Technology before Engineering: a Pioneering New Research Paper at WI1

Technovation

How are expectations formed about innovation before actual technical development starts? And what is the role of cultural industries in this context? Albrecht Fritzsche and Konrad Dürrbeck look into these questions on the example of the James Bond movie series. They perform a video analysis to understand recurring patterns in the portrayal of imaginary technology and discuss how they inform and legitimize innovation projects. Using Suvin’s concept of the Novum and Oevermann’s Objective Hermeneutics as a basis for video analysis, they take a pioneering approach in terms of method and theory. Their findings open up new research directions in the field of cultural entrepreneurship and innovation management, crossing disciplinary gaps between industrial engineering, social sciences and the humanities.

The pre-print of the paper is now available at the Technovation website: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497217301220