Media Technologies and convergence Raymond Williams - Essay Example

? Media Technologies and convergence Raymond Williams Introduction Examining Marshall McLuhan’s work inevitably entails consideration of the issues surrounding his work and the claims by Raymond Williams that the work epitomises and promotes the concept of technological determinism. The concept of technological determinist, which was elucidated by McLuhan, holds that a direct relationship exists between technological advancement and social change (McLuhan 1964: 187). The theory asserts that novel technologies are the ultimate source of the tremendous changes that are evident in the social and historical aspects of human race. McLuhan believed that technology is the key aspect that shapes society. This school of thought has been put to question by Raymond Williams, who provided the first evidence that Marshall McLuhan is a technological determinist. McLuhan comes out as a bold proponent of the idea of social constructivism (a theory that defines media solely in terms of the ideological and semiotic content of the broadcast). He stresses the validity of the concept that the medium is basically defined by the message broadcasted. In a nutshell, Marshall McLuhan believes that the fundamental essence or consequence of any form of technology or medium is the significant alteration of the pattern or scale that it ultimately incorporates into the daily operations of humankind. This essay examines Raymond Williams’ critique of McLuhan’s work by means of a focused analysis of the key aspects. The television Raymond Williams is strongly opposed to Marshall McLuhan’s analysis that the world has been altered by television, which is intended to mean that watching television reduces one’s intelligence quotient (IQ). Although McLuhan’s line of thought is somehow consistent with experience in the media, Williams argues that it would be overly deterministic to believe in the precepts of this model. On this point, Williams’ line of thought makes quite a lot of sense because some television programs are greatly educative and laden with facts. The implication is that the society can learn a great deal from these facts and effectively develop their IQs. Technological determinism assumes that technological advancement is an accidental, self-driven process. It pre-supposes that the advancements are never pre-determined by external forces. However, most of the technological developments arise as a result of the needs (either real or perceived) of the society. This way, technology is the ultimate result of many years of carefully designed research. Put differently, the kind of technology that develops in a particular place is normally related to the challenges associated with the place. Technology is, therefore, aimed at providing definitive solutions to the needs and challenges of the society. Williams reinforces this point further by making reference to some television-related inventions such as the electric eye, the copying telegraph, the cathode-ray tube, and the scanning system. The details of these inventions show clearly that discovery of the modern television had been long foreseen, and it was in the process of being perfected. One of the challenges that had motivated the conception and subsequent realisation of these inventions is pressure that came with the expanding business and military operations; a situation that demanded a faster and robust broadcasting platform. Raymond Williams emphasises the value of technology in influencing the cultural perception of television. In doing this, he resists the assertions of McLuhan that the message lies in the medium. Williams reasons that if the medium is the message, then the human component would have been left out of the broadcasting system. Williams further argues that contrary to McLuhan’s beliefs, viewers have the will and ability to alter and or pre-determine the otherwise latent logic of technology and history. This is attributable to two factors: first is that television is part of human life, and second is that the new technological ideas continue to generate novel opportunities. These fresh opportunities arise either in multinational corporations or within the confines of a particular media company. One of the most popular concepts in William’s book is the theory of the flow. This theory proposes that television programs that treat viewers to brief commercial breaks within a show tend to create a good flow of events during viewing. Williams believes that each element of the broadcast serves to reinforce another. The idea of the “flow” appears to be far from the truth, at least in the contemporary society, where people view television strictly by appointment. Although the broadcaster designs the pieces in such a way as to flow, it rarely happens in practice because adverts are placed in a away that their timing disconnects the viewer’s mind from the flow of a program. For example, an individual watching a program may embark on other chores during the commercials, only to come back when the running program resumes, and may be after some part of episode have passed. The weakness of the theory of the flow is vested in the fact that it assumes passiveness of the viewer; that the viewer will sit patiently and passively in front of a television set, following one element after the other. This theory may have been true before the second half of the 20th century when televisions were owned by aristocrats who never