This is a comprehensive and detailed note on Media, technology and societies for Fam 1001 F.
These notes examine the role of media and technology in society and the different views on the matter (such as technological determinism and social determinism). Several of the prescribed readings are also...
Media, Tech and Societies
Medium - noun. Late 16th century (originally denoting something intermediate in nature or degree): from
Latin, literally ‘middle’. Media technology stands 'in the middle' of our communications .
Thus we can say that technology mediates communication, and we need to grasp how technologies shape the
ways we interact with and communicate with one another (Croteau & Hoynes, 2000:299).
Time and space compression
Fundamental consequence of media tech
The Medium is the Message
(Marshall McLuhan) – medium theory / strong determinism
The ‘real’ message of the media is its structuring effects on human consciousness and social organisation.
Technological Determinism
"an approach that that identifies technology, or technological advances, as the central causal element in
processes of social change" (Croteau & Hoynes 2000: p301).
Determines a direct casual link between tech and social or cultural characteristics
Eg: TV produces aggression, obesity, sexualisation etc
Important to understand technologies as part of broader technological systems (MacKenzie and Wachman,
pp.8-10)
We can’t treat technology and society as analytically separate. Society creates and uses technology;
technology can’t have an effect without people using it.
Technological or Media Determinism (Daniel Chandler)
The term 'deterministic' tends to be a negative one for many social scientists, and modern sociologists in
particular often use the word as a term of abuse.
The technological determinist view is a technology-led theory of social change: technology is seen as 'the
prime mover' in history.
Technological determinists interpret technology in general and communications technologies in particular as
the basis of society in the past, present and even the future. They say that technologies such as writing or print
or television or the computer 'changed society'.
Technological determinism focuses on causality - cause and effect relationships - a focus typically associated
with 'scientific' explanation. Any exploration of communications technology has to recognize the difficulty of
isolating 'causes' and 'effects', or even in distinguishing causes from effects. As an explanation of change,
technological determinism is 'monistic' or mono-causal (rather than 'multicausal'): it offers a single cause.
Also involves reductionism, which aims to reduce a complex whole to the effects of one part (or parts) upon
another part (or parts).
Technological determinists often seem to be trying to account for almost everything in terms of technology: a
perspective which we may call techno-centrism.
Associated with technological determinism is reification. To reify is to 'thingify': to treat an abstraction as a
material thing. What is 'Technology'? Reifying 'Technology' involves treating it as if it were a single material
thing with a homogeneous, undifferentiated character.
, The problem is that it is easy to slip into generalizations about 'Technology'.
Technology cannot be cut off as a separate thing from specific contexts of use: technology has many
manifestations in different social contexts. A single technology can serve many quite different purposes.
Closely associated with reification is another feature of technological determinism whereby technology is
presented as autonomous (or sometimes 'semi-autonomous'): it is seen as a largely external - 'outside' of
society. Rather than as a product of society and an integral part of it, technology is presented as an
independent, self-controlling, self-determining – out of human control.
Technology which no-one seems to control seems to have 'a will of its own'. This stance
involves anthropomorphism or technological animism in its crediting of an inanimate entity with the
consciousness and will of living beings. Technologies are seen as having 'purposes' of their own rather than
purely technical functions.
Also related to technological autonomy is the frequent assumption or implication that technological
developments, once under way, are unstoppable: their 'progress' is inevitable, unavoidable and irreversible.
Technologies which are technically possible are not always developed or when developed, are rejected. We
need only consider the lack of commitment to developing alternative energy sources.
Some critics argue against technological determinism on the grounds that technology is 'neutral' or 'value-
free' (neither good or bad in itself), and that what counts is not the technology but the way in which we
choose to use it. ‘the bad worksman blames his tools’
It is a great mistake to jump from the conclusion that the relationship between technology and society is not
simple to the conclusion that the use of a particular technology in a specific context has no consequences at all.
Any technological change which is great enough is likely to produce some social change. And some of these
changes may be widespread and major.
Technology is one of a number of mediating factors in human behaviour and social change, which both acts
on and is acted on by other phenomena.
Production-Transmission-Reception model
Semiotics lectures have taught us that this model is over-simplistic at best since:
- Texts are polysemic
- Meaning is made in context
- Dominant readings may not be the interpretations of all the members of the audience
Digital technologies and social media highlight the problems with this model.
With the rise of new media, the power to communicate to larger audiences is democratized to some extent.
There is not really a clear line between media producers and the audience.
There’s also no longer such a monopoly of communicative power with media producers.
New players have entered the picture (eg. aggregators: a website or program that collects related items of
content and displays them or links to them). Google and Facebook – collects your personal info.
The medium itself is not only a physical collection of signs but is also making decisions about what signs will
appear for particular users. Google algorithms select results based on your location and prior search history,
and Facebook’s code divides what will appear in your news feed (depending on how you interact with various
people).
In the past, newspapers etc also decided who saw what.
Popular interest in new media shifted from invention, novelty and risk to regulation, reliability and safety
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