The Social Construction of Technology Discussion
Time permitting, we may go over a brief introduction of rhetoric.
Questions about Technology
Consider the following when you're reading (or in class):
-
How would I define my/our culture?
-
What constitutes cultural norms, values,
ideologies?
-
Is there any validity to the term
"conventional wisdom"?
-
What do the products I use say about the
person I am in regard to my social place?
-
What makes the Internet uniquely...
American...
Western...
Global...
Capitalist...
Individualistic?
-
What do nuclear weapons say about society?
As I said before, we must understand the
impact science and technology have on our world. But to do that, we have to
understand the social and cultural values that created sciences and
technologies.
Below are a few terms that will help us think about technologies critically--think about their meaning beyond just use.
-
Ideology: prevailing cultural/institutional attitudes, beliefs, norms, attributes, practices, and myths that are said to drive a society.
-
Hegemony: the ways or results of a dominant group's (the hegemon) influence over other groups in a society or region. The dominant group dictates, consciously or unconsciously, how society must be structured and how other groups must "buy into" the structure. For example, the former Soviet Union was the hegemonic power influencing the communist countries of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
{Of course, hegemony isn't just between nations. What hegemonic values are prevailing in American culture?}
-
Systemic: (adjective) pertaining to an entire system, institution, or object; something 'systemic' cannot be removed from the system.
Envisioning 21st Century Work
Have you ever thought about
telecommuting and virtual teams? What about Instant Messaging as a collaboration tool? I have funny story about that.
Have any of you thought about the ways
in which you'll communicate in the future? How do you think collaboration will
happen (and will it)? What's the importance of collaboration and good
communication in science, technology, and industry.
Interface Design and Imagination in Technical
Communication
According to several journal
responses I've gotten over the years, there appears to be no place for imagination in technical
communication. Apparently, facts are facts and they're unambiguous.
Unfortunately, facts aren't just given; they're constructed and interpreted.
One's perception or a group's adherence to "truth" (often called myth) can cause
a person to misinterpret facts or misinterpret what is a fact.
Interfaces are perfect examples of
hi-tech objects (screw ups) that rely on a user's mental model (an individual thought process or ways of viewing the world around him or her). A growing concern in design these days deals with usability.
Instead of having the tech experts decide what goes into an interface, the firm
brings in users to test products or documentation for products to determine if the interface or documents are effective. In
other words, can users get from Point A to Point B without issue?
But then there are interfaces that lie.
Your Turn
on Technology
For the next 10-15 minutes in groups of three or fewer,
decide on a technology to contemplate and consider the rhetoric of that
technology*. Discuss the following with the group:
(*Please avoid discussing mobile phones as your technology since we've talked about them
already--branch out.)
-
What are the social
values that appear embedded in the technology? In other words, if technology is mediated (comes to be) because of prevailing cultural values, from what cultural values does the technology come?
-
What are the social
implications of its design or use? Is it gendered?
-
Is it systemic (meaning, a
product of the ever-present "system" aka the man, the culture, ideologies)? Consider if it would "work" in another culture.
-
What does your technology say
about the culture that created it?
Make a webpage that you then link to from your index.html page. Only one group member needs to host this, but each group member should have a link to this page from his or her index.html page. Time permitting, we'll talk about these in a larger class discussion.
... |