had a lot to do. Williams would not have been able to predict the high level of control viewers could have on television in the 21st century, when television is no longer a luxury but a source of information for busy population consisting of the working class. Moreover, the invention of other devices and utilities (such as DVDs, torrents, streaming internet and DVRs) has further dimmed the brilliance of the theory of the flow. The traditional validity of this idea waned off over time because of the drastic transformation of the role of the audience. Industrial revolution and the creative class McLuhan’s theory that technology affects human sociology can also be viewed through the lens of industrial revolution. The setting up of factories leads to increased settlement around commercial centers, leading to emergence of the professional creative class. The creative class includes industrial workers, executive professionals, the gay, lesbians and many other social and economic groups. The creative class theory recognises the role played by technology in human empowerment. However, a consideration of the natural catastrophes that hit some states of the United States point out to the fact that technology can instill a false sense of comfort. The implication is that there would be lack of preparedness for calamities. For example, between the years 1994 and 2003, about 3 billion Americans were displaced by severe earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and other natural calamities. The figure had gone up by 60% over the previous two decades. In the year 2011, millions of American people were killed and others displaced by a tsunami. Following these natural disasters, property worth more than $40 billion was destroyed; which laid a heavy burden on international insurers and investors. Although technological advancement can elicit tendencies of laxity with regard to disaster preparedness, one cannot afford to blatantly dismiss the vital role played by technology in economic growth. As such McLuhan’s thoughts on technology should be approached-and perhaps executed-with extreme caution. Humans see their advancement and progress in the quick transition from an industrial system to an information-based one. However, the reality is that the agricultural technology of the late Stone Age era is the only one humanity cannot do without. The agricultural products of about a ten ancient people can adequately cater for the needs of about 6 billion people around the globe today. Most contemporary theories on planning and development seem to clash with Williams’ reasoning especially when one considers the latter’s low opinion about the information technology and development of genetic engineering. Williams observes that in spite of these revolutions, not one new crop species has been added to repertoire of staples that have existed since the Stone Age times. However, the theory of the creative class argues that expansion and mechanization of agriculture can lead to emergence of metropolitan urban centers. As these centers grow, they become inhabited by more and more diverse groups of individuals. On the other hand, advances in genetic engineering have led to creation of many new jobs and subsequently better living standards. Williams’ argument that the industrial technology inventions has led to population growth (and therefore more social challenges) is in direct contravention of the ‘creative class’ theory. In point of fact, McLuhan’s theory draws its strength from the fact that dense, culturally dynamic populations are a recipe for economic take-off. Rather than an impediment, McLuhan views population growth as a key requirement for development. This is quite an interesting contradiction of ideas given that both opinions can be true. If a significant proportion of the population comprises of productive individuals, then McLuhan’s thoughts will hold. However, if the population is predominantly made up of economically incapacitated individuals, expansion of such a population would lead to serious challenges, hence qualifying Williams’ thoughts. The plight that comes with population increase can be grouped into two categories namely; social and economic categories. The social challenges are rooted in the fact that as the population grows, the society becomes hierarchical, with wealth concentrated at the top. This situation greatly contributes to the pre-existing predicament. In economic terms, the population can grow until it reaches the bounds of food supply. Determinism and the internet Rapid development of the internet and its impact on the human race is in itself a paragon of technological determinism. It is generally viewed that internet has become intimately intertwined with almost all aspects of human life. This include the development of social networks, blogs and wikis, which has impacted greatly on the social orientation of individuals and corporate. Such platforms also ensure a fast and efficient delivery of services (or products) particularly for mega-business operations. They may include e-procurement, e-marketing and use of purchase cards. According to the analysis of Williams, most of these so-called positive effects that have been associated with internet had been challenges for which solutions were being sought. For instance, it has been a perennial need for development of efficient communication platforms where people can exchange information from all over the world. Such information exchanges