The Doctor in the Pill: From “Technical” Details to Social Practices

Abstract

This chapter addresses the questions pertaining to the analysis of expectations around the use of emerging technologies. As in the previous chapter, the Nanopil – an emerging artifact for colorectal cancer screening – offers a case study to address the central question of this chapter. The concept of a “fictive script” is introduced as a useful analytic tool to investigate scenarios of use and application of an emerging technology. The fictive scripts conceived by designers are compared both with the script inscribed in the technological object, and with alternative “worlds” as conceived by other actors. Following a short explanation of the research design used for investigating these questions in the case of the Nanopil, the findings of this analysis are presented and critically discussed.