A CRITIQUE OF THEORY OF TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM OKUNNU GANIU O. PhD Communication Studies Adebola Adegunwa School of Communication Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria. Submitted to: Dr. OLAYINKA ALAWODE ADVANCED COMMUNICATION THEORIES OCTOBER 2014 Technological determinism is a reductionist doctrine that states that a society’s technology determines its cultural values, social structure, or history. Propounded by Canadian scholar, Marshal McLuhan, the theory stipulates that technology more than any other factor influences social behavior to change. According to Agbanu (2013: 179) technological determinism states that ‘technology shapes how individuals in a society thinks, feels, acts and how a society behaves as it moves from one technological age to the other. A central controversy concerns how far technology does or does not condition social change Introduction Various kinds of 'determinism' feature in social science theories. For instance, biological (or genetic) determinism, genetic and environmental determinism and linguistic determinism. Just like these other deterministic theories, technological determinism seeks to explain social and historical phenomena in terms of one principal or determining factor. It is a doctrine of historical or causal primacy. The term is believed to have been coined by the American sociologist and economist, Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). Around 370 BC, Plato warned in the Phaedrus that writing was the debasement of memory, the degradation of thought. In 1882, Nietszche wrote of the typewriter: ‘Our writing instruments contribute to our thoughts’ (Kittler 1990: 195) Ong (1982) maintains that: ‘More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness’. Origin Technological determinism has been summarized in the words of Merritt Roe Smith (1994) as the belief in technology as a key governing force in society. The communications theory of technological determinism was moulded by Marshall McLuhan. The basic idea behind the theory is that changes in the way humans communicate shape our existence. McLuhan feels that our culture is moulded by how we are able to communicate. According to McLuhan, inventions in communication technology cause cultural change. Secondly, changes in modes of communication shape human life. Thirdly, as McLuhan himself puts it, "We shape our tools, and they in turn shape us. Explanation Most interpretations of technological determinism share two general ideas: that the development of technology itself follows a predictable, traceable path largely beyond cultural or political influence, and that technology in turn has "effects" on societies that are inherent, rather than socially conditioned or produced because that society organizes itself to support and further develop a technology once it has been introduced. The technological determinist view is a technology-led theory of social change: technology is seen as 'the prime mover' in history. In economics, this is known as a 'technology-push' theory rather than a 'demand-pull' theory. Explanation Hard determinists view technology as independent from social concerns. They view technology as a set of powerful forces acting to regulate our social activity and its meaning. According to this view of determinism we organize ourselves to meet the needs of technology and the outcome of this organization is beyond our control or we do not have the freedom to make a choice regarding the outcome (Autonomous Technology). Technological Autonomy Closely associated with this assumption is Technological Autonomy, a feature of technological determinism whereby technology is presented as autonomous (or sometimes 'semi-autonomous'). Technology is seen as a largely external - 'outside' of society, 'supra-social' or 'exogenous' (as opposed to 'endogenous'). Rather than as a product of society and an integral part of it, technology is presented as an independent, self-controlling, selfdetermining, self-generating, self-propelling, self-perpetuating and self-expanding force. The most famous theorist adopting this perspective was the sociologist Jacques Ellul in his book The Technological Society. Hard and soft determinism Soft Determinism, as the name suggests, is a more passive view of the way technology interacts with socio-political situations. Soft determinists still subscribe to the fact that technology is the guiding force in our evolution, but would maintain that we have a chance to make decisions regarding the outcomes of a situation. According to historian, Lynn White (1978), 'a new device merely opens a door; it does not compel one to enter. A major assumption of this thought is that other 'mediating factors' are also involved in how new technology influence the society, and techno-economic determinism is sometimes associated with this stance Hard and soft determinism The philosophical stance of voluntarism as postulated by Polish-American writer Isaac Bashevis Singer insists that people are active agents and not helpless automatons; they are always able to make deliberate choices and to exercise control over change. In defence of human control over technology, Seymour Melman (1972) notes a technique or technology does not create or change itself. 'Technology does not, indeed cannot, determine itself' (p. 58). And the sociologist, Ruth Finnegan (1975) adds that 'the medium in itself cannot give rise to social consequences - it must be used'. With regard to communications media, the voluntarist stance opposed to media determinism is sometimes referred to as audience determinism, whereby instead of media being presented as doing things to people the emphasis is on people doing things with media. Hard and soft determinism Review of related theory, (Medium Theory) Closely related to theory of technological determinism is medium theory. Medium theory foregrounds media technology, identifying the cultural impact flowing from the properties inherent in technologies. Medium theory focuses on the medium characteristics itself (like in media richness theory) rather than on what it conveys or how information is received. In medium theory, a medium is not simply a newspaper, the Internet, a digital and so forth. Rather, it is the symbolic environment of any communicative act. Criticism of the Technological Determinism theory One shortcoming of this theory is that McLuhan does not address the process of technological innovation, despite the fact that this very process of innovation provides the explanation of how various technologies come to be constructed . Media technologies are invented, created, and deployed by man. Thus, there is a control factor that determines to a certain degree their use and their potential effect. Critics of technological determinism argue that what counts more than technical features are social and political issues concerning: the circumstances of production, modes of use, values, purposes, skill, style, choice, control and access, or as Finnegan puts it, 'Who uses it, who controls it, what it is used for, how it fits into the power structure, how widely it is distributed' (Finnegan 1988, p. 41: cf. pp. 176-7). We need to consider such issues as political control, class interests, economic pressures, geographical access, educational background and general attitudes. Power, control, 'relations of production', conflict and ideology tend to be the key issues. Criticism of the theory Next, how obvious is McLuhan's statement that “the medium is also the message”? Though the nature of a medium supports the content of the medium, however, the content comes to play once the technology somewhat establishes itself in the society (or the relevant structures), intertwined with the medium via which it is transmitted. The interdependency of the medium with the content is further argued by McLuhan himself, contradiction of a sort, when he brings the hot-cool medium discussion. History has shown us that so far this line of thought has not been very helpful in analyzing media and the appropriateness of particular content. Labeling TV as cool medium (high participation, includes) because “The TV image is visually low in data” (McLuhan, 1964, p.313), and radio as hot medium (low participation, excludes) (McLuhan, 1969, p.60), does not help at all in how to explain high participation in radio and low participation in TV. Criticism of the theory A more polemical stand against technological determinism is taken by Leila Green in her book Technoculture (2002). Dismissing technological determinism as one of the ‘myths’ of technology and ‘the old way of looking at things’, she installs in its place a ‘social determinism’, arguing that ‘society is responsible for the development and deployment of particular technologies.’ Breaking the abstraction of ‘society’ into more specific components, she proposes that technocultures reflect ‘the choices of elites in our societies, the people who have most say in how we plan for the future and how we allocate our resources’ (2002: 2-3). Criticism of the theory In opposition to technological determinism are those who subscribe to the belief of social determinism and postmodernism. Social determinists believe that social circumstances alone select which technologies are adopted, with the result that no technology can be considered "inevitable" solely on its own merits. Technology and culture are not neutral and when knowledge comes into the equation, technology becomes implicated in social processes. The knowledge of how to create and enhance technology, and of how to use technology is socially bound knowledge. Emergence of Social Construction of Technology Social construction of technology (also referred to as SCOT) is a theory within the field of Science and Technology Studies (or Technology and society). Advocates of SCOT — that is, social constructivists — argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology. They also argue that the ways in which a technology is used cannot be understood without understanding how that technology is embedded in its social context. SCOT is a response to technological determinism and is sometimes known as technological constructivism.
