The Real World of Technology

The Real World of Technology, published in 1989 from Franklin's CBC Massey Lectures, is the foundational text of her technology philosophy. The book introduces the holistic-prescriptive distinction, the production-growth model framework, and the seven-point technology evaluation checklist. Its central argument: technology is not a collection of devices but a practice—a system of relationships between worker, work, and institution. The 'real world' in the title is deliberate: not the world of product demonstrations or quarterly presentations but the world of Tuesday afternoon, where tools are used by actual people under actual constraints of time, budget, and attention. Franklin insists that any honest analysis must begin in the real world because that is where consequences are experienced by people with least power to refuse them. The book argues that the governance of technology is a democratic responsibility, that the inhabitants of any technological system must have a voice in its design, and that the viability of technology depends on the enforcement of limits to power through collective