[Air-L] Technology as ideologically neutral?

[Meryl Krieger]

Cristian, Mike, et al:

I've been lurking throughout this discussion but Cristian's point has
encouraged me to chime in. I like that the ideas of ideology and
representation are both now in the conversation. Consider, though, that one
approach lets us present (rather than represent) what is understood within
a cultural/historical/geographical context and representation while the
other lets us view the same from the outside.

I'm thinking here from the perspective of ethnographic
participant-observation - in my world it becomes an absolute necessity to
separate out what we think we see happening in a particular setting from
what people within that setting think they are doing. We generally operate
out of a philosophical grounding in phenomenological bracketing because it
is far to easy for us to conflate these two things when we present
our/their actions to others.

This has been a great discussion, everyone - I can't wait to see where it
goes next!

Cheers, Meryl


-- 
J. Meryl Krieger
Ph.D., Folklore & Ethnomusicology
Adjunct Lecturer, Sociology, Indiana University Purdue University at
Indianapolis
Adjunct Instructor, Communications and Life Skills/Humanities, Ivy Tech
Community College
Piano/Clarinet Teacher, Stafford Music Academy, Bloomington, IN

http://www.linkedin.com/in/merylkrieger
http://indiana.academia.edu/merylkrieger

On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Cristian Berrio Zapata <
cristian.berrio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting Mike:
>
> Maybe, if we change the word "ideology" for "representation, then we could
> be more comfortable. Technology as a thinking process that presents
> solutions to context problems is built on historic, geographic, cultural
> representations (economy and ideology included of course). Here I am
> quoting Mumford.
>
> Certain sources, materials, energies, processes and products are preferred
> by those views (or representations). These views, when made real by the
> tools and routines produced by technology, create habits. And habits
> conform in the end, the organizational behavior of a community, an
> enterprise, a society. Here is Nelson & Winter who I quote.
>
> So technology, with or without consciousness, impose an architecture, an
> order to action and thought as disciplined bodies create disciplines minds.
> Here I quote Foucault. In the case of ICT, mind discipline is more evident
> but it also intends to create a physical order in any society it reaches; a
> reproduction of its origin.
>
> As societies are complex, this reproduction is not perfect. It is part
> reproduction and part construction. We are in that spot in our work, trying
> to understand what is happening. The idea of “global” is embedded into ICT
> so when it reaches a "community", this clash against the sense of “local”.
> The small baker shop owner is not interested in selling to the continent,
> but to his neighborhood. Same clash we have between computer (written
> language) in communities that are basically oral: they prefer the cellular.
>
> I believe these are the tips that let we brake down the ICT myth, and begin
> to understand the ICT tool.
>
>
> --
> *Cristian Berrío Zapata*
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