tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8819453.post118098007234895494..comments2023-10-24T04:18:08.409-05:00Comments on J880: Human geography and mass communication: Optional Reading Summary, DouglasGreg Downeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09154543464555817869noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8819453.post-26628906585877594762008-11-11T18:51:00.000-06:002008-11-11T18:51:00.000-06:00I found her article fairly convincing. She is rig...I found her article fairly convincing. She is right to not completely abandon any causal claims about the role of technology in shaping our society. This middle-level <EM>soft determinism</EM> allows for a more flexible notion of technology as differently interpreted and employed in varying contexts. Teasing out how and why technologies take on the forms they do remains the challenge.<BR/><BR/>I suspect McLuhan's global village might encompass a bit more than foreign news coverage and the proliferation of reality tv shows. Changes in the Internet and wireless communications continue to shift the flow of information and potential subject positions. We can't say a heightened human awareness on a global scale after WTO protests in Seattle, which did in fact happen, wasn't at least facilitated by these technologies. And she wrote this before US soldiers' use of cell phones and digital cameras shared with a global audience the backside of the CNN/Pentagon's studio-production war.<BR/><BR/>There are also some very strong normative claims underlying her analysis. While the environment, world hunger, politics, philosophy, and the meaning of life (p.633) may be important things to consider, from what vantage point do we judge these to be better topics than a show about wife swapping? It's a culturally elitist one. She seems intent on demoting the value of these popular media, even drawing loose psychological associations with narcissism. Like it or not, the crap reality tv shows are pumped around the world. Hence they are part of our global village.<BR/><BR/>The question she leaves us with involves whether technologies have "inherent properties" within them. In one instance this appears a slippery slope back toward determinism. How much of the design of a technology can account for its relative stability within the social context? I believe there are a range of possibilities within any innovation. Perhaps the optimism of McLuhan was speaking more to potentials?richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05411043241195707613noreply@blogger.com