Theories of Technology and Communication

1. Theories of Technology and Communication A lightning tour of heavy theory

2. Public Sphere • Habermas (1929- ) • Rational-critical debate: The public use of reason • Based on interpersonal linguistic communication • Arguments judged on their validity, their rationality (good arguments naturally win) • An idealized construct

3. Public Sphere • Criticisms: • Elite or bourgeois perspective • Western and European bias • Excludes working-class rationality • Excludes women and feminism • Homogenous: Easy to agree when there is not much diversity among the people making the arguments

4. Public Sphere • How does discourse become democratic? • Is democracy achieved through discourse? • Can democracy be achieved in any other way? • Is democracy actually possible or practical in non-homogenous societies? • How is consensus reached?

5. Phenomenology • Phenomenology: Analyzing people’s (subjects’) relationships with the world • Classical phenomenologists: • Husserl (1859-1938) • Heidegger (1889-1976) • Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) • Terms they commonly used: • “Consciousness” • “Being-in-the-world” • “Perception”

6. Phenomenology • Within these human-world relationships, both of these are constituted: • The objectivity of the world • The subjectivity of those who are experiencing and existing in the world

7. (A short break for epistemology) • Subject: The active, thinking individual (or social group), who has consciousness and/or (free) will. • Object: What the subject’s cognitive or other activity is directed toward. • Dialectics: You can’t have one without the other. • There is an inescapable relationship between the activity of the subject and the independent existence of the world the subject is part of

8. Phenomenology • Our world is interpreted reality • We cannot empirically define the world • We objectify a thing we call “the world” • Our existence is “situated subjectivity” • What we perceive is always relative to our situation • What the world “is” and what subjects “are”—both arise from the interplay between humans and reality.

9. Lifeworld vs. System • “Lifeworld” originally comes from Husserl • Emphasizes the centrality of perception for human experience • The embodied nature of consciousness • Lifeworld structures are so familiar to us, they are practically invisible • System structures are obvious, intrusive, external to ourselves

10. Lifeworld vs. System • Habermas sees the system “colonizing” the lifeworld (erasing it, replacing it, taking it over) • Today’s societies are in crisis; Habermas sees doom and gloom everywhere • Why? Because we do not believe our institutions (structures of the system): • Are just, or benevolent, or operating in our best interest • Deserve our support or loyalty

11. Lifeworld vs. System • This is what Habermas calls a “crisis of legitimation” • It is also a crisis in communication: Our communicative efficacy (or agency) has been “colonized” too • “Consumer” vs. “citizen”: Which one of these are you? • (Or instead of “consumer”: “Taxpayer”)

12. Lifeworld Adaptation: the problem of acquiring sufficient resources (food, clothing, shelter, health) Goal Attainment: the problem of settling and implementing goals (comfort, protection/ safety for family, better life) System Integration: the problem of maintaining solidarity or coordination (buy-in, docility) among the subunits of the system Latency: the problem of creating, preserving and transmitting the system’s distinctive culture and values

13. System vs. Lifeworld • In the colonization of the lifeworld by the system, Habermas sees the priorities of the market overriding the priorities (interests) of the individual and the community • Market (system/quantitative): economics, money, power, and votes • People (lifeworld/qualitative): influence (e.g. rational argument) and value-commitments

14. System vs. Lifeworld • In other words, we only vote. • We do not deliberate. • We do not discuss. • There is no discourse. • There is no real democracy. • The power of communication is displaced (colonized) by a bottom-line quantitative view: How many points? How much profit? Who wins?

15. “By the lifeworld, Habermas means the shared common understandings, including values, that develop through face-to-face contacts over time in various social groups, from families to communities. The lifeworld carries all sorts of assumptions about who we are as people and what we value about ourselves: what we believe, what shocks and offends us, what we aspire to, what we desire, what we are willing to sacrifice to which ends, and so forth.” —Arthur W. Frank, Department of Sociology, University of Calgary

16. Speech Acts • Habermas’s “Theory of Communicative Action” owes much to this theory • Principal philosophers: • Wittgenstein (1889-1951) • J. L. Austin (1911-1960) • John Searle (1932- )

17. Speech Acts • Performative utterances are spoken words or sentences that do not state a fact but rather are actually the performance of some action (Austin) • Examples: • “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.” • “I take this man as my lawfully wedded husband.” • “I hereby disown you.” • “I bequeath this watch to my brother.”

18. Technological Determinism • How much does technology cause, or lead to, or facilitate social change? • T.D. is a theory of the relationship between technology and society. • Counter-argument to T.D. is that technology is neutral or “value-free.” • That is, technologies are neither good nor bad in themselves. It depends on how they are used.

19. Technological Determinism • T.D. says technologies are NOT neutral. • Technologies ARE good or bad, inherently. • Do you believe this? • Is the Internet good … or bad? • What about a cell phone? • What about a gun?

20. Technological Determinism • “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” • Heidegger (he was a phenomenologist, remember?) told us: • A hammer is a hammer not because it has the properties of a hammer (whatever those are). • A hammer is a hammer because it is used for hammering.

21. Technological Determinism • Does the Internet have inherent characteristics? • Lawrence Lessig: “Code is law.” • People say the Internet is inherently: • Democratic • Fragmented • Self-regulating • (This is a T.D. view of the Internet.)

22. Technological Determinism • Lee Salter, in “Democracy, New Social Movements, and the Internet: A Habermasian Analysis”: • Wrong: A new technology has a necessary impact on society. • Also wrong: A technology has NO intrinsic qualities.

23. Technological Determinism • Salter says we need to hold “a cautious balance” between: • The transformative capacity of a technology • The capacity of social agents (people, groups) to use and shape that technology

24. Technological Determinism • Are these “intrinsic” to the Internet? • Anonymity • Irresponsibility (no commitment) • Freedom of speech • A shared lifeworld • A shared culture (meaning of “speech acts”) • Two-way exchange of information • Global governance

25. Philosophy of Technology • Don Ihde, professor of philosophy at SUNY Stony Brook: • Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth, Indiana University Press, 1990 • Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction, Paragon House, 1993 • Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, 1967 • Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 1963

26. Whew! Thank you. Mindy McAdams mmcadams@jou.ufl.edu University of Florida