Materialism in media is an approach of thinking in terms of politics, economy, history and the world on a holistic level. This week’s lecture covered a few topics, but the one that caught my attention mostly was the idea of technological determinism and wether it is a valid way of looking at the world vs. social constructivism. This debates wether it is technology that influences human culture (social constructivism) or wether it is human culture that influences technology (technological determinism).

The way I usually approach debates is by taking parts from each and finding a middle ground, but when it comes to the topic there is no middle ground, its one or the other. After going through both these topics there is significant evidence to prove both ideas. For example the invention of the steam train (social constructivism approach) was due to the social necessity of transporting firstly objects, but then moving on to transport large amounts of people long distances.

An example of technological determinism on the other hand is how mobile phones are everywhere now, whereas 30 years ago there were not around. They have changed the way we socialise, communicate, read, learn and access our information.

Both have extremely strong arguments as well strong criticism, and this makes it difficult to make my opinion on the matter. So instead of finding a middle ground like I usually do I’m deciding to do more research on the matter before I make a steady decision. Although I am leaning slightly toward social constructivism as I believe that it is society that guides much of our decisions.