Configuring the Digital City of Amsterdam

Design and dispersion of new socio-technological configurations are studied by many varying sorts of scientific disciplines, ranging from communication studies to technology studies. In this article, the configuration and appropriation of new socio-technical constituencies are studied and subsequently interpreted in terms of a rather novel concept: social learning. On top of what is known about appropriation and configuration processes, social learning adds another point of view, elaborated from a perspective known as the social shaping of technology. It takes Beck and Giddens' reflexive modernization as starting point, and uses this to elaborate social learning into two dominant modes: the mode of experimentation and the mode of control. The Digital City of Amsterdam is used as exemplar to demonstrate configuration and appropriation processes and how these can be interpreted as elements of the mode of experimentation.