AHSS*1090 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Technopole, Unintended Consequences
Communication, Technology & Culture
Week 4: Techno-Social Design
Contemporary Technology
-What is different?
1. They have become integrated into fabric of our everyday lives in ways that
are distinct from past
2. Increasingly invasive
3. Consequences can potentially be catastrophic
Understanding Techno-social Design
-Should not simply focus on technological artifacts
-Need to focus on kinds of practices made possible or necessary by the
technology
-“shifts in the nature of materiality”
-Defining modernity
-ABC of technological
Mythology Of Technology: Looking More Closely
-Stories we tell about technology and the inventors
-Edison and the light bulb
Techno-socio Design
-Ownership, Control, Access, Use, Unintended consequences
-We need to think beyond things in isolation to things in combination
-Examples of this approach:
Politics Of Technologies
1. Invention, design or arrangement becomes a way of settling an issue in affairs of
political community
2. Man-made systems that appear to require or be strongly compatible with
particular kinds of political relationships
-What happens:
-MP3 solves problem of exchangeable formats
-Worked on by a host of people
-MP3 shaped by electronics industry, recording industry and the way we
listen to music
-MP3 is a container technology
-This is the cultural origin of illegal file-sharing
-Thinking beyond lone genius inventor
-Considerations of power, capital, ability to persuade
Principle Of Unintended Consequences
-Every process and system contains consequences that were not originally
intended
-Complexity makes it difficult to determine outcomes
-Variations could be positive or negative, even catastrophic
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Document Summary
What is different: they have become integrated into fabric of our everyday lives in ways that are distinct from past. Should not simply focus on technological artifacts. Need to focus on kinds of practices made possible or necessary by the technology. Stories we tell about technology and the inventors. We need to think beyond things in isolation to things in combination. Invention, design or arrangement becomes a way of settling an issue in affairs of political community: man-made systems that appear to require or be strongly compatible with particular kinds of political relationships. Worked on by a host of people. Mp3 shaped by electronics industry, recording industry and the way we listen to music. This is the cultural origin of illegal file-sharing. Considerations of power, capital, ability to persuade. Every process and system contains consequences that were not originally intended. Complexity makes it difficult to determine outcomes. Variations could be positive or negative, even catastrophic.
