[Air-L] Technology as ideologically neutral?

Tue Jul 10 16:11:29 PDT 2012

Perhaps ("old" but good):

 Flanagin, A., Maynard, W., Farinola, Metzger, M. (2000). The technical
code of the Internet/World Wide Web.* Critical Studies in Media
Communication*, 17. 409-428

Using Feenberg's (1995a, 1995b) concept of the technical code of
technological
artifacts, this essay examines the evolution and current status of the
Internet/World Wide Web. The idea of technical code-the cultural and social
values and choices that become manifest in a technology's physical and
structural forms-helps to isolate and uncover issues of design, usage, and
policy that guide the Internet. In turn, the Internet/WWW can be seen in
terms of the values, priorities, and assumptions that have literally become
built into it.
Based on this analysis, implications of the Internet's technical code and
alternative outcomes are discussed.

-TED

On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Nick Breems <nbreems at dordt.edu> wrote:

> If someone says "it's just a tool", I often reply with Abraham Maslow's
> observation that "When your only tool is a hammer, all of your problems
> begin to look like nails."
>
> --
> Nick Breems
> - PhD Student @ University of Salford
> - Assistant Professor of Computer Science @ Dordt College (on leave)
>
> Email:  nbreems at dordt.edu
> Mobile phone:
>    (from UK): 0771 822 9005
>    (from US): 011 44 771 822 9005
>
>
> >>> On Saturday, July 07, 2012 at 6:41 PM, Zeynep Tufekci
> <socnetres at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Another crucial variant is the "it's just a tool" formulation,
> commonly
> > found in popular debates. This kept cropping up during discussions of
> the
> > role of new media in the Arab uprisings and, in my view, impeded
> real
> > discussion.
> >
> > I think that scholars have been so eager to stay away from
> technological
> > determinism that we've lost sense of how to argue really about the
> > structural accordances of technology. Too often, the more acceptable
> > formulation, "it's socially constructed," also leans towards "it's
> just a
> > tool" in essence.
> >
> > -z
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Cristian Berrio Zapata <
> > cristian.berrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Pls do not let McLuhan out of the scope... in McLuhan, M. (1995).
> The
> >> Playboy Interview. Essential McLuhan, 233-269.
> >>
> >> “*In the past, the effects of media were experienced more
> gradually,
> >> allowing the individual and society to absorb and cushion their
> impact to
> >> some degree. Today, in the electronic age of instantaneous
> communication, I
> >> believe that our survival, and at the very least our comfort and
> happiness,
> >> is predicated on understanding the nature of our new environment,
> because
> >> unlike previous environmental changes, the electric media constitute
> a
> >> total and near-instantaneous transformation of culture, values and
> >> attitudes. This upheaval generates great pain and identity loss,
> which can
> >> be ameliorated only through a conscious awareness of its dynamics.
> If we
> >> understand the revolutionary transformations caused by new media, we
> can
> >> anticipate and control them; but if we continue in our self-induced
> >> subliminal trance, we will be their slaves*.” (McLuhan, 1995)
> >>
> >> On the other hand, I am a fan of applying the "complexity" view to
> all ICT
> >> views. Therefore it would be quite difficult to sepparate politics,
> from
> >> ideology, from economics, from culture, all of them part of the
> >> Internet-Web pack. It  comes to be very visible when looking at
> digital
> >> divide programes applied to indigenous communities.
> >>
> >> Regarding the "amputation" problem also raised by McLuhan, ICT tools
> let
> >> "self perception" out of the scope. Self perception (proprioception
> and
> >> tactile perception) is the base of affective bound, "love". Then,
> what are
> >> we depriving new generations of?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> 2012/7/7 jeremy hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu>
> >>
> >> > I find this to be an interesting debate, though mostly the
> question is
> >> > where the ideology actually exists.    Does it exist in the
> object
> >> itself?
> >> >  relations to the object from other objects?  relations to the
> object to
> >> > semiotic systems around it?  relations to socius or culture?  or
> in the
> >> > systems alone, cultures alone, socius, alone, etc.
> >> >
> >> > basically there is a matrix here of ideologies, contexts, objects
> and
> >> > their axiologies operating both ontologically ala mereological
> >> > constructions  and epistemologies.   With many blurry middle
> grounds.
> >> >
> >> > I hold that artifacts have politics in themselves, but i'm not
> sure that
> >> > all artefacts have ideologies in themselves.  The question i tend
> to
> >> raise
> >> > and ask people to write about is... what is the politics of the
> toaster,
> >> > because the toaster has a whole political economics and a
> politics, but
> >> > does it have an implied ideology.  Now the design of a toaster
> can
> >> > certainly have ideological components, but the idea of a toaster
> may
> >> > perhaps not, though granted whether the idea exists outside of the
> set of
> >> > objects is another debate for the Platonists to take up.
> >> >
> >> > however... I wonder about the neutrality of the internet because
> as I've
> >> > argued here before, that while there is no real internet beyond
> reference
> >> > to a conceptual idea that encompasses many technologies and
> systems that
> >> > lack what i'd all think of as a unity beyond the concept.  So does
> it as
> >> a
> >> > whole have a neutrality or an ideology?  there is a certain
> technocratic
> >> > rationality to it, and that rationality certainly has a
> traditionally
> >> > critiqued ideology, but is that in it, or in the design of it, or
> in the
> >> > relations of it within historic contexts?  and isn't neutrality
> and the
> >> > claim to it, an ideological claim?  I've always tended to argue
> that the
> >> > claim toward neutrality and objectivity is almost always
> ideological.
> >> >
> >> > one of my favorite authors on this technology as ideology is Paul
> Virilio
> >> > and my second favorite is Walter Benjamin in Arcades Project.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
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> >> >
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> >> > http://www.aoir.org/
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> *Cristian Berrío Zapata*
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >
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-- 
Ted M. Coopman Ph.D.
Lecturer
Department of Communication Studies
San Jose State University
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/ted.coopman/