Technological Determinism Research Articles

SMS Riot: Transmitting Race on a Sydney Beach, December 2005

SMS Riot: Transmitting Race on a Sydney Beach, December 2005

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E-Government to E-Democracy

Abstract Significant claims have been made that developments in e-government can lead to e-democracy. However, the ‘league tables’ that are regularly published rating different governments' performance and the laudatory tones in which governments identify their own actions as more democratic in the field of e-government need to be treated with some caution. Assessments of democratisation can be marred by the enthusiasm of technological determinists or governments themselves. This paper reviews aspects of this literature, empirical data gathering and e-democracy trials and advances a possible framework for assessing the democratic merits of technological innovations.

Bicycle: The History (review)

Reviewed by: Bicycle: The History Rudi Volti (bio) Bicycle: The History. By David V. Herlihy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. 470. $35. Many epochal technological innovations have had their critics as well as their enthusiasts, but who can find fault with the bicycle? For environmentalists and supporters of appropriate technologies, the bicycle offers a nonpolluting, energy-efficient, and inexpensive means of transportation. For lovers of high tech, there are carbon-fiber frames, ultra-lightweight components, and ergonomically designed saddles to inspire awe and indebtedness. On an academic plane, the history of the bicycle offers a set of fascinating case studies in topics such as the process of innovation, the interaction of artifacts with their users, and the ways in which new technologies both shape and reflect their social and cultural environments. The history of the bicycle can be divided into discrete episodes. Its origins date back to 1817 with Baron Karl von Drais's creation of a wooden-framed two-wheeler that rolled along as the rider's feet pushed against the ground. It enjoyed a brief vogue in Europe and the United States, but offered scant advantages over pedestrianism and within a few years the "draisine" was all but forgotten. The next phase in the two-wheeler's history presents an intriguing question for historians of technology: Why did so many years pass before someone thought of powering the front axle with crank and pedals? There may never be a satisfactory answer to this question, and even the awarding of credit for this insight remains a matter of some dispute. Whatever the ultimate source of its invention, there is no question that what came to be called the velocipede originated in Paris in 1867, and then diffused rapidly throughout the world. The desire for increased speed next motivated the bicycle's evolution into that icon of late-nineteenth-century culture, the high-wheeler, or "penny-farthing," to use the apt British description. In accounting for the bicycling craze that accompanied first the velocipede and then the high-wheeler, David Herlihy focuses on cycling's clientele, and how the bicycle's ridership influenced its subsequent design. The high-wheeler was fast and uncomplicated, but it was not for the faint of heart; in fact, its inherent danger was a major part of the appeal it had for the young men who were its main users. But in the mid-1880s the bicycle broke out of this specialized niche with the invention of the "safety." Created in England by John Starley, with its relatively small wheels and chain drive it established the pattern that the great majority of bicycles adhere to today. From this point, the bicycle went on to occupy a variety of roles, retaining its traditional sporting and recreational functions while taking on a growing importance as a reliable, economical means of transport for the multitude. In tracing the evolution of the bicycle, Herlihy operates primarily as a social historian, narrating how riders, entrepreneurs, and the general public [End Page 680] have reacted to the bicycle and shaped the uses to which it has been put. On several occasions, he notes that the freedom offered by the bicycle helped to loosen the constraints of traditional sex roles. But the bicycle could not serve as a force for social emancipation by itself, as technological determinists might have it; many riders embodied the bigotry of their era when they excluded blacks and members of the white working class from their clubs and organizations. While focusing on its social setting, Herlihy also devotes a fair amount of space to the bicycle's technical evolution. As with most significant innovations, the development of the bicycle has been a story of radical breakthroughs, such as the sprocket-and-chain drive that made the safety bicycle possible, which are then complemented by a host of incremental improvements. And while bicycle manufacturers made important innovations such as the tensioned-spoke wheel on their own, they also benefited from inventions from outside the industry, such as the pneumatic tire. Whatever their sources, bicycle technologies themselves diffused into other sectors, notably the infant automobile industry, which made abundant use of ball bearings, tube frames, chain...

