So unfortunately I ran out of time last week to properly reflect on the reading this week… But here are a few key take aways:
‘How does individual behaviour aggregate to collective behaviour?’
‘What makes the problem hard, and what makes complex systems complex, is that the parts making up the whole don’t sum up in any simple fashion. Rather they interact with each other, and in interacting, even quite simple components can generate bewildering behaviour.’
By network, we ‘could be talking about people in a network of friendships, or a large organisation, routers along the backbone of the Internet or neurons firing in the brain. All these systems are networks.’
‘Real networks represent populations of individual components that are actually doing something – generating power, sending data or even making decisions.’
‘Networks are dynamic objects not just because things happen in networked systems, but because the networks themselves are evolving and changing in time, driven by the activities or decisions of those very components.’
This week’s text by Andrew Murphie and John Potts revolves around the different perspectives of how the technology affects culture. To set my view in context, here’s the background you need to know:
- ‘Technological determinism refers to the belief that technology is the agent of social change.
- Technological determinism tends to consider technology as an independent factor, with its own properties, its own course of development, and its own consequences.
- Technical innovation will generate a new type of society’
I find it very surprising that anyone could assume an entirely technologically determinist view when it excludes so many factors that can contribute to cultural change.
It should first be made aware that technological innovation is usually firstly instigated by a demand and/or desire from society, or as inspired by something that already exists. When you think about it, each new technology that we use today is basically a ‘new and improved’ derivative of something that is pre-existing and used. If a product or it’s particular features prove to be successful amongst the public, this in itself indicates to innovators that a market already exists for the idea. Innovators would surely then undertake extensive market research in order to predict if their proposed product has the potential to take off. They must assess what features and trends are successful on other platforms and consider the wants, needs and changing relationships that consumers have with technology.
With this is mind, it is already clear that society and culture essentially drive the innovation of new technology. Whilst I don’t deny that once products can have an influence over a culture once they become available, it is important to note that technological development is fuelled by their behaviour in the first place. I feel like this factor pretty much rules out the technologically determinist view all together, as you can always trace the evolution technology back to society. Technological determinists seriously need to consider the fact that technology is not just changing us, but we are changing technology.
