Technological determinism is an attitude and a theoretical position which “refers to the belief that technology is the agent of social change” (pg 11) for a technological determinist society is shape by the dominant technologies and “a successful technical innovation, if implemented on a sufficiently wide scar, will generate a new type of society” (pg 12). This quote makes me think of the virtual world of the Internet, specifically social networking sites that allow us to “generate a new type of society” as it creates new mediums of communication and connectivity.
Contrasted to technological determinism is cultural materialism, which “emphasises social need and political intention as significant factors involved in technological development” (pg 18). Sociopolitical and cultural aspects of society are what govern the need for new developments in technology and media and their uses. For example with the riots in Egypt a cultural materialist would comment that although social media aided this rebellion, all of this would have happened anyway because of the society itself.
Mcleuhan says that “medium is the message” technology is an extension of the human capacity – therefore the technologies surrounding us are only used when we use them – however –with regard to the speed of technology- we create the technologies to supersede our own capabilities [the paradox of technology maybe?].
Winner is dismissive of naïve forms of technological determinism yet rejects the single-minded social determination theory. Technology opens up the possibility – “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” however without the technology the act of killing would not be so simple.
Williams believes that social politics drives technological development for example the introduction of the producer and the produser that was driven by society wanting to have ‘their say’. Society is a group or organisation that allow expression while also having control over the people through enabling them to do the things they do – [e.g. laws]
another example of social politics driving technology could be the law passed in the US that stops government funding of the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider and advocate – Planned Parenthood – after this happened a few of the friends I had on facebook that live in The States and were affected by this started posting photos of themselves with the words “I support Planned Parenthood” somewhere in the frame – on their hands, on a post it or just written in the frame via computer software, along with the hundreds of others around the area that did the same. I had to look up what was going on because they had ultimately “spammed” my newsfeed with this online protest.
