Technological Optimism Research Articles

Training Future Comrades: Gender Pedagogy and Model Train Sets in the German Democratic Republic

This article investigates how model train sets became a medium for the marketing and development of East German technological utopianism, particularly in order to recruit women into the technical workforce. It begins by contextualizing the role of women in the GDR and their recruitment into engineering. From there, it explores the pedagogical power of East German train sets as well as its cultural impact on children. Finally, this article examines how technological utopianism shaped East German culture and how the model train was only one such effort on the road to the socialist utopia in East Germany.

Revolutionary discourses from the past: a digital hermeneutical analysis of widely read academic publications on the social impact and significance of the internet

ABSTRACT From the start, the academic community was deeply involved in both the technological and conceptual development of the internet. Works by Rheingold, Castells, and others put forward influential, intellectual imaginaries. Over thirty years later, these sources offer valuable insights, reflecting the novelty and excitement of the time. Often infused with rhetoric of radical transformation, these authors either consciously or unconsciously foregrounded a revolutionary period marked by digital utopianism, while also presenting critical views. This paper aims to identify and historicize common themes and concepts in influential academic publications on the internet's significance and social impact. By adopting a longitudinal and comparative approach, we aim to provide a historically informed understanding of Internet Studies. Our paper contributes to a tradition of media historical scholarship, examining how new technologies were socially constructed, how dominant discourses shaped popular imaginaries, and their role in the evolution of Internet Studies.

Counter-discourses to social inequalities and urban modernity: Subaltern women in post-2000s Chinese science fiction

ABSTRACT The issues of resurgent class and gender inequalities, rapid urbanization, and huge regional disparity were a notable focus of many post-2000s Chinese science fiction, which vividly created images of subaltern females. This paper looks at how contemporary Chinese sci-fi authors seek social justice by representing the experiences of various subaltern women within the specific genre of science fiction. It argues that the images of socially and culturally marginalized women were used as effective tools for questioning the intersectional social inequalities in contemporary China. The works discussed in this article all problematize the nature and influences of urban modernity by revealing the intersections, tensions, and contradictions between subaltern women and the classed, gendered modernization process. The sci-fi realist portrayal of subaltern agency and gender struggle also helps to generate powerful counter-discourses to urban modernity and technological utopia.

Perception of modern technologies by the older generation: comparative analysis

This article discusses the empirical research results devoted to the study of the older generation attitude to modern technologies: fears, expectations, and motivation to use such technologies. The obtained results are interpreted through a humanistic paradigm, in which technologies are considered as a tool for realising human potential, in particular, the potential of the older age group. In the course of the study, a comparative analysis was conducted by gender and age groups. The main conclusions drawn from the scientific work results are as follows. Firstly, it is the older generation that assumes the role of “technological optimists”, unlike younger and middle-aged people who have more concerns about the development of information technology. This applies both to everyday life and to the national problems of the increment of scientific knowledge. Secondly, the older generation noticeably need the humanistic aspect of technology more. This includes distrust of full automation, for example, driverless cars, as well as the need for a tutor and mentor when mastering new technologies. At the same time, it is the elderly generation that expresses the greatest trust in people around them. Thirdly, in many respects, the older generation has more similarities in their expectations and preferences with the younger age group than with those who are closer to them in age.

On the borderlands of utopia and ideology - Yuval Noah Harari through a critical lens

The world-famous popular science author, Yuval Noah Harari makes use of the technical language of the natural sciences, while engaging in social science. However, Harari?s work goes beyond the scope of anything like scientific description or scientific objectivity. ?his article claims that Harari actually presents what is already represented by modernity itself as a cultural-historical meta-narrative. Differently put, Harari exemplifies a certain ideology. The goal of this article is an exercize in ideology critique, directed at the unsaid presuppositions and implicit philosophy of history underlying Harari?s works. The cult of technological utopia is as old as the development of modernity. The first significant work in this vein was a Renaissance utopia, namely Francis Bacon?s New Atlantis. Even today, there are ?technognostic?, scientists and philosophers who assume that through technology, humans can become capable of achieving a more-than-human condition while overcoming the limits of human knowledge. The basic formula is simple: through the use of technology, humans can make themselves smarter, more virtuous, and even more moral. Authors such as Harari, who regards his own materialistic world?view as being practically synonymous with a ?scientific? and ?objective? view of the world, forget to reflect time and time again on thier own philosophical and ideological presuppositions, such as the contingent and historically overdetermined nature of their own worldview, as well as the problems and philosophical criticisms surrounding materialist epistemology.

