COMS 3403 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Substantivism, Luddite, Technological Determinism

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Communication and Media Studies
• Course: COMS 3403
• Professor: Tracey P. Lauriault

Document Summary

Utopians embrace tech as a means of achieving progress and efficiency in society. Tech allows us to dominate and manage nature, leading to advancements in how we produce material goods. Dystopians think that tech threatens established ways of life and consider to be regressive. Luddite: someone that does not like technology and doesn"t know how to use it. Theories would argue that humans have little choice in deciding how tech will evolve and diffuse in society. Tech is guided by independent self serving dynamics. Theories post that technology is controlled by humans and that its a socially constructed entity, whose meaning and use is determined by human action. Proposes that technology is driving force in developing the structure of society and culture. Technological determinists adhere to the notion that technology directs and shapes social interactions. Factors in society create specific uses of technology.