Technological Determinism

Technological Determinism

Technology

Review

  • Communication Medium: An object or technology “in between” exchanges of information and symbols

  • Photography is a medium (communicating through still images)

  • Mediums are complex systems

  • Technology is part of that system

  • But history and context must also be part of the conversation

  • Technologies change more rapidly than industrial practice and culture

Understanding Media Technology

  • Technology is a complex term

  • Applied knowledge

  • Technology doesn’t require an object

  • Words are a technology of communication

  • Fordism is a technology of mass production

  • Objects of Technology

  • Example: Film as a piece of celluloid

  • Practices of Technology

  • Example: FIlm as the recording and distribution of stories and events within a specific production and cultural context

Objects of Technology

  • Traditional Media Technology

  • Built around analog systems of distribution and consumption

  • Media conveyed via electric signals

  • Digital Media

  • Media conveyed through binary code and interpreted by a CPU 

  • A series of 1s and 0s

Practices of Technology: Traditional Media

  • Maintain Boundaries between mediums

  • Film remains film. TV is TV, a book is a book

  • Industries tend to be siloed

  • Emphasize Mass Production

  • Producing as much as possible for the largest audience

  • Expensive

  • Products of traditional media are difficult to produce for non-professionals with limited resources

  • Centralized Control

  • Few large companies control the output within most traditional media industries

  • Favors Synchronized Experiences

  • Large audiences gathered in a single space support the size and investment in traditional media products

  • Boundaries between media are blurred

  • Not clear when one medium ends and another begins

  • Niche targeting

  • Favors micro audiences

  • Less centralized control

  • Smaller, more manageable companies

  • Production comes from a variety of sources

  • Less expensive 

  • Favors DIY and prosumer production technologies

  • More forgiving of a less polished end product

  • Asynchronous

  • Flexible distribution and consumption (time and place shifting)

  • Two-way communication with audiences

  • Active medium, requires or encourages interaction

Technology and Culture

  • From “new” to emergent

  • Established Media

  • Has a set of industrial logics and historical precedents

  • Usually regulated either by the state or internal organizations (or both)

  • Power comes from existing infrastructures and established relationships with government and audiences

  • Emergent Media

  • Has no established norms or rules

  • Unregulated and unpredictable; future uncertain

  • Power comes from the ability to disrupt established media systems

Path of Emergent Media

  • Invention and Development

  • Distribution and Commercialization

  • Regulation

  • Domestication

Invention and Development

  • A technology is researched and developed by experts

  • May exist for years before it is put to use

  • ARPANET

  • An early online network developed by the US Military during the Cold War

Distribution and Commercialization

  • Technology is sold or leased to private stakeholders

  • New markets slowly emerge

  • People begin to form best practices and norms

  • Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)

  • Early online forums set up by early internet users

Regulation

  • Grows in popularity

  • Becomes an established media industry, but often unwieldy

  • Public fears of potential societal influence and collapse

  • Communication and Decency Act

  • A 1996 piece of legislation

  • Attempted to limit porn seen by children on the internet

  • Overturned by supreme course in 1998

Domestication

  • Technologies become part of a person's everyday life

  • Usually find their place in the home

  • Becomes part of culture

  • AOL Instant Messenger

  • A messaging service used by millions of internet users in the late 90s and early 2000s

  • Defined internet culture for a generation

Views of Emergent Technology

  • Technological Determinism

  • Understands technological development as inevitable

  • Technology is THE source of social change

  • Technology can change society for better or for worse

  • Utopian Ideas

  • People see new technology as something that will change the world for the better

  • It will bring about global changes that help elevate us as a species

  • Dystopian

  • New technology will destroy the world and disrupt ways of life we values

  • Social Construction of Technology

  • Technology is not simply a product of objective scientific or technical factors

  • Takes on the characteristics of the society that produces and develops it

Case Study: AI As Emergent Technology Video

  • Regulation

  • Dystopian: AI will go rouge and take over companies and platforms

  • Utopian: Can be used as a tool to help humanity

  • Social Constructionist- talking about the people who are in control of it, not necessarily the technology