Wu 1
Aaron Wu
Professor Duguid
INFO 103
7 March 2022
Midterm Essay Proposal
In my midterm essay, I intend to demonstrate how technology both shapes and is shaped
by sociopolitical structures. I allude to the historical development of television and the
contemporary development of social media to illustrate my claim.
I will outline my essay as follows. Firstly, I argue that television influences society
because it highlights social issues and mobilizes people (see: military violence of US’
involvement in the Vietnam War causing public outrage). I also argue that television standardizes
and homogenizes behavior. On the other hand, society influences television because
entertainment companies utilize technology to perpetuate dominant social values (see: the
portrayal of nuclear families in the 1950s). I then discuss social media and technology. Social
media influences society because it makes transnational participation across the political
spectrum possible (see: mass mobilization on Twitter to contest the 2009 Iranian election) and
because it creates echo chambers. Society influences social media because our existing
sociopolitical biases lead us to seek out information on social media that only confirms these
biases. Society also uses social media as a means to perpetuate white saviorism and performative
activism (see: Instagram activism and #BLM).
Wu 2
List of References
Adams, P. C. (1992). Television as Gathering Place. Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, 82(1), 117–135. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563539
Akhavan, N. (2013). SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE MESSAGE. In Electronic Iran: The
Cultural Politics of an Online Evolution (pp. 83–106). Rutgers University Press.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt5hjfz9.8
Hadyniak, Kyle, "How Journalism Influenced American Public Opinion During the
Vietnam War: A Case Study of the Battle of Ap Bac, The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, The Tet
Offensive, and the My Lai Massacre" (2015). Honors College. 222.
Lule, Jack. "Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass
Communication" (2012).
McClanahan, Aerianna, "The Downfalls of Performative White Allyship on Social Media
in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement" (2021). Munn Scholars Awards. 7.
McLuhan, Marshall. 2013 [1964]. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New
York: Ginko Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1974. Television and Cultural Form. New York: Schocken Books.
[Taylor&Francis]
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/munn/7