Brief Introduction to Technological Determinism

Brief Introduction to Technological Determinism PDF Author: Arghya Ray
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781492853268
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
We should always keep in mind that both technology experts and business managers are part of the society. Without understanding society, we cannot understand our clients and customers. But if a professional does not know that exactly how technology is related to the society and vice versa, he/she cannot devise technological systems that would benefit the society in the long run. Apparently, study of society and social sciences is not an imperative for a technical or management trainee. But in the age of social networks like Facebook and with increased public focus on topics like corporate social responsibility (CSR), it is not a good idea to neglect the social influence and importance of technology as a whole. Technological determinism can amply help us in developing an understanding on how society and technology interact. The basic framework of this theoretical paradigm has been constructed on the basis of Thorstein B. Veblen's works. Although a strictly deterministic approach might damage the very target of this book, I have focused on the philosophical side of determinism. This has been done to provide a wholesome view of the debates that frequently arise while analyzing the relationships between technology and society. Although this book is primarily meant for sociology students, I have adopted an interdisciplinary approach. If a manager or technology expert wishes to work on socio-technical projects, this book can be helpful for them as well.

Technological Determinism and Social Change

Technological Determinism and Social Change PDF Author: Jan Servaes
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 073919125X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This book sheds light on the impact of new information and communication technologies on civil society by examining specific cases in Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, China, Columbia, Kenya, the Netherlands, and the United States.

Does Technology Drive History ?

Does Technology Drive History ? PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Technological Determinism

Technological Determinism PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic book
Languages : en
Pages :

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Technology Matters

Technology Matters PDF Author: David E. Nye
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262250748
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Discusses in nontechnical language ten central questions about technology that illuminate what technology is and why it matters. Technology matters, writes David Nye, because it is inseparable from being human. We have used tools for more than 100,000 years, and their central purpose has not always been to provide necessities. People excel at using old tools to solve new problems and at inventing new tools for more elegant solutions to old tasks. Perhaps this is because we are intimate with devices and machines from an early age—as children, we play with technological toys: trucks, cars, stoves, telephones, model railroads, Playstations. Through these machines we imagine ourselves into a creative relationship with the world. As adults, we retain this technological playfulness with gadgets and appliances—Blackberries, cell phones, GPS navigation systems in our cars. We use technology to shape our world, yet we think little about the choices we are making. In Technology Matters, Nye tackles ten central questions about our relationship to technology, integrating a half-century of ideas about technology into ten cogent and concise chapters, with wide-ranging historical examples from many societies. He asks: Can we define technology? Does technology shape us, or do we shape it? Is technology inevitable or unpredictable? (Why do experts often fail to get it right?)? How do historians understand it? Are we using modern technology to create cultural uniformity, or diversity? To create abundance, or an ecological crisis? To destroy jobs or create new opportunities? Should "the market" choose our technologies? Do advanced technologies make us more secure, or escalate dangers? Does ubiquitous technology expand our mental horizons, or encapsulate us in artifice? These large questions may have no final answers yet, but we need to wrestle with them—to live them, so that we may, as Rilke puts it, "live along some distant day into the answers."

Beyond Innovation: Technology, Institution and Change as Categories for Social Analysis

Beyond Innovation: Technology, Institution and Change as Categories for Social Analysis PDF Author: Thomas Kaiserfeld
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113754712X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Beyond Innovation counter weighs the present innovation monomania by broadening our thinking about technological and institutional change. It is done by a multidisciplinary review of the most common ideas about the dynamics between technology and institutions.

Does Technology Drive History?

Does Technology Drive History? PDF Author: Merritt Roe Smith
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262691673
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
These thirteen essays explore a crucial historical questionthat has been notoriously hard to pin down: To what extent,and by what means, does a society's technology determine itspolitical, social, economic, and cultural forms? These thirteen essays explore a crucial historical question that has been notoriously hard to pin down: To what extent, and by what means, does a society's technology determine its political, social, economic, and cultural forms? Karl Marx launched the modern debate on determinism with his provocative remark that "the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist," and a classic article by Robert Heilbroner (reprinted here) renewed the debate within the context of the history of technology. This book clarifies the debate and carries it forward.Marx's position has become embedded in our culture, in the form of constant reminders as to how our fast-changing technologies will alter our lives. Yet historians who have looked closely at where technologies really come from generally support the proposition that technologies are not autonomous but are social products, susceptible to democratic controls. The issue is crucial for democratic theory. These essays tackle it head-on, offering a deep look at all the shadings of determinism and assessing determinist models in a wide variety of historical contexts. Contributors Bruce Bimber, Richard W. Bulliet, Robert L. Heilbroner, Thomas P. Hughes, Leo Marx, Thomas J. Misa, Peter C. Perdue, Philip Scranton, Merritt Roe Smith, Michael L. Smith, John M. Staudenmaier, Rosalind Williams

Hacking

Hacking PDF Author: Tim Jordan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745658156
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Hacking provides an introduction to the community of hackers and an analysis of the meaning of hacking in twenty-first century societies. On the one hand, hackers infect the computers of the world, entering where they are not invited, taking over not just individual workstations but whole networks. On the other, hackers write the software that fuels the Internet, from the most popular web programmes to software fundamental to the Internet's existence. Beginning from an analysis of these two main types of hackers, categorised as crackers and Free Software/Open Source respectively, Tim Jordan gives the reader insight into the varied identities of hackers, including: • Hacktivism; hackers and populist politics • Cyberwar; hackers and the nation-state • Digital Proletariat; hacking for the man • Viruses; virtual life on the Internet • Digital Commons; hacking without software • Cypherpunks; encryption and digital security • Nerds and Geeks; hacking cultures or hacking without the hack • Cybercrime; blackest of black hat hacking Hackers end debates over the meaning of technological determinism while recognising that at any one moment we are all always determined by technology. Hackers work constantly within determinations of their actions created by technologies as they also alter software to enable entirely new possibilities for and limits to action in the virtual world. Through this fascinating introduction to the people who create and recreate the digital media of the Internet, students, scholars and general readers will gain new insight into the meaning of technology and society when digital media are hacked.

The Social Shaping of Technology

The Social Shaping of Technology PDF Author: Donald A. MacKenzie
Publisher: Milton Keynes ; Philadelphia : Open University Press
ISBN: 9780335150274
Category : Technology
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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The Gutenberg Galaxy

The Gutenberg Galaxy PDF Author: Marshall McLuhan
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487516878
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The Gutenberg Galaxy catapulted Marshall McLuhan to fame as a media theorist and, in time, a new media prognosticator. Fifty years after its initial publication, this landmark text is more significant than ever before. Readers will be amazed by McLuhan’s prescience, unmatched by anyone since, predicting as he did the dramatic technological innovations that have fundamentally changed how we communicate. The Gutenberg Galaxy foresaw the networked, compressed ‘global village’ that would emerge in the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries — despite having been written when black-and-white television was ubiquitous. This new edition of The Gutenberg Galaxy celebrates both the centennial of McLuhan’s birth and the fifty-year anniversary of the book’s publication. A new interior design updates The Gutenberg Galaxy for twenty-first-century readers, while honouring the innovative, avant-garde spirit of the original. This edition also includes new introductory essays that illuminate McLuhan’s lasting effect on a variety of scholarly fields and popular culture. A must-read for those who inhabit today’s global village, The Gutenberg Galaxy is an indispensable road map for our evolving communication landscape.