Technological talk is everywhere nowadays. All manner of novel developments, good or ill, are associated with the supposed impact of technology. But when we invoke the term ‘technology’, whether in relation to media or in general, just what do we mean anyway? Do technologies drive human history? Or are technologies just tools, extending deeper social, economic, political or cultural structures? In this introductory episode, we consider different scholarly takes on how we might understand and conceptualise media as technologies. We start with one of the most famous ‘technological’ understandings of media: that of Marshall McLuhan, whose catchphrase ‘the medium is the message’ asserted that the historical or long-term effects of particular mediums were of greater significance than media content. Detractors of this assertion, such as cultural theorist Raymond Williams, argued McLuhan’s brand of ‘technological determinism’ put forward a crude and politically naive way of understanding media culture. As we'll see, though, the most useful position is probably somewhere in-between: of course technologies are cultural; but culture is also inherently technological.
Thinkers discussed: Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media); Raymond Williams (Television: Technology and Cultural Form); David Edgerton (The Shock of the Old); Ursula Franklin (The Real Life of Technology); Stephen Kline (What Is Technology?); Donna Haraway (The Cyborg Manifesto); Bernard Stiegler (Technics and Time 1); and N. Katharine Hayles (How We Think); Michael Litwack (Extensions after Man: Race, Counter/Insurgency and the Futures of Media Theory).
Media, Technology & Culture 07 (2nd Edition): Embodied Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 06 (2nd Edition): Infrastructural Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 05 (2nd Edition): Computational Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 04 (2nd Edition): Live Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 03 (2nd Edition): Domesticated Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 02 (2nd Edition): Communication Technologies
Publicly Sited Update: New Podcast on The Mediated City; plus Media, Technology and Culture 2nd Edition
Media, Technology and Culture 09: Algorithmic Technologies
Media, Technology and Culture 08: Participatory Technologies
Media, Technology and Culture 07: Embodied Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 06: Infrastructural Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 05: Computational Technologies
Media, Technology& Culture 04: Live Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 03: Domesticated Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 02: Communication Technologies
Media, Technology & Culture 01: Cultural Technologies
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