Tuesday 19 July 2011

Technological Determinism

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's drives the development of it's social structure and cultural values. Most of the interpretations of technological determinism share two general ideas and these are the following.

1. That the development of of technology itself follows a predictable, traceable path largely beyond cultural or political influences.
2. That technology in turn has 'effects' on societies that are inherent, rather than socially conditioned or produced because that society organises itself to support and further develop a technology once it has been introduced.

An example of the first point that has been shared would be technology such as the internet. This could be because it can follow a predictable, traceable path that everyone can get onto and therefore trace where everything is and may not be caused by cultural or political influences, however...they can be caused by this.

An example of the second point would be technological equipment such as the computer because a society organises itself to work with these pieces of equipment and therefore we can organise ourselves, as a society, to support and further develop this technology once it has already been introduced.

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