"To any telephone girl"

Of course you heard me well enough and knew
I asked for Gerrard 2166;
The trouble is you never seem to fix
Your mind on what you undertake to do.

I cannot tell what system you pursue,

Nor how, within the space of twenty ticks,
Those simple numbers you contrived to mix
And put me on to 6122.

I give it up; nor will I toil and fret
Such depths of human frailty to probe;
I merely state your methods would upset
The standard equilibrium of Job,
To whom such sore vexations were unknown
As you and this infernal telephone.

Hansard Watt

Published 1911, Pall Mall Magazine

Reactions to Bijker

There are some criticisms [Langdon Winner] that can be leveled at the concept of 'relevant social groups.'

• Who has the power/authority/expertise to determine what a relevant social group is?
• Are there any groups who are affected by the technology (or by technological change) but who are disenfranchised, and thus cannot speak up?
• Are any groups excluded from the equation? 

Winner stresses the importance of 'looking at the other side of the coin': not just to look at which questions are asked but also which questions are overlooked; which debates are left off the agenda; which groups do not participate in the decision-making process.  There is some validity to this argument.  We get a fuller picture of society and its structures when we study not only the movers and shakers, but also those at the periphery who usually have no say.

As an aside (but still related), scholars have studied the classic technologies throughout history (nuclear weapons, steam power, automobile, etc.)  One thing they all have in common is that they are (or were) successful technologies.  No one has seen fit to look at technologies that have failed.  Examining what went wrong with a failed technology can surely tell us volumes about the society from which it emanated.

Langdon Winner.  "Upon opening the black box and finding it empty: social constructivism and the philosophy of technology."

Bijker's relevant social groups

The concept of "relevant social groups" is used to denote those groups in society that share the same set of meanings attached to any particular technology.

Such a group may be a group of individuals (organised or not), an institution, organisation or company.  Some examples may be the army, an industrial company that manufactures or develops the artefact, or consumers/users of the artefact.  However, to identify relevant social groups as only being producers and consumers of a technology is reductive; there are numerous other groups in addition to these two.

For Bijker, a social group is relevant when the meaning of the artefact is the same for all members of that group.  

Bijker uses his study of the history of the bicycle to give the example of cyclists, as users of this technology.  However, within this group there are also sub-groups; in this instance, women cyclists, for whom the bicycle came to mean emancipation and a vehicle (excuse the pun) to take them into the twentieth century.

One artefact will have several relevant social groups and each group will have greatly differing interpretations of that same artefact.  A nuclear reactor serves as an example.  Note the varying interpretations of these social groups:
Union bosses - a safe working environment compared to, say, a building site or dockside.
Local residents - dangers of radioactivity and attendant cancers, but also employment opportunities.
International relations experts - the presence of a nuclear reactor causes unrest in the international community (and nuclear proliferation) especially when in the hands of someone we're not too friendly with!
Conclusion - "interpretative flexibility"

Trevor Pinch, Wiebe Bijker.  "The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other."