Socio-technical Shifts

We've been talking an awfully lot about the differences between a decentralized, two-way medium like the Internet, and the centralized, one-way broadcast approach of television.   This post illustrates how  the nature of a medium's content and user experience tends to correspond to its underlying technical architecture.  It follows, perhaps, that by helping to shape cognitive, psychological, and  social processes, technology plays an important role in shaping us.

Let's look first at some of the characteristics of the television broadcasting model, namely its content and user experience for example, and compare them with those of the Internet.

These probes can be situated among a broader, perhaps more basic set of shifts stemming from a critical new approach in our media's architecture.

Technological determinists, like Marshall Mcluhan for instance, believe that while we create technlogy, the technology that we create then forever after shapes us. These forces which shape us might be intended (air conditioners in the Southern States intended to make for cooler indoor environments in the summer) or unintended (as a result of cooler indoor temperatures, the workaday schedule, fashion, and social patterns of Southerns was affected). Inventions such as fire, language, the printing press, electricity, and television, are often cited, prominently, for their profound long-term effect on society. The power of the Internet, its myriad applications, its rapid adoption, and its ability to integrate and extend all which came previous, may place it in a class of its own. Social determinists question the validity of technological determinism because firstly, people are involved in shaping their tools and secondly there is too much unpredictability in the world and our evolution relies too much on chance, or that which is still unknown, to conclude that technology has such a distinct role in our development. While a balance surely exists between these two opinions, we cannot deny the powerful social effects of the forces which can be attributed directly or indirectly to the advent of this networking era. While the shifts that make up our current transformation are strong we should not conclude they will be absolute. A role will continue, however marginalized, for tangible goods, for central institutions, for hierarchical structures, and so on. New forms could be born as well. We should think of these shifts as ongoing cyclical forces which over time strive for equilibrium and balance. Exactly where that balance lies is up to us.