If technology determines the evolving of society, what determines technology? Is it proper to use the sentence structure that ‘technology gives/ creates…’ in framing the relationship among technology, history, and communication?
Heilbroner drew from Marx to argue that the machine makes history—the hand-mill gives you society with feudal lord. He believed that technology as a major historical force defined the socioeconomic orders and the textures of human lives. Leo Marx and Merrit Roe Smith agreed technology as the precondition, the cause of the historical paths, which supposes clearly the agency of technology itself. In that case, do all these arguments hint that the one who controls the evolution of technology can dominate the fates of human? Could we conclude that our past, present and future all come from technology itself? Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World could be one reflection on if technology (or something else) changes the formation of humanity.
Although evidences found could explain the technological force is a critical character in transforming society, it is not fair until now to say technology itself determines the human path. Deibert (1997) has used borrow Darwinism to explain the relationship between new communication technology and social order. It is not technology that initially creates or generates changes but new communication technologies favor certain social force; since that, the fittest one may have the niche to survive and flourish. (Deibert, 1997) To Deibert, media (new technologies) do not create or dominate what society is going to be; instead, media serves as a filter to lead a competition among all kinds of social structures, political institutions, lives, and to sum up a preference for a new transformation of individual identities, perception of space, and time, and ideological architectures. Deibert’s idea is more open-ended and interactive in the explanation of technology-human relationships.
Deibert, Ronald. Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997
Heilbroner drew from Marx to argue that the machine makes history—the hand-mill gives you society with feudal lord. He believed that technology as a major historical force defined the socioeconomic orders and the textures of human lives. Leo Marx and Merrit Roe Smith agreed technology as the precondition, the cause of the historical paths, which supposes clearly the agency of technology itself. In that case, do all these arguments hint that the one who controls the evolution of technology can dominate the fates of human? Could we conclude that our past, present and future all come from technology itself? Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World could be one reflection on if technology (or something else) changes the formation of humanity.
Although evidences found could explain the technological force is a critical character in transforming society, it is not fair until now to say technology itself determines the human path. Deibert (1997) has used borrow Darwinism to explain the relationship between new communication technology and social order. It is not technology that initially creates or generates changes but new communication technologies favor certain social force; since that, the fittest one may have the niche to survive and flourish. (Deibert, 1997) To Deibert, media (new technologies) do not create or dominate what society is going to be; instead, media serves as a filter to lead a competition among all kinds of social structures, political institutions, lives, and to sum up a preference for a new transformation of individual identities, perception of space, and time, and ideological architectures. Deibert’s idea is more open-ended and interactive in the explanation of technology-human relationships.
Deibert, Ronald. Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997
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Deibert has some really interesting things to say on this topic, thanks for reminding us! I wonder if we'll ever be able to pin down exactly the relationship between technology and society?
btw, don't forget to post your three questions... just three questions or issues that you're interested in exploring through the semester. We'll be coming back to them during the semester.
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