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8/3/2019 Art of Communication I7.02
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Technological Determinism
Termed coined by ThorsteinVeblen in 1920s
Belief that technology is the agent of socialchange
Technology moulds society and changes our
behaviours and interactionsThorsteinVeblen (1857 1929)
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The technological determinist view is atechnology-ledtheory of social change:technology is seen as 'the prime mover' in
history. According to technological determinists,
particular technical developments,communications technologies or media, or,
most broadly, technology in general are the soleor prime antecedent causes of changes insociety, and technology is seen as thefundamental condition underlying the pattern ofsocial organization.
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Technological Determinism states that media
technology shapes how we as individuals in asociety think, feel, act, and how a society
operates as we move from one technological
age to another (Tribal- Literate- Print-Electronic).
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Most interpretations of technologicaldeterminism share two general ideas:
the development of technology itself follows apredictable, traceable path largely beyondcultural or political influence
technology in turn has "effects" on societies thatare inherent, rather than socially conditioned orproduced because that society organizes itself tosupport and further develop a technology once ithas been introduced.
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Technological determinists interpret technology ingeneral and communications technologies inparticular as the basis of society in the past, present
and even the future. They say that technologies suchas writing or print or television or the computer'changed society'. In its most extreme form, the entireform of society is seen as being determined bytechnology: new technologies transform society at
every level, including institutions, social interactionand individuals.At the least a wide range of social andcultural phenomena are seen as shaped bytechnology. 'Human factors' and social arrangementsare seen as secondary.
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The model of medium theory, proposing thatthe most significant cultural and social effects ofmedia derive from the intrinsic properties of the
media themselves, has historically been viewedwith suspicion within studies of media andtechnology, especially on the critical Left.
An extensive literature drawing on political
economy and critical sociology has denouncedthe technological determinism inherent inmedium theory, advancing instead a socialshaping of technology thesis.
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Around 370 BC, Plato warned in the Phaedrusthat writing was the debasement of memory,the degradation of thought.
In 1882, Nietszche wrote of the typewriter: Ourwriting instruments contribute to our thoughts(Kittler 1990: 195).
These two giants of Western philosophy, at
variance in many other ways, and separated bytwo millennia, pointed directly to the structuringeffect on consciousness of media technology;yet this perspective has retained a minoritystatus in philosophy and critical thought.
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Ong maintains that: More than any othersingle invention, writing has transformed
human consciousness. (Ong 1982: 78).
Goody, who developed the notion ofintellectual technologies, asserts that
writing creates a different cognitivepotentiality for human beings thancommunication by word of mouth(1977: 128,cited Tofts andMcKeich 1997: 46).
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For Ong, writing is a secondary modellingsystem (8); it is dependent on the prior primary
system, spoken language, yet it fundamentallytransforms the potential of language. Thewritten word becomes the bearer ofinformation, acquired by the visual sense. The
shifts in consciousness made possible by thisinvention include the development of analytical,rational thought, the cultivation of artificialmemory, of precision, linearity, abstraction.
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ORALITY
Additive
Agreggative Redundant or copious
Conservationalist ortraditionalist
Empathetic andparticipatory rather thanobjectively distanced
Homoestatic
LITERACY
subordinate
Analytical Possibility for editing
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McLuhans articulation of the model is atonce the most succinct and the most bold of
all its exponents; he is also (like Baudrillardafter him) deliberately provocative in hisstatements. ForMcLuhan, all media,including print, invest our lives with artificial
perception and arbitrary values; the messageof any medium is the change of scale or paceor pattern that it introduces into humanaffairs (1974: 16).
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Each new medium of communication alters
the patterns of perception steadily and
without any resistance (1974: 27). Eachmedium alters the sense ratios of perception;
this relates to both the act of individualsengagement with the medium, and the
hierarchy within the human sensorium indifferent historical epochs.
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This hierarchy of the senses is shaped by thedominant media forms of the time, such as printor electronic mass media. Thus the primacy ofsound in oral cultures gives way to the primacyof vision under literacy. Corresponding to thisshift, the means of attaining information is alsoaltered. The collective audience of listeners inoral societies becomes an agglomeration ofindividuals in literate societies: atomisedreaders.
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CoolMedia
A cool medium,whetherthe spoken word or themanuscript or TV, leavesmuch more for the listener
or user to do than a hotmedium
HotMedia
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Technological determinism as an explanation is
monistic or mono-causal.
Reduces the arguments to cause and effect
It is however very suggestive and very appealing
LewisMumfordargued that equating technology
with tools and machines is itself reductionist
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McLuhan denounces this position because for
him the most important point is the way
technologies structure usother theorists contend that new media
alters the communicative relationshipallowing for a diversity of relationships
or that a new technology creates aprecondition for cultural change
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Baudrillard for instance argues that
contemporary culture is increasingly
determined by an array of technologicallyproduced simulacra which has come to hi-
jack reality itself
McLuhan however was optimistic while
Baudrillard is pessimistic (TV is thepornography of everyday life beamed back
at us)
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Rather than accepting televisions advent andthe shaping of societies in its image the TVage Williams is concerned with the social
needs which were met by the development ofradio and TV. Specifically, there was a primaryneed to connect the domestic space of familyhomes to large-scale urban communities.Aswell, Williams analyses the complex ofGovernment policy-making and corporateeconomic interest which controlledbroadcasting, in varying alignments, around theworld.
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Horkheimer
Adorno
Distrust ofMassMedia Passive receptacles
Discrimination of taste
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The SecondMediaAge
Old BroadcastModel
NewMedia Interactive
Two way
Multiple Producers
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The Frankfurt School developed an influential
critique of mass culture as an industrialised
apparatus all part of a heavily administeredsocial system
Many critics (Marcuse,Adorno, Ellul,
Mumford) argued against technology as
neutral - rather that technology had becomea powerful regulating system in itself
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Langdon Winner asked if in fact certain
technologies are inherently political
Do some technologies demand political andcultural responses in themselves?
Do technologies have ideology built intothem?
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