Evolution, Innovation, Media

In Technology and Society, Williams outlines the basic premises of two alternative opinions on technology and society. The first, technological determinism, states that technology, and following, its consequences, are accidental. This view states that there is no reason why any particular invention should have come about. The second, and less deterministic view, overlaps the first in the accident of the emerged technology but differs in that its uses are symptomatic of some order of society of qualities of human nature. Essentially, technology is a participant in a change occurring in any case. Williams himself subscribes to the second view. One of the examples he provides discusses the only use of the radio as a mass medium by Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. This also illustrates his point that technological inventions are not single events but a series of events that are modern day incarnations of their technological predecessors. He goes on to discuss that in the field of communication, the means preceded the inventions’ available content (ie. The radio, television). This is a life cycle very apparent with the internet today, as we are learning, and as Williams states “new relations between men, and between men and things” are being intensely experienced much like in the industrial revolution.

Alternately, McLuhan sides more towards technological determinism, suggesting that the medium is the message, or that “the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” According to McLuhan, even though most people would be inclined to say that it was the outcome of the machine and not the machine itself that was its meaning or message, one must consider the technology itself if wanting a clear picture of “the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another and to ourselves.” He goes on to state that it “mattered not in the least whether it turned out cornflakes or cadillacs.” McLuhan also goes on to state that technology has made us “act without reacting” and that in this electric age, our “central nervous system is extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us.” Both Williams and McLuhan see media as extensions of man as opposed to merely just forces of causality.

The overall message of the Diffusion of Innovations goes back to Williams’ point that technological inventions are not single events but a series of events based on their previous incarnations. They key here is that innovations should not be considered “equivalent units of analysis.” Innovations each experience their own time frames of consumer adoption. This perspective creates a detailed outline of the processes involved between invention and human need. It examines the complexities of the relationship McLuhan discusses between technology, society and ourselves.

Engelbart examines the logic involved in our thought and looks at the evolution of innovations based on these thoughts. He examines Bush’s “memex” example and discusses how our innovations succeed when they allow us to access computers for manipulation, thereby resulting in newer technologies. Like the previous readings, Engelbart looks at relationships between technology and society and how these relationships cause technology and society to continually evolve.

Bush’s main theme focuses on the speed of technological advances and the implications of this speed. The article talks about the development of several innovations in the context of a give and take relationship with man. It goes on to call these innovations “our civilization’s artifacts” and surmises that perhaps they are indeed proof of our species’ sophistication.

After this reading, I noted the similarity of the value of speed in all the other readings. Williams, McLuhan, Englebart and the Diffusion reading all discuss the importance of speed as a central component of technological advancement along with the ability of society to not only imagine beyond but demand more than the technology’s original intent. Again, this theme applies in every way to the internet and of course all its ancestors (electricity, telecommunications to name a few). Another overlapping theme was the look at technology as a process as opposed to just appearing out of thin air.