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🇮🇳 UGC NET Sociology · subject
UGC NET Sociology Science, Technology and Society Syllabus
Every chapter and topic of Science, Technology and Society examined in UGC NET Sociology — 12 chapters, 2 topics, plus 50 flashcards written against it.
Science, Technology and Society syllabus — full chapter and topic list
Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Science, Technology and Society in UGC NET Sociology, not a summary of it.
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History of Technological Development
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Changing notions of Time and Space
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Flows and Boundaries
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Virtual Community
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Media
2 topics- Print and Electronic
- Visual and Social Media
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E-Governance and Surveillance Society
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Technology and Emerging Political Processes
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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State Policy, Digital Divide and Inclusion
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Technology and Changing Family Relations
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Technology and Changing Health Systems
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Food and Technology
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
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Cyber Crime
overviewExamined as a single unit within Science, Technology and Society — no further topic split in the official outline.
Science, Technology and Society flashcards for UGC NET Sociology
25 of 50 cards from the Science, Technology and Society deck — real questions with worked answers.
What is 'print media'?
Communication media produced by mechanical or digital printing on paper, such as newspapers, magazines, books, journals and pamphlets, distributed to a mass readership.
What is 'electronic media'?
Media that require an electronic device for the audience to access content, such as radio, television, film, audio/video recordings and online digital platforms.
Who invented the movable-type printing press and in what year?
Johannes Gutenberg, around 1440 CE, enabling the mass production of printed texts in Europe.
What did Marshall McLuhan mean by 'the medium is the message'?
The form of a medium itself, rather than its content, shapes how society perceives and is affected by it; each medium restructures human perception and social organization.
What is McLuhan's concept of the 'global village'?
The idea that electronic media collapse space and time, linking people worldwide into a single interconnected community resembling a village.
How did McLuhan classify 'hot' versus 'cool' media?
Hot media are high-definition and demand little participation (e.g., print, radio, film); cool media are low-definition and require high audience participation to fill in information (e.g., television, telephone).
What is Benedict Anderson's concept of 'imagined communities' and its link to print media?
Nations are socially constructed communities imagined by people who perceive themselves as members; 'print capitalism' (newspapers, novels in vernacular) created the shared consciousness that made modern nationalism possible.
What did Jürgen Habermas mean by the 'public sphere'?
A realm of social life, emerging with the 18th-century bourgeois press, coffee houses and salons, where private individuals come together to debate matters of common concern and form public opinion.
According to Habermas, what caused the 'refeudalization' or decline of the public sphere?
The commercialization of mass media and growth of advertising/public relations, which turned rational-critical debate into managed consumption and passive spectatorship.
What is the 'culture industry' thesis of Adorno and Horkheimer?
Frankfurt School argument that mass-produced commercial media standardize culture into commodities, promoting passivity, conformity and reinforcing capitalist ideology.
What is the hypodermic needle (magic bullet) theory of media effects?
An early, now-discredited model holding that media messages are 'injected' directly into a passive audience, producing uniform and immediate effects.
What is the two-step flow theory of communication?
Lazarsfeld and Katz's model: media influence flows first to 'opinion leaders' who then pass on and interpret information to the wider public, so effects are mediated by interpersonal networks.
What is the 'agenda-setting' function of mass media?
McCombs and Shaw's theory that media may not tell people what to think, but are highly successful in telling them what to think about by emphasizing certain issues.
What is the 'cultivation theory' of George Gerbner?
The claim that long-term, heavy exposure to television gradually shapes (cultivates) viewers' perceptions of social reality, e.g., the 'mean world syndrome'.
What is Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model?
Media messages are 'encoded' by producers but audiences 'decode' them in three possible ways: dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, or oppositional readings.
What is the 'uses and gratifications' approach to media?
An audience-centred theory holding that people actively select media to satisfy specific needs such as information, personal identity, social interaction and entertainment.
Define 'mass media'.
Technologies and institutions that transmit standardized messages to a large, heterogeneous and geographically dispersed audience simultaneously.
What is the key difference between print and electronic media in terms of literacy and access?
Print media require literacy to consume, limiting reach; electronic media (radio, TV) transcend literacy barriers through sound and image, enabling wider mass access.
What is 'visual media'?
Media that communicate primarily through images, such as photography, film, television, posters, advertisements and infographics, relying on visual perception rather than text alone.
What is John Berger's central argument in 'Ways of Seeing'?
That seeing is culturally and ideologically conditioned; images, especially in advertising and oil painting, encode relations of power, gender and property (e.g., the 'male gaze').
What is Laura Mulvey's concept of the 'male gaze'?
In cinema, the camera and narrative are structured from a heterosexual male viewpoint that positions women as passive objects of visual pleasure.
What is Jean Baudrillard's concept of the 'simulacrum' and 'hyperreality'?
In media-saturated society, signs and images cease to refer to reality and become copies without originals (simulacra), producing 'hyperreality' where the simulation is more real than reality itself.
What is Guy Debord's 'society of the spectacle'?
The argument that in advanced capitalism authentic social life is replaced by representations and images; social relations among people are mediated by images (the spectacle).
What is Roland Barthes' contribution to the analysis of visual images?
Through semiotics he distinguished denotation (literal meaning) from connotation (cultural/ideological meaning) and showed how images function as 'myth' that naturalizes ideology.
What is 'social media'?
Interactive internet-based platforms that allow users to create, share and exchange user-generated content and to form networks, e.g., Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp.
Planning Science, Technology and Society for UGC NET Sociology
Science, Technology and Society is about 1% of the UGC NET Sociology syllabus by topic count — 2 of 201 topics, spread over 12 chapters. At roughly 45 minutes per topic plus 12 minutes per sub-topic, a first pass runs to about 2 hours.
The heaviest chapters are Media (2 topics), History of Technological Development (0 topics), Changing notions of Time and Space (0 topics) . Front-load those while your energy is high; the short chapters are better revision filler later.
Work top-down: read the chapter, then tick topics off individually rather than marking the whole chapter done. Sub-topics are where silent gaps hide.
Science, Technology and Society (UGC NET Sociology) FAQ
What is in the UGC NET Sociology Science, Technology and Society syllabus?
Science, Technology and Society is split into 12 chapters — History of Technological Development, Changing notions of Time and Space, Flows and Boundaries, Virtual Community, Media and E-Governance and Surveillance Society, and 6 more, containing 2 topics and 0 sub-topics in total.
How many chapters are there in Science, Technology and Society for UGC NET Sociology?
12 chapters. Science, Technology and Society accounts for about 1% of the topics in the whole UGC NET Sociology syllabus (2 of 201).
How long should I spend on Science, Technology and Society for UGC NET Sociology?
Budget around 2 hours for a first pass through Science, Technology and Society — about 45 minutes per topic plus 12 minutes per sub-topic across its 2 topics. Add revision cycles on top.
Are there flashcards for UGC NET Sociology Science, Technology and Society?
Yes — a 50-card Science, Technology and Society deck. Sample cards are printed on this page, and the full deck is free in the Examius app with spaced repetition scheduling.