Re: [Air-L] Technology as ideologically neutral?
Charles, some other suggestions: The critical race and cyberculture literature is where i regularly draw my arguments of 'tech as ideologically neutral' from, since those researchers argue against precisely that perspective. Most of the work is in edited collections and journal special issues: - Tu, Nelson, and Hines "Technicolor" - Alondra Nelson's "AfroFuturism" special issue in Social Work - Kolko, Nakamura, Rodman "Race in Cyberspace" - Silver and Massanari's "Critical Cyberculture Studies" - de la Pena and Vaidhyanathan's "Rewiring the "Nation": The Place of Technology in American Studies" special issue - in American Quarterly - Nakamura and Chow-White "Race after the Internet" for a specifically STS perspective - Pacey (as mentioned earlier) - Marvin (as mentioned earlier) - Michael Adas "Dominance by Design" - Joel Dinerstein "Swinging the Vine" - David Nye "American Technological Sublime" and James Carey's "Communication as Culture" Hope this helps... Andre Brock Assistant Professor - Library and Information Science/POROI University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 5:00 PM, <air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
Re: [Air-L] Technology as ideologically neutral?
Cyberculture Theorists: Manuel Castells And Donna Haraway By David Bell (2007) Dr Denise N. Rall, Research Assistant, School of Health & Human Sciences Popcaanz Popular Culture Australasia New Zealand June 26-29 Melbourne Australia Presentation: The Bride as Banquet - Costume and the consumption of Desire Denise N. Rall, Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 Fax +(61)(0)2 6624 5380
Glad to see this topic getting so much interest. I undertake a pretty thoroughgoing analysis and critique of the neutral tech idea in this book just out:: Digination: Identity, Organization, and Public Life in the Age of Small Digital Devices and Big Digital Domains FDU Press, Robert MacDougall (2012) http://www.amazon.com/Digination-Identity-Organization-Digital-Communication... And in this edited volume the same critique is threaded through every chapter contributed: Drugs & Media: New Perspectives on Communication, Consumption, and Consciousness Continuum, Robert MacDougall, Ed (2012) http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Media-Perspectives-Communication-Consciousness/d... Both links lead to the "look inside" feature on Amazon when you can browse a bit. Would love to hear folks' thoughts. -rob ________________________________________ From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Denise N. Rall [denrall@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 12:14 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Technology as ideologically neutral? Cyberculture Theorists: Manuel Castells And Donna Haraway By David Bell (2007) Dr Denise N. Rall, Research Assistant, School of Health & Human Sciences Popcaanz Popular Culture Australasia New Zealand June 26-29 Melbourne Australia Presentation: The Bride as Banquet - Costume and the consumption of Desire Denise N. Rall, Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 Fax +(61)(0)2 6624 5380 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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.
How about Technology ( nowadays aka "the Internet") AS ideology? Radhika Gajjala Http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik On Jul 7, 2012, at 10:28 AM, jeremy hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
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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I think that would depend on how you define the two terms. certainly the concept 'internet' is ideological because it performs as ideology as i understand it, which is that ideology is a something that hides and emphasizes in order to disempower/empower people in the interests of groups, On Jul 7, 2012, at 9:41 AM, Radhika wrote:
How about Technology ( nowadays aka "the Internet") AS ideology?
Radhika Gajjala Http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik
Jeremy Hunsinger Communication Studies Wilfrid Laurier University Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Live without dead time. -graffitti Paris 1968
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@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.
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- *Cristian Berrío Zapata*
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@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@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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-- *Cristian Berrío Zapata* _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Zeynep Tufekci, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society zeynep at unc.edu or @techsoc http://www.technosociology.org
participants (7)
-
André Brock -
Cristian Berrio Zapata -
Denise N. Rall -
jeremy hunsinger -
MacDougall, Robert -
Radhika -
Zeynep Tufekci