From the field of urban studies here is analyzed the socio-technical controversy "to sell or not to sell Bogotá Telecommunications Enterprise" (ETB), a Colombian public telecommunication company. The first section reviews the emergence, development and critical potential of this field. The second section presents the case study sub-divided into four parts. The first approach exposes the ETB as an entity and its socio-technical profile; the second explores the controversy emerged involving the interaction between the relationship "ETB-city" and the contextualization based upon the controversy analysis; the third approach describes the design methodology employed which included: i) developed of a corpus of newspapers headlines on the controversy "to sell or not to sell the ETB" that took place in 2011; ii) adaptation of the analytical categories to the SCOT research protocol³ and; iii) application of content analysis to the corpus of news supported by the s¬oftware ATLAS/ti (version 7). At last, the fourth approach exposes the analysis which identified the predominant actors and arguments place on the debate and the technological frameworks or set of concepts used to discuss and resolve the dilemma "to sell or not to sell": on one side, the set denominated "telecommunications market", and, on the other side, the set denominated "the city's public patrimony". And, the third section regarding final considerations criticizes the emphasis given to the polarization set based upon the dilemma "to sell or not to sell", which is blocking the understanding of the socio-technical interaction within the relationship between "ETB-city" and overcrowding the development of their possible potential.
Socio-technical urban studies; Socio-technical urban infrastructure; Bogotá Telecommunications Enterprise