REVOLUTIONARY DISCOURSES IN A TIME CAPSULE: A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF CANONICAL, INTELLECTUAL LITERATURE CONCERNING THE SOCIAL IMPACT AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INTERNET.

Whilst the internet’s development can be traced back to the 1940s (Turner, 2006; Flichy 2015), the rhetoric of a digital revolution primarily emerged during the early 1990s and mid-00s and was often produced by the US-based academic community which has been intrinsically involved with the advancement of the internet. The dominant conceptualizations put forward in their popular, scholarly writings about the technology’s past and future, became authoritative in our academic understanding of the internet’s social impact and significance. Subsequently, notions like ‘the electronic highway’ were adopted in legislative and popular discourse which, in turn, influenced how the internet was understood, designed, and used on a broader, societal level. Notable authors of these influential texts - Howard Rheingold, Nicholas Negroponte, Sherry Turkle, and Geert Lovink - wrote their findings based on their own experiences with internet initiatives and from their particular theoretical backgrounds and positionality. Most importantly, these texts present valuable information as if coming from a time capsule; often framed with a rhetoric of transformation, the writers themselves contribute to the idea of a revolutionary internet following optimistic notions of digital utopianism and technological solutionism, situated in a particular Zeitgeist. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how these revolutionary notions developed over time and what their grander impact was on our contemporary conceptions, in and outside the influential American context. This is achieved by conducting a critical, historiographical analysis of canonical, intellectual literature about the early internet and thus re-contextualizes it as historical traces itself.

Digital utopia and dystopia of schools after the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper aims to capture the digital imaginaries of Hungarian schools through the lens of digital utopianism as a theoretical framework. Employing a qualitative research approach and semi-structured interviews, this study contributes to the body of literature concerning organizational and policy-level educational management. It investigates utopian and dystopian visions of digitalized schools within the Hungarian education system, featuring participants comprising school leaders, teachers, and administrative staff drawn from five institutions, offering either general or vocational education, representing diverse ownership structures, including state and religious ownership. The study highlights prominent themes of the imaginaries, such as funding and infrastructure, equity, misuse, and social and pedagogical relations and suggests further research directions and methodologies applicable in this field.

Addressing a Counterproductive Dichotomy in the Energy Transition Debate

There appears to be growing polarization in a large swath of the recent scientific literature on the renewable energy transition, where two opposed “camps” may be identified, i.e. that of the “systemic pessimists”, who champion the broad concepts of carrying capacity and the limits to growth, but often harbour what appears to be pre-conceived scepticism towards renewable energies, and that of the “technological optimists”, who instead typically focus more narrowly on the immediate goal of phasing out fossil fuels, and see great potential for renewable energies to achieve that, but often fail to address other issues of ultimate planetary limits. It is argued here that this is a false dichotomy that is damaging to the reputation of both “camps”, and which risks devaluing and trivializing the most important question of all, namely how to achieve long-term sustainability. This paper calls for the rekindling of a more constructive debate that starts from the recognition that both sets of core arguments (respectively, those centred on the limits to growth and those pointing to the viability of renewable energies) are often simultaneously true, and which moves the goalposts further, to establish to which extent a more sustainable future is indeed possible, and which systemic changes (including, but not limited to, phasing out fossil fuels) will be required to achieve it.