can either be official or social, and this goal has been achieved through the internet use. Apart from the need for merely sharing information, internet was also designed to solve the challenge of information acquisition (mainly through wikis and various blogs). It is, therefore, clear from Williams’ arguments that internet was discovered as a result of the increased challenges and pressures on the business and academic scenes. Raymond Williams also examines (implicitly so) the moral vices that are often associated with the internet. He argues that the negative inclinations such as cyber crime, child pornography and time wasting are tendencies that would nonetheless exist even without the discovery of internet; that internet only makes the execution of vices more effective and known to many people because internet is a mass media. Control of technology by society McLuhan’s theory of technological determinism holds that change in society comes out of a deliberate and conscious move by a group of individuals. As such, McLuhan believed that advancement of humanity is too important to be accidental because people can influence societal trends instead of the other way round. In some ways, this line of thinking agrees with Williams’ precepts; particularly when the latter criticises the technologically savvy individuals of the society. Williams finds fault in technological systems that concentrate wealth at the top of the hierarchy. Williams implicitly (and possibly unknowingly) consents to the existence and to the passive but enormous responsibility of the elite, by criticizing this upper class. In this line, Raymond Williams’ critique argues that: “If the effect of the medium is the same, whoever controls or uses it, then we can forget ordinary political and cultural argument and let the technology run itself.” (Williams 1974:131). According to Williams, there is danger in adopting McLuhan’s deterministic theory in whole. This is particularly centered on the fact that reducing the use of any media technology to a secondary effect (which is indeed ultimately inferior to the primary intent of the medium) means that it would be pointless to either critique the structures of power, which dictates the patterns media production and ownership or make efforts to put up alternative media systems. Again on this aspect, Williams’ thinking is quite impressive. As an example, it would be so presumptuous to imagine that primary effect of the films by Ken Loach, Leni Riefenstahl, and Steven Spielberg is the same. Media technology studies in the United Kingdom have also come to the bold conclusion that technological determinism must be rejected absolutely. Williams also observes that there is a cohort of social factors that would affect media content. The most important of such factors is ideology critique. For example, the audience of a particular network may recommend some adjustments with regard to the programming or content of the broadcast. As such, it would be the society that is influencing and controlling technology, a concept that is contradictory to McLuhan’s determinist theory, which posits that technology controls the social forces. Evidence from neuroplasticity Raymond Williams’ argues that we must resist any form of technological determinism because it is clearly erratic (Angus 2000: 162). In his own definition of determinism, Williams admits that technology does not dictate any limits nor does it exert any pressures to the society. The discipline of cognitive neuroscience offers strong evidence in support of this argument especially when one considers the recent findings in the arena of neuroplasticity (a term that explains the dynamic and versatile nature of the human nervous system). Through this study, it is now known that the brain will contain a fixed number of neurons (cells of the nervous system) throughout a lifetime. On the contrary, the number of synapses would vary greatly as an individual develops; with infants having the greatest number. By means of a mechanism known as synaptogenesis, “idle” synapses in newborns gradually wither away while those that are active remain intact. This leaves the child with only those nervous pathways that have been developed and utilised in the formative years. This selective process bears an immense evolutionary advantage as it allows for considerable flexibility, endowing human beings with the ability to venture and adapt easily to new and dynamic environments. As a result of the condition of plasticity that continues until adolescence (and sometimes till adulthood), the synapses evolve in tandem with the changing environment. Among the most dominant environmental factors that evolve together with the nervous synaptic connections is media technology. The study showed that children who are being brought up in the media-rich societies have brains that are developed differently from those of their counterparts growing up in environments that are media-deficient (Hayles 2007:190). The theory of technological determinism may draw its strength from the fact that when children engage in video games, their neurons become more active both during and after play. This is because playing the video games entails altering of the synaptic networks of human brain that is still under development. Although the pace and magnitude of these changes varies widely on the basis of genetics, age, sex and other environmental factors, the consensus is that human beings co-evolve with their technological