Mediators of Modernity: "Photo-interpreters" in Japanese Silent Cinema

Mediators of Modernity:"Photo-interpreters" in Japanese Silent Cinema Isolde Standish (bio) The film critic and theorist Kaeriyama Norimasa,1 writing in the trade journal Kinema Record in August 1915—for the benefit of foreign readers he wrote in English—, defines the role of benshi/katsuben as that of "photo-interpreters." The case of the benshi thus provides an excellent example of the processes of modification and alteration to the introduction of new technologies, and the adaptation of local populations to the accompanying introduction of new worldviews. In this article I shall explore two avenues of thought in relation to the role played by the benshi in the history of early Japanese cinema. First, following on from Kaeriyama Norimasa, I shall argue that the benshi functioned as mediators of modernity through their interpretation of foreign films for Japanese audiences. Second, I shall explore their role within the domestically produced melodramatic genres (shinpa-derived traditions of "women's weepies" and the matatabimono "men's weepies") as vehicles through which characters were given a greater sense of psychological depth, while exploring how their inclusion as a central element in the film experience impacted the development of cinematic conventions in these genres. For the discussion of narrational norms and the benshi within the melodramatic traditions of early cinema, I have drawn heavily on a set of video releases of Japanese films covering the decade from the mid-1920s to [End Page 93] the mid-1930s produced by the Matsuda Film Company (Matsuda Eiga-sha) in the early 1990s. These releases come complete with benshi narration by Matsuda Shinsui (1925-1987) and Sawato Midori. Mediators of Modernity The best criticism, and it is uncommon, is of [the] sort that dissolves considerations of content into those of form. (Sontag 1983:103) While I do not want to take an overtly technological determinist line, there are various implications that need to be considered in relation to cinema as a western technological invention, and the historicity of the juncture in time when it was invented. Cinema began in the age of Freudian psychoanalysis, which also saw the rise of nationalism and the emergence of consumerism. As Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (1996:152) remind us, the first film screenings by Lumiere and Edison in the 1890s closely followed the "scramble for Africa" that erupted in the 1870s, the Battle of "Rorke's Drift" (1879) which opposed the British to the Zulus . . ., the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, the Berlin Conference of 1884 that carved up Africa into European "spheres of influence," the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1890, and countless other imperial misadventures. Relatedly, Comolli2 has argued that the development of the camera obscura as a "machine" is not neutral, but comes imbued with certain ideological assumptions that underpinned its development (Bordwell, Staiger, et al. 1999:250): "[T]echnology is produced in large part by a socially derived conception of [the] world and how we know it . . . [Comolli] finds the origin of cinema not in scientific inquiry but in nineteenth-century [End Page 94] ideological pressures to represent 'life as it is' and in economic desires to exploit a new spectacle." This desire, to represent "life as we know it is," stems from the Renaissance project that attempted to reproduce "reality" through mimesis. The invention of the camera and the development of photography was a direct result of this aim, an aim compatible with a western ideological/aesthetic tradition, which, since the Renaissance and later the Enlightenment, sought to distance humanity's understanding of the natural world and civil society from a purely metaphysical and religious context, and to locate that understanding in the "real," this worldly study of the "sciences." As the landscape painter John Constable remarked, "painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature" (quoted in Ernst Gombrich 1996:29). The development of the camera was a progression in this ideological/aesthetic tradition that pursued art as "science." This development freed artists from the need to represent "reality" and can be related to the reactionary development of expressionist and impressionist art movements of the twentieth century. The transference of the drive to...

Beyond The Black Box

This paper argues that the dichotomization of technological determinism and social constructivism in parts of the literature on the technology‐society nexus conceals that the two approaches study different objects. On the backdrop of the argument that technological determinists concern themselves with material aspects and social constructivists with ideational aspects of the relationship between technology and society, the paper presents two alternative approaches, which provide a focus on both materiality and ideation. Finally, the paper exemplifies briefly the relevance of this approach for investigations of the governance of new information‐ and communication technologies, such as the Internet.

Technics and (para)praxis: the Freudian dimensions of Lewis Mumford’s theories of technology

