.
36.
Le VellyRonan. 2007. “Les démonstrateurs de foires: des professionnels de l’interaction symbolique.” Ethnologie française37:143–51.
37.
LewensteinBruce V.1993. “NASA and the Public Understanding of Space Science.” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society46:251–54.
38.
LicoppeChristian. 1996. La formation de la pratique scientifique: le discours de l’expérience en France et en Angleterre (1630–1820). Paris: La Découverte.
39.
LunenfeldPeter. 2000. Snap to Grid: A User’s Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
40.
LynchMichael E.BogenDavid. 1996. The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text, and Memory at the Iran-Contra Hearings. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
41.
MarkoffJohn. 1996. “Nothing Up Their Sleeves? Masters of the High-tech Demo Spin Their Magic.” New York Times, March11, p. D1.
42.
MaussMarcel. 1954. The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by CunnisonI.Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
43.
MertonRobert K.1938. “Science and the Social Order.” Philosophy of Science5:321–37.
44.
MukerjiChandra. 1997. Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
45.
MukerjiChandra. 2009. Impossible Engineering: Technology and Territoriality on the Canal du Midi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
46.
NeffGinaStarkDavid. 2004. “Permanently Beta: Responsive Organization in the Internet Era.” Pp. 173–88 in Society Online: The Internet in Context, edited by HowardP. N.JonesS.London: Sage.
47.
OgienAlbert. 2013. Désacraliser le chiffre dans l’évaluation du secteur public. Paris: Quae.
48.
OudshoornNellyPinchTrevor, eds. 2003. How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
49.
PinchTrevorBijkerWiebe E.1984. “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other.” Social Studies of Science14:399–431.
50.
PinchTrevorTroccoFrank. 2002. Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthetizer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
51.
PinchTrevor. 2003. “Giving Birth to New Users: How the Minimoog Was Sold to Rock and Roll.” Pp. 247–70 in How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology, edited by OudshoornN.PinchT.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
52.
RolandAlexShimanPhilip. 2002. Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983–1993. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
53.
RosentalClaude. 2002. “De la démo-cratie en Amérique: formes actuelles de la démonstration en intelligence artificielle.” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 141–2:110–20.
54.
RosentalClaude. 2003. “Certifying Knowledge: The Sociology of a Logical Theorem in Artificial Intelligence.” American Sociological Review68:623–44.
55.
RosentalClaude. 2004. “Fuzzyfying the World: Social Practices of Showing the Properties of Fuzzy Logic.” Pp. 159–78 in Growing Explanations: Historical Perspectives on Recent Science, edited by WiseM. N.Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
56.
RosentalClaude. 2005. “Making Science and Technology Results Public: A Sociology of Demos.” Pp. 346–49 in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, edited by LatourB.WeibelP.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
57.
RosentalClaude. 2007. Les capitalistes de la science: enquête sur les démonstrateurs de la Silicon Valley et de la NASA. Paris: CNRS Editions.
58.
RosentalClaude. 2008. Weaving Self-Evidence: A Sociology of Logic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
59.
RosentalClaude. 2009. “Anthropologie de la démonstration.” Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances3:233–52.
60.
RosentalClaude. 2010. “Social Studies of Evaluation.” Social Studies of Science40:481–4.
61.
RosentalClaude. 2011. Eco-Demos: Using Public Demonstrations to Influence and Manage Environmental Choices and Politics. Institut Marcel Mauss–CEMS Occasional Paper No. 3 (July). Retrieved October 29, 2013. (http://cems.ehess.fr/index.php?2671).
62.
SchafferSimon. 1983. “Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century.” History of Science21:1–43.
63.
SchafferSimon. 1994. “Machine Philosophy: Demonstration Devices in Georgian Mechanics.” Osiris9:157–82.
64.
ShapinStevenSchafferSimon. 1985. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
65.
ShapinSteven. 1988. “The House of Experiment in Seventeenth Century England.” Isis79:373–404.
66.
ShepardBenjamin. 2009. Queer Political Performance and Protest: Play, Pleasure, and Social Movement. London: Routledge.
67.
SherryJohn F.1998. “Market Pitching and The Ethnography of Speaking.” Advances in Consumer Research15:543–7.
68.
SimakovaElena. 2010. “RFID ‘Theatre of the Proof’: Product Launch and Technology Demonstration as Corporate Practices.” Social Studies of Science40:549–76.
69.
SmithWally. 2009. “Theatre of Use: A Frame Analysis of IT Demonstrations.” Social Studies of Science39:449–80.
70.
StarkDavidParavelVerena. 2008. “Powerpoint in Public: Digital Technologies and the New Morphology of Demonstration.” Theory, Culture and Society25:30–55.
71.
SuchmanLucyTriggRandallBlombergJeanette. 2002. “Working Artefacts: Ethnomethods of the Prototype.” British Journal of Sociology53:163–79.
72.
TardeGabriel de. 1903. The Laws of Imitation. New York: Henry Holt.
73.
Thébaud-SorgerMarie. 2009. L’Aérostation au temps des Lumières. Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
74.
TorkaMarc. 2009. Die Projektförmigkeit der Forschung. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos.
75.
Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. 2004. Official Journal of the European Union. 47(16December).
76.
TriggRandall H.BødkerSusanneGrønbækKaj. 1991. “Open-Ended Interaction in Cooperative Prototyping: A Video-Based Analysis.” Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems3:63–86.
77.
Von StadenHeinrich. 1994. “Anatomy as Rhetoric: Galen on Dissection and Persuasion.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences50:47–66.
WinthereikBrit RossJohannsenNisStrandDixi Louise. 2008. “Making Technology Public: Challenging the Notion of Script through an E-health Demonstration Video.” Information, Technology and People21:116–32.
80.
WynneBrian. 1992. “Misunderstood Misunderstanding: Social Identities and Public Uptake of Science.” Public Understanding of Science1:281–304.
81.
WoolgarSteve. 1991. “Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials.” Pp. 58–99 in A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, edited by LawJ.London: Routledge.
82.
YanevaAlbena. 2009. “The Architectural Presentation: Techniques and Politics.” Pp. 212–9 in Networks of Design, edited by HackneyF.GlynneJ.MintonV.Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers.