기술 유토피아의 도구적 상상과 국가 프로젝트로서 1인 미디어 : 알고리즘 리터러시 논의를 중심으로

기술 유토피아의 도구적 상상과 국가 프로젝트로서 1인 미디어 : 알고리즘 리터러시 논의를 중심으로

‘We are not cheating. We are helping each other out:’ digital collective cheating in secondary education

ABSTRACT This article examines academic cheating in Egyptian secondary education at a time of assessment fetishization, educational digitalization and pandemic exceptionalism. It shows how, while promising a tighter grip on assessment, digital technologies afforded a new modality of cheating with a scale and speed unprecedented in Egyptian educational history. Using longitudinal interviews with educational communities and qualitative social media research to observe cheating in situ, this article traces the emergence of digital collective cheating, the unsanctioned collective assistance during examinations using digital technologies, on social media third spaces. In addition to embodying a collaborative ethic between students, digital collective cheating served as a form of collective resistance to state-led digitalization and unfair structural conditions. By examining the empirical realities and unintended consequences of digital technologies in assessment, the Egyptian case highlights the dangers of, and serves as a cautionary tale for, unbridled technological utopianism, solutionism and inevitablism in education.

Safeguarding Sex: The Technopolitics of Humanitarian Genomic Accountability

Abstract This paper is about the intersection of technological utopianism with the safeguarding rush in international aid and the DNA imaginations that it has given rise to. It explores the implications of the centering of DNA technology in efforts to prevent and punish sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers and asks what types of accountability DNA approaches yield. The article examines the discursive power of DNA imaginaries in shaping the politics and practice of safeguarding in the humanitarian sector. We consider the type of solutionism at play in the technological imaginary of consumer genomics as an appropriate mode of “catching” sexual predators among aid workers, as well as to the political interests in getting safeguarding “implemented” as rapidly (and simply) as possible. We argue that there are significant implications emerging from how the “turn to DNA” ties genetic and racialized biosurveillance to humanitarian accountability. This concerns how the humanitarian system thinks about consent and coercion and about children’s rights and bodily integrity. Moreover, we argue that drawing from the current moral crisis of safeguarding in aid, the project itself exemplifies how a discursive (white) genetic nationalism was able to shore up considerable political support and financial resources from Australian and UK political actors with little critical attention.

The Man Problem in Terms of the History of Technological Utopianism

The Man Problem in Terms of the History of Technological Utopianism

To Be or Not to Be ‘Rousseauian’. The Rise and Fall of ‘Digital Utopianism’ in the Five Star Movement

A growing dissatisfaction with the political class has emerged in Italy. Inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the original strategy adopted by the Five Star Movement (FSM) was to connect citizens and institutions directly, thanks to ICTs. A participation platform called “Rousseau” was created to this end in 2016. However, after the Movement’s great success in the 2018 national elections, digital utopianism was gradually abandoned. In 2021, the statute was reformed, creating new roles and organs making the FSM more akin to a traditional party, and the ‘Rousseau’ platform was replaced by another one with limited functions. This evolution leads to three theses: first, the reference to Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a mainly symbolic value for FSM; second, as recent facts show, this ideal reference weakened with the action of governing and the ‘normalisation’ of the party; third, this evolution confirms that the Rousseauian ideal is difficult to realise in a complex society.

“Sometime in the future”—The technology entrepreneur as utopian market hero

In this conceptual article, we outline a process through which some technology entrepreneurs come to be viewed as heroes in the public’s eye. We argue that market heroism relies on top-down narratives of imagined future utopias that combine with bottom-up consumer desire for those utopias. While extant marketing theory has typically focused on imagination of products and consumption, we expand the conversation by highlighting the importance of consumer imagination for an idealized future time. The relevance of our process to consumer behavior lies with the potential for products and services to indirectly represent that imagined future time. Synthesizing work in and beyond marketing, we map out a process by which technology entrepreneurs attempt to enlist the participation of consumers, media, and the state into their visions of social and market progress. In doing so, we bring critical attention to the effect of heroic discourses of technological utopias and the ideological ground that supports and enables such discourses.

Reproducing Life in Conditions of Abandonment in Oceania

Despite technical and legal innovations for certain groups’ reproduction, many people’s reproductive concerns and choices remain disparaged or unsupported. We call this assemblage ‘reproductive abandonment’ and present aspects of these conditions in this special issue. ‘Abandonment’ highlights the failure of ‘relationality’, a Pacific value and ontology that emphasises the importance of being in relations of obligation, accountability and respect. Having this central Oceanic ideal in mind highlights the weight of its opposite—‘abandonment’—and extends the conceptual terrain that anthropologists have called ‘stratified reproduction’. Reproductive abandonment refers to the failure of relations of desired reproduction, in its social, biological, infrastructural and environmental senses. It is caused mainly by economic systems and global development and population ideologies, entangled with colonialisms. Bringing reproduction once again to the centre of social analysis, this special issue reveals local actions and agendas that are taking reproduction back from global health and technological utopias to assert Indigenous logics, challenge dominant truths and continue creative struggles.