The purpose of this article is to establish that Lewis Mumford’s historical and philosophical writings were heavily influenced by the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. It is argued that Freudian ideas and concepts played a foundational role in the construction of Mumford’s views on the nature and function of mind, culture and history, which in turn founded his views on the relationship between technology and society. Indeed, it is argued that a full understanding of Mumford’s technological writings cannot be achieved until one has grasped their psychoanalytic influence. To this end, this article will reconstruct the psychological views of Lewis Mumford and indicate how they draw upon and modify Freudian theory. It will then be shown how Mumford’s theory of the psyche interacts with Mumford’s own concept of the idolum. This interaction, I will argue, considerably underpins Mumford’s holistic views on the relationship between society and the individual and between the internal and external world and will require us to reconsider our understanding of Mumford’s philosophy of technology, particularly with regard to his descriptions of monotechnics and biotechnics, the authoritarian and democratic technological forms. It will be argued that for Mumford the division intechnics corresponds to a division in the human psyche, and indeed arises from it. Not only will an appreciation of Mumford’s Freudian influence alter our understanding of Mumford’s technological writings in general, but also in particular it can enable us better to comprehend the reasoning behind Mumford’s recommended method of resistance to the modern power complex of the megamachine. Such a revised understanding of Mumford’s philosophy also undercuts any attempts to characterize his position as being a technological determinist one. Rather, his philosophy of technology is better understood as a form of technological voluntarism.

Mapping the Dynamics of New Forms of Technological Governance in Agriculture: Methodological Considerations

This paper reflects on the conceptual issues involved in developing a methodology to study the role of computer-based technologies, and particularly farm planning and management software, in governing the practices of farmers. It represents the first stage of a larger project that explores how farm planning and management practices are governed through, and reconfigured by, such technology. In recent years, computer software has been encouraged by a range of government and nongovernment agencies and organisations as a useful technical means of supporting farm decisionmaking and improving farmers' managerial capacities, thereby improving their competitive position. The key question of this paper is how to conceptualise and study this link. Existing literature in the area tends to draw on either rationalist – technological determinist or social constructionist accounts which, we suggest, are limited in understanding such software as a type of governmental technology that has productive effects. We argue that a methodology drawing upon insights from governmentality and actor-network theory enables the role of software in programmes of agricultural governance to be more robustly explored as a sociotechnical process. Specifically, a ‘sociology of translation’ is outlined to demonstrate how computer software can be analysed as a material technology of government that constitutes and shapes the capacities of ‘users’ as calculable agents. In order to demonstrate how such a methodology might work in practice, we apply a translation methodology to decision-support software designed to improve the planning practices of dairy farmers in the State of Victoria, Australia.

The Regime and the Airplane: High Technology and Nationalism in Indonesia

This article discusses high-technology development in Indonesia. Focusing on the Indonesian Aircraft Industry (IPTN), it critically examines how nationalism becomes an impetus for technological development and addresses the implications of nationalism in the pursuit of high technology. Situated in the NewOrder regime, influential elements of the regime’s economic and political systems that accommodate the idea of technological leapfrog are traced. It is argued that the failure of the leapfrog idea is because of overreliance on a technological determinist view and the practice of strong technocracy. Furthermore, it is posited that technological nationalism is a rhetorical strategy used by technological elites to legitimate the high-technology policy and to absorb ample economic and political resources that unexpectedly produce farreaching implications in society.

We are not technological determinists

We are not technological determinists

Technological Teleology and the Theory of Technology Enactment

Jane Fountain's book, Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change, uses the International Trade Data System (ITDS) as its leading case in support of technology enactment theory and in refutation of technological determinist theory. An examination of the ITDS case in the years since the termination of Fountain's coverage in 1999 shows the case to be of a different nature than presented in the book. The weaknesses of technology enactment as social science theory are compensated by its descriptive/prescriptive uses for practitioners and researchers interested in public sector information technology implementation.

Pots and Evolution: Response to Neff and Schiffer et al.

This reply seeks to answer the comments by Neff and Schiffer et al. by stating the following: 1) evolutionary theory in archaeology is limited by the overextension of biological attributes to nonbiological artifacts, such as pottery; 2) evolutionary theory when applied to technological studies has an underlying technological determinist implication, and hence is inappropriate for use in the study of ancient technologies; 3) the subfields and disciplines of ceramic studies in archaeology are becoming increasingly isolated from each other and from the mainstream of interpretation, as evidenced by exclusionary bibliographies, language and study groups; and 4) ceramic studies are best approached on a contextual, case-by-case basis.

