This reading was particularly interesting as Potts and Murphie described the differences between technology, technique and culture. They talk about how these three terms have become imbedded in our society through the way that they interact. When culture and technology are combined, they must be versatile and mobile in order to achieve technological advance. To make things clearer for myself, I am going to outline what the three terms mean.

Technology was first used as a term around the time of the ‘Industrial Revolution’ in order to “describe the radical restructuring of Western societies as a result of industrial purpose”. Since then it has been used to describe the systems of machinery and their processes. It is also important to remember that technology is heavily influenced by cultural values, ideologies and ethical concerns.

Technique is described by Potts and Murphie as “the use of skill to accomplish something”. They make note that we need technique in order to use technologies and therefore, if technique was lost, there would be no skill to advance technology.

Culture is a lot harder to define compared to the previous terms. Potts and Murphie describe it as being both dynamic and multiple. It is dynamic because there is always constant change in the ideas and values. It is multiple due to the way it is made up of the different classes, races and ages.