Digital Media & Culture: Collaborative Essay Collection 2018/Determinism/Research Question 1: Dowbergton

Do accusations of technological determinism in any way restrict our access or understanding of important theories in digital media and culture?

Introduction

Broadly speaking, Technological determinism can be interpreted as a reductionist theory that assumes that a society's technology determines its cultural values and social processes. Technological determinism, when applied to cultural and media studies, has been the basis of great controversy for decades. Oftentimes scholars are discredited in a more contemporary setting (referring to post McLuhan/Williams) on the grounds of the fallaciousness that is usually associated with deterministic thought. Academics in the digital media field of study often have their potentially new and innovative theories not taken seriously or even discredited due to their ideas being labelled by others as falling within the idea of Determinism. Rarely is technology based in values, but rather in ambiguous development. Determinism potentially restricts the information available within the digital media field of study due to it rendering other theories worthless. In addition, a possible misleading aspect of technological determinism is its equation of technological change with progress. This collaborative piece will aim to pull from a wide variety of relevant research in order to present an overall definition of what Technological Determinism is. This piece will delve into that academic theories from prominent Determinists such as Mcluhan and critics such as Williams and present their conflicting arguments on the topic's validity.

Main Concepts

In order to fully understand technological determinism, this collaborative essay will discuss the existing definitions and variants of the concept, explore the main theorists responsible for its inception and analyse some of the criticisms put forward against it.

Defining Technological Determinism

Technological Determinism is a popular theory adopted by many academic theorists, most of whom interpret it in a different manner. In order for this essay to come to a conclusion as to whether accusations of technological determinism restrict our understanding of important theories throughout digital media and culture, first the term Technological Determinism must be defined. Despite Determinism being a widely used theory, there is no definitive description of it with different theorists constructing their own definitions. The most popular definitions when discussing technological determinism is that technology develops according to an ‘‘internal logic independent of social influence’’ as suggested by Ronald Kline. This view is shared by other theorists, Bijker (2010) claims technology is developing autonomously and independent of external factors. Although many agree with this statement there are some theorists who put more emphasis on the autonomy of technology. One such determinist, Bimber (1994) who offers a rather extreme version of technological determinism, suggesting that it does not allow for any human agency. Whilst some adopt softer deterministic views in which there is more social input and control over technology’s influence, Bimber (1994) goes in the complete opposite direction.The other component to Technological Determinism is the influence technology has socially and culturally, the general idea of determinism is that as technology changes it alters society in some way. ‘‘technological change determines social change in a prescribed manner’’ (Kline,2001) this is a view shared by many, including perhaps the most influential determinist of all time Marshall Mcluhan. Mcluhan was a pioneer in the academic discussion around Technological Determinism, he argued that throughout history, many large cultural shifts have been the impact of innovations in media technology. He believed that media technologies have the power themselves to actually change society and culture and in turn potentially change the world and thus changing human consciousness. Mcluhan clearly envisioned technology as being extremely influential to society, perhaps his most famous quotation is “the medium is the message”. By this Mcluhan means communication will be shaped by the medium through which the message is sent, therefore the media technology changes society in terms of how people communicate. A simple example of this that enforces Mcluhan’s thinking is how people text, the shortening of words and using symbols was influenced by the price of text messages and the character limit per message. So, to come to a general definition for Technological Determinism, it is the theory that technology develops autonomously and changes in technology can cause significant changes to society and culture. However, there are many theorists who disagree with the theory of Determinism altogether, one prominent theorist being Raymond Williams, who’s views conflict with that of Mcluhan’s. Furthermore, there is the case that Technological Determinism has been used to silence certain academic theorists. Simply accusing an academic theory of being a form of determinism practically silences that academic’s thinking as it is viewed as being nothing new to the field and simply labelled as Determinism. Is this justified? Many academic theories labelled as Determinism surely have something new and interesting to add to the digital media field of research, yet the thinking may never be discussed. Therefore, is Determinism restricting our access to potentially important academic theories as they may simply not be considered or may not be understood due to being viewed as Determinism. This essay will discuss in detail the viewpoints of conflicting academic theorists surrounding the topic of Technological Determinism in an attempt to discover, whether accusations of Technological Determinism does in fact restrict our access or understanding of important theories within the digital media field of research.