Shanty Towns around the Global Village? Reducing Distance, but Widening Gaps with ICT

For at least 25 years, prophecies and predictions have been made about the power of communications technologies to reduce the effects of geographical distance. Advances in satellite communications and supranational broadcasting, together with the dramatic growth in the availability and capability of information and communication technologies (ICTs), have revolutionised both the speed and the nature of global communications. However, technological determinist predictions have failed to take account of the pre-existing social contexts and relationships that shape the uptake and use of new technologies at both national and international levels. In Western countries, the impact of ICT upon different groups in society has been varied, tending to reinforce rather than ameliorate existing inequalities. On an international scale, the Internet has now reached most parts of the world, but anglophone countries have dominated information sources and services. Inequalities exist not only in access to the technological means of communication, but also in respect of what is conveyed by those means.

Shanty Towns around the Global Village? Reducing Distance, but Widening Gaps with ICT

For at least 25 years, prophecies and predictions have been made about the power of communications technologies to reduce the effects of geographical distance. Advances in satellite communications and supranational broadcasting, together with the dramatic growth in the availability and capability of information and communication technologies (ICTs), have revolutionised both the speed and the nature of global communications. However, technological determinist predictions have failed to take account of the pre-existing social contexts and relationships that shape the uptake and use of new technologies at both national and international levels. In Western countries, the impact of ICT upon different groups in society has been varied, tending to reinforce rather than ameliorate existing inequalities. On an international scale, the Internet has now reached most parts of the world, but anglophone countries have dominated information sources and services. Inequalities exist not only in access to the technological means of communication, but also in respect of what is conveyed by those means.

What is the role of hypertechnology in social work today?

There is little doubt that professional communication in social work is being transformed by hypertechnology (Gandy & Tepperman, 1990; Howard, 1995; Saleebey, 1991). Discussions about hypertechnology in the social work literature have for the most part focused on one application at a time on a piecemeal basis, reviewing separate or distinct applications of hardware or software. There has been comparatively little examination of the broader implications of modern hypertechnology for the profession as a whole (Cnaan & Parsloe, 1989). We think this is so for two reasons. First, various types of hypertechnology have been evolving quite rapidly, making it difficult for practitioners (Stretch & Kreuger, 1992) and educators (LaMendola, 1987) to keep up and second, there has not been a sufficiently broad conceptual framework from which to judge the modern hypertechnology assemblage in it's entirety (Pickering, 1995). It is time to take stock of our investments in social work and assess how well hypertechnology's promise has been kept. To help get this done we apply a model, suggested by Kitchin (1998), that we believe provides a broad conceptual overview for assessing social work's relation to this evolving international technological assemblage (Perry, 1998). Second, we show how Kitchin's model may be used to frame policy and practice questions (see for example, Schopler, Abell, & Galinsky, 1998; Seabury & Maple, 1993) for the human services. A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Hypertechnology in Social Work Kitchin (1998) maintains that there are six fundamental perspectives for viewing discussions of the effect of hypertechnology: Utopist-futurist, determinist, constructivist, political-economic, postmodernist, and feminist. Each perspective captures a slightly different aspect of how hypertechnology tends to be viewed in the literature and therefore what kinds of questions might be raised. In this article we have extended Kitchin's basic model, specifically, his sixth perspective, feminism, to include any set of hypertechnology users or potential users who are not currently empowered, and we renamed the category polyvocal perspective (Table 1). Utopist-Futurist Perspective According to Kitchin (1998), Utopist and futurist analysts of hypertechnology would seek to forecast how technological innovation would affect future conditions on a societal scale. Such forecasters would claim societies are moving en masse to some new and novel stage and that many vexing problems today will be subject to radically new scientific solutions in the future (Kitchin). In the social work literature, Kreuger (1997) and Stoesz (1997) forecasted an end of the social work profession after the collapse of public auspices resulting from the decline of the nation-state and pressures of globalization. They both included advances in technotherapies and hypertechnological prosthetic territories and subsequent decline in the grand narratives of the profession as powerful indications of the inevitable future course of the profession. To the futurists and Utopists, the hypertechnological assemblage (Phillips, 1990) is just one of a set of inevitable forces that bring on massive structural changes. Utopists and futurists see little hope of redirecting changes, so that we would be well served as a profession to learn to accept and adapt to inevitable massive structural change. Determinist Perspective The technological determinists perspective is perhaps the most common. Different types of local hypertechnology are seen as independent, active, and determining, and social work as a profession would be seen as more passive and reactive (Kitchin, 1998). Here, writers examine how micro-oriented social, cultural, political, and economic aspects of our lives both as professionals in practice (Conklin & Osterndorf, 1995) and in education (Patterson & Yaffe, 1994; Wodarski & Kelly, 1987) are determined individually at the local level by technology. …

