This week’s symposium posed the question:
Murphie and Potts identify some technologies as ‘neutral’ (as in reference to the gun violence debate). How does this apply to networked media and technologies?
Adrien mentioned that he can’t think of a technology that is neutral in the sense that it doesn’t do anything, using the example of a hammer. Who knew something as simple as a hammer was so complex? Things have much more complicated relationships than we initially imagine. In networked media, we need to understand that technology asks certain things and lends itself to others. Technologies shape the way we perceive and experience our worlds. When we look at a hammer, we see that it is a hammer, however, it has affordances that are suited to US??