McLuhan and His Impact on Other Determinists

In order to fully understand technological determinism as a concept, it is important to focus on Marshall McLuhan himself. McLuhan, the ‘poster boy’ for technological determinism, is considered in most scholarly discourse to be an antagonising and contentious theorist who oftentimes puts forth sweeping and contradictory theories on the ‘electric age’. This electric age -to McLuhan- is a utopian culture of sensory plentitude. McLuhan’s deliberations appeal greatly to some who see the technological, contemporary age that we live in as a radical and massively changing culture. With regard to the essay question, it becomes relevant to note the significance of the merit that lies beneath this shroud of controversy and examine how McLuhan’s thinking has influenced cultural and media theory. There are a vast quantity of potentially worrying ramifications correlated with the idea of totally disregarding work purely for being similar to -or based upon- McLuhan’s ‘ramblings’. It is also productive to explore how other (perhaps more coherent) technological determinists are being labelled and generalised as technological determinists, working to discredit even the most promising trains of thought. Throughout the years McLuhan has been a catalyst in academic discussions on cultural shifts with relation to technological forms and media. His main concern was purely to identify these shifts, with the belief that they were brought about by technologies. McLuhan puts for a non-linear ‘mosaic’ way of interpreting new media which has been resisted fervently by the likes of Raymond Williams. His referral to the electric age as a new sort of primitivism, where everyone participates in a ‘global village’ , along with his claims that “the medium is the message”, provokes Williams and other humanists taking part in the debate. Regardless of the plethora of criticisms McLuhan received, he went on to influence the thinking of the likes of Baudrillard, Virilio, Poster, Kroker and De Kerckhove. The culmination of all of their works surely should not be discredited on the grounds of one fallacy. Technological determinism is by no means an ideal characteristic of McLuhan’s theorising, but then McLuhan is not really considered a very good theorist by most. Regardless of this, he creates controversy. When there is controversy there is discussion and when there is discussion there is -most likely- enlightening conclusions. The deterministic perspective -regardless of its underlying fallaciousness- can, and should, be read into with an open mind. Williams’s evident victory in the academic community against McLuhan goes to discredit the majority of technological determinists. In the words of Walter Benjamin, “History is written by the victors.” Now, with the aforementioned ‘poster boy’ for technological determinism being seen as problematic and annoying, the same is often considered for those who improve and build upon his ideas. Because of this, many rich and untouched areas of debate and discovery are likely being neglected. Even McLuhan’s convoluted and messy conclusions have led to developments (especially in the 1990s) in new media, connectivity, media convergence, the network society, wired culture and interaction. The notion of a medium existing as an extension to oneself, and the descriptions which McLuhan makes of four differing media cultures (the primitive ‘oral’ culture, the co-existing culture of the phonetic alphabet, the culture of mechanical printing and the electric age) have been, and are still, relevant in academic communities.

Criticisms of Determinism (Raymond Williams and Others)

"I just flat out don't believe this idea. I'm also not totally convinced that the people are mindlessly manipulated by media. Sure, I think the media is in cahoots with all sorts of special interests and political and capitalist agendas, but I still say: "Power to the people!" I hold on to the hope that we can use technology for our own ends and purposes. I think there is much more give and take between society and the media that McLuhan allows" (Raymond Williams, 1975, on Technological Determinism)

There has been a great deal of scepticism and criticism surrounding the topic of technological determinism. Various theorists of technology and culture do not consider technological determinism to be a very accurate or thorough depiction of human beings' relationship with technology. Instead, theorists such as Raymond Williams accuse technological determinism of adhering to a 'simplistic cause-and-effect formula' and take a more nuanced and multi-faceted view about the ways in which society is structured and advanced (Williams, 1975, p.2). Furthering this, Williams takes the position that the invention of new technologies are socially motivated, rather than new technology dictating the direction of our social collective and culture. Williams argues that there are certain social motivations that influence the development of new technologies.One significant oversight of the technological determinism model is that it does not address the concept of technological innovation. Media technologies are invented, developed and subsequently innovated by human actors. In light of this, it may be argued that there is an inherent human control factor over technology that underpins their use. Williams cites broadcasting technology as an example of this, as the social need of human actors for broadcasting dictated its very inception. In addition, Williams emphasizes the importance of human influence on the evolution of technology. He argues that the path of technological innovation is not predetermined, rather it is based on decisions made by human beings to fulfill social needs and intertwine with social structure.

A more contemporary critique of technological determinism is undertaken by Leila Green, a senior lecturer teaching at the School of Communications and Multimedia at Edith Cowan University, Perth. In her 2001 book Technoculture: From Alphabet to Cybersex, she argues that technological determinism is an old fashioned and somewhat archaic way of exploring the relationship between technology and society. Building upon Williams' initial argument, She replaces technological determinism with social determinism; suggesting that society has full autonomy and control over technology, as opposed to the other way around (Green, 2001). Social determinism believes that social circumstances alone dictate how technologies are adopted and integrated into our lives, arguing that no technology can be considered inevitable on its own. Moreover, the knowledge needed to know how to develop and innovate technology is 'socially bound' knowledge, meaning that technology is constantly intertwined with social processes.

