Information Inequality by Herbert Schiller

Author:Herbert Schiller [Schiller, Herbert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

Autonomous and Neutral Technology?

Calling attention to these developments, it should be emphasized, is not intended to sound yet another antitechnology warning. Technophobia, as Neil Postman would put it, is not the issue.29 What the evidence here demonstrates is the strong, if not determining, influence of the original purpose that fostered the development of each new technology. The social use to which the technology is put, more times than not, follows its originating purpose. When military or commercial advantage are the motivating forces of research and development, it is to be expected that the laboratories will produce findings that are conducive to these objectives. If other motivations could be advanced, the common good, for instance, different technologies might be forthcoming. The customary argument that commerce and profit-seeking go hand-in-hand with social benefit, is still to be demonstrated after hundreds of years of contrary experience.

Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi explain television’s alleged inherent technological imperative this way:

This is a good place to debunk the much repeated idea that television is a medium best suited to transmitting emotions, and that it either “cannot” or is not “good” at transmitting ideas … The answer to why we see what we see on television lies in a combination of how audiences have come to conceive of the medium, what audiences want to watch (or have grown accustomed to watching), and what the people who control and sponsor television believe needs to be created and broadcast in order to maximize profit.30

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