Technological Determinism

Ambivalence towards technology.

Teen Sex and Cell Phones

Teen Sex and the Edsel

Teen Sex and Paper

Teen Sex and the Chariot

Greek Mythology

Pandora

Prometheus

Minotaur

Icarus and Dedalus

Part Two: Bacon and the Age of Science

Bacon

Bacon's New Atlantis

Cogito Ergo Sum

Early technological innovation

The mechanized clock

Industrial Revolution

Arkwright mill

Luddites

Manchester mills

"The hand-mill gives you society witht the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist." -- Karl Marx

20c


Ellul

Jacques Ellul's four rules:

First, all technical progress has its price.
Second, at each stage it raises more and greater problems than it solves.
Third, its harmful effects are inseparable from its beneficial effects.
Fourth, it has a great number of unforeseen effects.

Brave New World

Blog assignnment: due October 3rd.

Is the machine in E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" a good metaphor for new media?
Explain why (or why not) in a five paragraph (750 word) blog essay.
How does his story relate to the issue ofpower discussed by Castell's in "Afterword: Why Networks Matter"?