environment due to the inherent plasticity of their nervous system. This evidence from the distant world of neuroscience, therefore, confirms that when individuals interact with any form of technology. This is because their brains are configured in a certain manner although the precise mechanisms of this reconfiguration are not exactly congruent to those implied by McLuhan in his concept of reductive determinism. The fact that cutting-edge science concludes that human experience with technology alters their brains is basis enough to question Williams’ line of thought that technology does not set the pace for human life. It is, however, necessary to examine two important questions: whether media technology acts as a causal determinant and if it does, it is because of value to critically evaluate and analyse the kinds of ways through which technology would act as a determining parameter in socio-technical systems. A keen look at this debate with a contemporary eye leads one into agreeing that as much as the message is not the medium, the medium and technological ingredients can be generally categorised under one umbrella of causal determinants. One’s engagement with a particular type of technology, therefore, can be thought to constitute a repetitive process. In this process, the evolution of an individual’s cognitive abilities and subjectivities are configured by media technologies. It would be interesting to note that the same cognitive power in turn shapes and controls technological evolution. Technology and society In the current society, novel technologies, geography resources, and history result into strong economies. In a properly functioning economy, monetary excesses are automatically channeled into development of more sophisticated technologies. In addition, due to the intimate relationship between technology and human society, governments are allocating more and more funds towards new technological endeavours. However, although technology originally involved the efforts of a few individuals, today it takes the concerted effort of millions of experts and other labourers. Many contemporary technological processes lead to byproducts that were never anticipated in the first place. These byproducts are known as industrial waste and pollution. Although some of the industrial waste is recycled and re-used, most of the wastes end up being released into the environment. The negative effects of such effluents cannot be over-emphasised. Some governments, however, have put environment-related policies in place. Such policies are intended to strike a balance between the value placed on technological advancement and the disvalue of environmental pollution. Some technological systems are tailored to suit the environmental needs, but most are designed with economic development as a priority. Traditionally, the need for a clean environment and more efficient industrial processes has been the result of an expansion of the wealth base of a society. This is attributed to the fact that once the society is able to provide for its basic needs, it is able to concentrate on the less tangible aspects such as the need for a clean environment. Conclusion In his later works, Williams softens his stance with regard to the whole issue of technological determinism. He implicitly acknowledges McLuhan’s ideas by proposing that technological determinism exists in two distinct dimensions; hence the dual nature of determinism (Williams 1980: 603). After six years of constant critique of McLuhan’s deterministic theory, Williams explained the two forms of technological determinism; hard and soft determinism. He also went further to demonstrate the deep-seated differences between these two types of determinism. Determinism should never be thought of as an entirely controlling, entirely predicting set of causes but as tangible cultural process. The reality of determination is the demarcating of boundaries and the exerting of pressures, within which different social practices are greatly impacted, but never always controlled. Therefore, Determination should not be seen as a singular force, but as a process through which real determining aspects, such as capital and power distribution, set limits and exert both external and internal pressures. It is important to note that these real determining factors do not entirely control nor predict the result of complex processes and operations within. Throughout Williams’s critique of, Raymond was able to factor out some technological issues that were controversial in McLuhan’s work. The underlying point is that technology is indispensable and it should not be looked at as a threat, but a blessing to mankind. Therefore, against the chagrin of McLuhan, media technology of whatever kind should be encouraged because its advantages are more than disadvantages. References Angus, IH 2000, Primal Scenes of Communication: Communication, Consumerism, and Social Movements, State University of New York Press: New York, p. 162. Hayles, NK 2007, Deep and Hyper Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes, vol. 23, no. 1 pp. 187-291. McLuhan, M 1964, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McGraw Hill: Toronto, p. 187. Williams, R 1974, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, Fontana: London, p. 131. Williams, R 1980, Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory.? In Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays, Verso and NLB: London, p. 603. Read More