This is an excerpt from a lecture that I give at the National University of Maynooth on the relationship of technology with society. It reviews concepts of technological determinism and outlines Raymond Williams' influential social shaping of technology perspective.

1. MD353
Socialisation of
Technology
Dr Trish Morgan
Week 3

2. Technological
Determinism

3. Determining
and
Dystopian
Neil Postman

6. Determining
Manuel
and
Castells
Utopian

7. Information
Age
New World Order
Super-Text
and
Meta-Language

8. Alternatives

9. Social Shaping / Social
Construction of
Technology

10. Raymond Williams

11. Television:
Technology
and
Cultural Form

12. effects

13. cause

14. whether it is to
describe any technology as a
cause, or, if we think of it as a
cause, as , and in
what relations with other kinds
of causes

15. IF cause
or something
that ‘leads to’
a societal or
cultural outcome ?

16. we can modify
or
seek to control
its effects

17. if we do that technology
has an effect,
what are the that has
resulted in its particular
use
?

18. and
cultural forms

19. ‘when it is consciously
developed for particular
social uses that the
general significance
begins’

20. process

21. these processes
are

22. social order

23. technology use is not
hard coded
users are active and socially
situated decoders
of technologies

24. mcluhan and williams compared

25. 1
Human Agency
(Williams)
v
Technological
(McLuhan)

26. ‘all technologies have been
and improved to help
with known human practices
or with forseen and desired
practices’
(Williams)

27. ‘change of scale or pace’
(McLuhan)

28. why a technology is developed
the social, cultural and economic
factors that shape it
the ways that technologies are
mobilised for certain ends
(Williams)

29. 2
Multiple and
Uses of a Technology

30. the unforeseen

31. 3
Concepts of
Technology

32. “man”

33. The concept of
medium

34. a medium is a
particular use of a
technology

35. When is
a technology
a medium?

36. a medium is
something we do
with