Please submit your Set of Instructions assignment to Canvas before 11:00 pm on Wednesday, 2/22.
Plan for Today
- Brief Rhetoric Introduction
- Rhetoric of Technology asks us to look beyond the functional use of a tool. This page will repeat some information from January 11th’s class.
- You should all have feedback on your résumés and cover letters: Here are some general revision suggestions for you to consider
Ubiquity of Rhetoric
You’d think that with such a rich history, rhetoric would be introduced to students long before college. Well, it is, but not necessarily as a pillar of Western Civilization. The term comes up when politicians or their critics denounce an opponent’s speech as empty; therefore, “rhetoric” is often associated popularly with “empty speech,” non-contributing verbiage, or fluff.
But the study of rhetoric is much more complicated. Just as each discipline has its own epistemology–the study of knowledge, its foundations and validity– each discipline’s communication has a rhetoric. And rhetoric isn’t limited simply to disciplines: Movements, Social Norms, Technology, Science, Religion, etc. have a rhetoric. I often define such analyses into “rhetorics of…” as common factors surrounding the power or belief in a particular area. In other words, beliefs, attitudes, values, and practices are rhetorics of prevailing social ideology: One’s acceptance of cultural “truth” is based largely on one’s immersion into the culture’s myths and beliefs. Therefore, this definition of rhetoric requires us to recognize the relationship among sender-receiver-mediator. Of course, for our discussion, the “mediator” is culture. There is no concrete, definitive transmission of rhetorically pure communication. Sender and receiver filter the message(s) based on their experiences. Lucky for us, we can locate prevailing patterns in messages because culture mediates them. When doing a rhetorical analysis, you have to ask what are common ways particular ideas are conveyed in a culture.
A brief Introduction of Rhetoric
Questions about Technology
This page is an introduction to thinking broadly about technology and beyond technologies’ uses. We’re moving towards an understanding of technology as a product of the culture from which it comes and in which it’s used. Again, this is an introduction, so, if it’s confusing at first, don’t let that confound you. We’ll revisit this throughout the semester.
Consider the following when you’re reading:
- How would I define my/our culture?
- What constitutes cultural norms, values, ideologies?
- Is there any validity to the term “conventional wisdom”?
- What do the products I use say about the person I am in regard to my social place?
- What makes the Internet uniquely…
American…
Western…
Global…
Capitalist…
Individualistic? - What do nuclear weapons say about society?
We must understand the impact science and technology have on our world. But to do that, we have to understand the social and cultural values that created sciences and technologies.
Below are a few terms that will help us think about technologies critically–think about their meaning beyond just use.
- Ideology: prevailing cultural/institutional attitudes, beliefs, norms, attributes, practices, and myths that are said to drive a society.
- Hegemony: the ways or results of a dominant group’s (the hegemon) influence over other groups in a society or region. The dominant group dictates, consciously or unconsciously, how society must be structured and how other groups must “buy into” the structure. For example, the former Soviet Union was the hegemonic power influencing the communist countries of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
{Of course, hegemony isn’t just between nations. What hegemonic values are prevailing in American culture?} - Systemic: (adjective) pertaining to an entire system, institution, or object; something ‘systemic’ cannot be removed from the system.
Technological Determinism vs. Social Construction of Technology
Make sure you understand the difference between the two concepts below. This class privileges a social construction of technology point of view.
- Technological determinism: the idea that a technology is created in a vacuum devoid of social need; often, a lone inventor or team “discovers” a tool that changes social values.
- Social construction of technology: the idea that society and (usually hegemonic) cultural values drive technological creation; inventors pursue new tools based on their understanding or inspiration from prevailing social ideology.
Although this class privileges social constructions of technology, there is a dialectical relationship to consider. The mobile phone–smart or otherwise–is the latest incarnation of a tool for humans to communicate quickly over vast distances. Humans have pursued communication technologies for millennia. However, these tools do change practices and behaviors, but it’s more complicated than claiming they change values. Our adoption of these tools has changed our expectations: we assume we can get a hold of anyone instantly, we consider the phone a security apparatus, we don’t ask “what are you doing” but “where are you” when the receiver answers, etc. Don’t get me started on people wandering the grocery store (or any store) while glued to their phone…
Lynn White, a proponent of the technological determinism perspective, used this horseshoe nail proverb to introduce a chapter in White, L., Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. The problem, I would argue, is that this assumes that the tools are the reason(s) for victory or defeat; however, there’s more to war and diplomacy than simply technologies. There are social factors that seem to demand things come to be. As mentioned already, you can tell a lot about a culture by “reading” the technologies its people uses.
Envisioning 21st Century Work
Eventually, I’ll ask you to post a reflection on this topic, but, for now, just think about future work and technological change. Have you ever thought about telecommuting and virtual teams? What about Instant Messaging as a collaboration tool?
Have any of you thought about the ways in which you’ll communicate in the future? How do you think collaboration will happen (and will it)? What’s the importance of collaboration and good communication in science, technology, and industry.
Next Class
Make sure you do the “Technology in a Social Context Reading” on Canvas before next class. This is a light reading week because you have your Set of Instructions assignment due Wednesday, 2/22.