1 thought on “Earliest use of "STS"?”

1. I comment here, although I might have just answered your question in your comment to my post. Actually I have a chapter written on that question and its basic point is: the establishing of a research problem is a different (social) process from the one that labels it. STS as a problem emerged already early last century, its institutional stabilizing began in the 1930s (with the french CSSR) and was strengthened in 1965, when the Science of Science Foundation was founded. The term (S)STS itself (and also the confusion about the question if it means: Study of Science, Technology and Society or Science and Technology Studies) has two roots, one in Europe, on in the US. In France there was the Parex group in 1970 that turned into the Parex network which then joined forces in the 1980s with the team that published the Sociology of Science Yearbook in 1977 to found EASST. In the US a similar movement started with the journal Science Studies in 1971 that changed its name in 1975 to Social Studies of Science. The very same year 4S was founded. "Technology" was added when in the "Newsletter for Science, Technology and Human Values" was first published in the end of the 70s – first independent from 4S. 4S??official journal used to be the 4S Review and STHV was turned into the official journal in 1987. Besides that, there was and is lots of STS outside "formal STS" (whatever that was at a specific moment) and the story of STHV shows that a big player in STS today can come from outside the institutionalized STS groups. So: of course all the work on Science, Technology and Society was and was not STS before 1977. Oh yes, 1977 – the very short answer to your question. The earliest use of the term STS that I could find is Spiegel-R??sing??s and de Solla Price??1977 book on "Science, Technology and Society: A cross-disciplinary perspective. (see http://www.jstor.org/pss/2577699 for a review)

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