Stereoscopy and Pre-Raphaelitism

My argument attempts to rethink discourse on John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelite paintings in terms of media and technological concerns. In particular, I discuss their discourse in relation to the Victorian optical practice of the stereoscope. The visual space of the stereoscope is radically different from the mimetic capacities of photography, film and television in that stereoscopy depends on the absence of any mediation between the viewing subject and the object. In this respect, it is possible to argue that stereoscopic images have echoes of dematerialised computer-generated imagery. According to technological determinists, digital image production technologies are entirely 'new' practices which will completely change cultural forms. However, the emergence of new media specifically and technology generally does not occur outside the most dominant and pervasive media, but occurs within existing social relations, cultural forms and their histories. The emergence of image production technologies in nineteenth-century visual culture is not simply the product of the so-called 'age of mechanical reproduction'. In this paper, this is discussed by drawing on discourses on Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Rethinking ‘The Medium is the Message’: Agency and Technology in McLuhan's Writings

McLuhan's oft-cited maxim ‘the medium is the message’ is examined and it is argued that, although McLuhan can be read as a technological determinist, it is also possible to interpret ‘the medium is the message’ from within the context of a social constructivist understanding of technology, which sees society and technology as mutually shaping phenomena. Inherent to such a reading of McLuhan is an understanding of technology as the output of social processes, in which humans have agency. These themes are addressed through a review of scholarship that suggests that McLuhan is a technological determinist. an examination of McLuhan's work and those who challenge the dominant understanding of McLuhan as technological determinist. Previous research about the use of computer networks by women is used to illustrates how McLuhan can be read as a social constructivist. It is argued that communication scholarship might benefit from reliance on a broader understanding of technology and society that draws more heavily on insights gained form the social studies of technology.

The Extensions of Men: The Correspondence of Marshall McLuhan and Edward T. Hall

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian media guru, and Edward T. Hall (1959), the American anthropologist who wrote The Silent Language and founded the field of intercultural communication, exchanged over 133 letters during the period between 1962 and 1976. Their correspondence provides insight into the evolution of such important ideas as the conception of the media as extensions of man, media technological determinism, and McLuhan's dictum that the medium is the message. Although these ideas are usually attributed to McLuhan, who wrote about them in two important books, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1965), Hall had considerable influence in their development. Although Harold Innis is widely acknowledged for shaping McLuhan as a communication technological determinist, the exchange between Hall and McLuhan helped develop the latter's theory about the impacts of communication technology on the human senses. Here we see how important intellectual ideas often grow out of communication between scholars, allowing them to test and extend their thinking in a collaborative mode.

Understanding slow Internet adoption: ‘infomediation’ in ship-broking markets

Debate on the impact of the Internet on socioeconomic and business environments has been dominated by technological determinist perspectives, narrowing the range of discourse around the implications of these new technologies. One important and neglected dimension is the impact on market relationships. Technological determinism suggests that the transactional efficiencies associated with the new medium should have a major impact on market structures. If that argument is correct, the case should be stronger in broking markets where information exchange, information mediation and communication flows are paramount. However, an examination of various broking markets reveals significant differences in the implications of this technological innovation. Drawing upon participant observation research conducted in 1998–99 in the shipbroking market, the paper explores the limitations of the technological determinist perspective and puts forward a model to explore the changing nature and dynamics of market relationships generated by information flows via the Internet. Application of the model helps to locate the reasons for slow adoption of the Internet in ship-broking markets.

Understanding Slow Internet Adoption: ‘Infomediation’ in Ship-Broking Markets

Debate on the impact of the Internet on socioeconomic and business environments has been dominated by technological determinist perspectives, narrowing the range of discourse around the implications of these new technologies. One important and neglected dimension is the impact on market relationships. Technological determinism suggests that the transactional efficiencies associated with the new medium should have a major impact on market structures. If that argument is correct, the case should be stronger in broking markets where information exchange, information mediation and communication flows are paramount. However, an examination of various broking markets reveals significant differences in the implications of this technological innovation. Drawing upon participant observation research conducted in 1998–99 in the shipbroking market, the paper explores the limitations of the technological determinist perspective and puts forward a model to explore the changing nature and dynamics of market relationships generated by information flows via the Internet. Application of the model helps to locate the reasons for slow adoption of the Internet in ship-broking markets.