Williams laid the foundations for critiquing technological determinism as an old fashioned and simplistic theory. Williams, and later theorists such as Green, would argue that McLuhan is fundamentally wrong in his assertion that technology guides society. Instead, they would argue that technology is bound and manipulated by society and its associated social processes.

In Defence of Determinism

Despite the criticisms laid out by theorists such as Williams and Greene, many other theorists have defended the core concepts underpinning technological determinism and advanced McLuhan's initial understanding.

Hanna Arendt (1958: 144) wrote; “tools and instruments are so intensely worldly objects that we can classify whole civilizations using them as criteria.”

Not only can we, but we frequently do speak in this fashion, ascribing technology to time periods; we address historical epochs or times in history as the “stone,” “iron,” “steam,” and “computer” ages. However, not only is history described in this way, but geographical areas are characterized by reference to technologies too. Nations are referred to technologies which have played a prominent developmental role and/or which are highly symbolic of their culture: Holland and windmills, the United States and cars, Japan and electronics.

Robert Heilbroner (1994b) and David Edgerton (1999) argue that it is the availability of different machines that defines what it is like to live in a particular place and time. This becomes clear not only when looking back but if we study contemporary changes to technology and society. The advent of the computer, for example, shows how the fabric of society can change in a short period of time, affecting the daily lives of not only direct users but those who don’t possess computers as well. Everyone has to accommodate to the changes the computer has posed on either banks, libraries, super markets, post offices, schools, airlines, hospitals or the military (Leo Marx, Merritt Roe Smith)

Another example Marx and Smith argue, of technology being the driving force of history can be seen in the printing press as a virtual cause of the reformation. Before its invention copies of the Bible were exclusively in the possession of the clergy; after Gutenberg, however, many individuals gained direct, personal access to the Word of God, on which the Reformation thrived.

A strand of technological determinism, associated with the work of Ellul (1980), Marcuse (1964), and the Frankfurt School is that every generation produces a few inventors whose inventions appear to be both the determinants and stepping stones of human development. Unsuccessful inventions fall into the dust of history while successful ones quickly prove their value and are rapidly integrated into society, which they transform. In this way a technological breakthrough can be claimed to have detrimental consequences for society. This simplistic model is one which makes most sense of many people’s experience and hence it endures. For most people, most of the time, everyday technologies are unexplainable in origin as well as design. We have little or no idea of when they came about or how they work. As humans we simply adapt ourselves to their requirements and hope they continue to function in a predictable and positive way.

One very misleading and dangerous aspect of technological determinism is its equation of technological change with progress (Leo Marx, 1994). When studying the many histories and contemporary case studies of technological change it becomes evident how unorderly and equivocal the processes of developing technologies are. One issue with technological determinism is that it leaves no space for human choice or intervention and, moreover, absolves us from responsibility for the technologies we make and use. The detonation of the atomic bomb can be seen as an inevitable consequence of technological change, unrelated to progress.

Conclusion

Overall, after reading into several different academic views on Determinism involving varying definitions of Determinism, the most objective definition appears to be the theory that technology develops autonomously and that developments in technology can alter culture and society in significant ways. It would be considered objective to say that Williams ‘wins’ the debate in an academic sense, as his initial arguments laid the foundation for 'social determinism', a consequentialist theory that subverts the premises of technological determinism. However, this is irrelevant to the overarching statement evident in this work. Particularly, the more pressing matter is that it should not be about ‘winning’. Ultimately, the controversial debate between McLuhan and Williams has lead to a great deal of scholarly intrigue. It may be argued that this would not have been the outcome if McLuhan had -himself- existed in a post-McLuhan academic setting. This is to say that by considering the fallacy of technological determination as a metaphorical death-wish in the fields of cultural and media studies and subsequently giving no further attention to those who fall prey to the tempting logical liberties one can take with it, the debate is being silenced. With this silence of discussion, there also comes a silence of progress. In defence of technological determinism, it can be said that even if it is critiqued as a reductionist theory the questions it answers is a reflection of most people's experience, therefore it endures as a theory. We as a specie are currently in a 'digital age' and it is our adaption to this age that determines our success, something that has been true throughout history. However, this is only true in a darwinistic sense of progress, which is where the misleading and often dangerous equation of 'technological change' with progress arises.

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References

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