The “ultimate empathy machine” as technocratic solutionism? Audience reception of the distant refugee crisis through virtual reality

ABSTRACT This article aims to deconstruct the myth of technological utopianism which contends that immersive virtual reality (VR) can inevitably lead to a more moral and egalitarian world due to its promises of copresence, immediacy and transcendence in humanitarian communication. The problématique we explore is whether existing VR artifacts, as exemplars of the “ultimate empathy machine,” construct a technocratic solutionism which becomes constitutive of humanitarian crises themselves. Drawing upon empirical material from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with VR audiences in China, Germany, and the UK, the findings show that VR may easily construct a depoliticized hyperreality of intense spectacularity and trap audiences within an improper distance, thereby reworking the colonial legacies of humanitarianism while also obfuscating complex asymmetries of power and structural political exclusion. These findings have important implications for reminding humanitarian news organizations and aid agencies that they should not rely entirely on the particular affordances of VR to gain a moral bond with the distant refugee crisis.

GENOMIC POLITICS AND EQUALITY

GENOMIC POLITICS AND EQUALITY

Freedom of Choice—Organic Consumers’ Discourses on New Plant Breeding Techniques

In recent years, there have been significant developments in biotechnology, specifically regarding New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs). Such advancements have been driven by the need to develop improved and more sustainable crops while reducing pesticides and fertilisers. NPBTs include a heterogeneous group of methods that allow performing plant mutations more precisely than in genetically modified (GM) technologies, saving time and effort. Although some experts consider NPBTs an opportunity for organic farming expansion, the European Court of Justice in 2018 pronounced against their use in organic farming since all plants obtained by NPBTs should follow the same regulations as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). This study aims to understand consumers’ attitudes and viewpoints towards new breeding techniques. Focus groups and Q methodological approach were used to uncover consensus and divergence among organic consumers in seven selected European countries (Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom). Results of qualitative studies suggest that organic consumers are generally hostile towards NPBTs in organic farming. Using Q methodology, three distinct factors were identified: the “Risk Averse”, the “Technological Optimists”, and the “Socially Concerned”. The results highlight that consumers’ subjective knowledge and understanding of NPBTs diverge from the discourse of NPBTs lobbyists and proponents.

Innovative Technology in Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges

The rapid rate of technological progress has been a critical aspect of Human History since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Information Technology has enabled a large amount of flow of Information, ideas, thoughts, goods, and services across the region in a very short time. Higher education is a field that determines the average productivity of Labour, level of innovation, citizenship, and humane qualities in society. Some thinkers contend that the use of Information Technology is highly harmful while some dream of a technological utopia. The paper puts forward the view that reality is situated between extreme viewpoints.

Can one laptop per child reduce digital inequalities? ICT household access patterns under Plan Ceibal

The study of information and communications technology (ICT) adoption signals that diffusion processes within highly unequal societies produce stratification in the access to digital technologies and thus, maintain or even increase previous socioeconomic disparities. While technological utopians believed that One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)-like programs could reduce societal inequalities, the economics literature evaluating these initiatives has mostly focused on student's human capital. Results suggest no impact, even for successful programs such as Uruguay's own OLPC-inspired Plan Ceibal. In this paper, we use an event-study approach to difference-indifferences to identify the impact of Plan Ceibal on the household adoption of technological goods across income quintiles. Our results show that Plan Ceibal helped to bridge domestic digital disparities in terms of access to PC and favored the uptake of internet services. We discuss the potential mechanisms behind these results. Regarding household PC access, even though Plan Ceibal was conceived as a universal program targeting primary-level students attending public schools, both infantilization of poverty and a dual-system educational stratification may explain why this initiative had a heterogenous impact across different income groups. Regarding household connectivity, Plan Ceibal reduced the cost of the bundle required to consume internet services at the time of the study, improving affordability and access among households with beneficiaries of the program.