COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA

Impact of Technology on Communication

Impact of Technology on Communication

Introduction

The term technology can mean many things. Often technology refers to machines or equipment. Sometimes it can be the means of production or a technique employed. By this broader definition, technology refers to art—not to fine art but to skill in doing something. Thus, technology is defined as the means to do or accomplish something practical or industrial. This is a much broader view than one of technology as merely a machine. In this way, technology can be thought of as a tool, and thus many things could be defined as a technology (Ellul, 2006).

The word determinism is less often used colloquially than the word technology is. Determinism means the assertion that human action is not free but is necessarily decided by external forces acting as causes or motives. Determinism suggests that everything happens because of a particular causal chain of events and not because of human choice.

According to the article Advertisers on Google Are Told to Keep It Proper by Sarah Lefton,“Google maintains an in-house style guide, which it says is a living document, expanding over time to include neologisms and pop culture references”.Taken together, then, technological determinism suggests that technology is the primary external force causing human activity. A chain of events occurs as a result of technological production. An important feature of technological determinism is the inevitability of action and reaction over the course of events. There is an inevitable path that technology paves that cannot be deviated from once things are in motion. The technology takes over. Technology enters into every aspect of life such that it cannot be removed from it. Therefore, when we seek to understand the social world, technological determinism argues that we must begin with the technology.

Thesis Statement

Communication technology plays an increasingly prominent role in our daily lives and this technological advancement has helped in making the communication much cheaper and easier.

Discussion

Modern life is fraught with narratives about the power of communication technology. The printing press brought about the Protestant Reformation. The newspaper made nation-states possible. The television makes us dumb or disconnects us from place. The Internet will revolutionize the world. In other words, communication technologies determine the way we live our lives.

Two of the most prominent technological deterministic scholars who have examined the role of communication technology are Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. Central to both writers' arguments is that communication technology directly and dramatically affects the way people live. Time bias refers to the ability of some communication technology to preserve messages over time. Time-biased media are durable, often heavy, and untransportable. For example, when a message is carved into stone, it can last many years; however, it tends not to be easy to carry around. A time-biased medium tends to encourage a society that privileges face-to-face interaction and ritual. Space bias refers to the ability of a communication medium to be moved through space.

In Annals of Technology, John Seabrook says that “The human ear is exquisitely sensitive; ...