Technological determinism

The origins of technological determinism as a formal concept are often traced to Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an influential American sociologist and economist. Veblen, known for his work on social and economic issues, introduced ideas that portrayed technology as a powerful, autonomous force capable of shaping societal norms and structures. He argued that the development and use of machinery exerted an independent influence on human thought and behavior, notably asserting that "the machine throws out anthropomorphic habits of thought.”^[2][3] This notion laid the foundation for technological determinism by suggesting that technology inherently transforms society by reshaping patterns of thought and behavior.

During Veblen's time, rapid industrialization and advancements in technology were radically altering American society. Innovations in manufacturing and transportation, such as the assembly line and railroads, demonstrated technology’s potential to reshape economic and social structures. These changes helped popularize the idea that technology could independently drive societal evolution, creating the conditions for Veblen's ideas to resonate widely.^[4]

Although Veblen is credited with coining the core ideas behind technological determinism, the influence of Karl Marx on these ideas is also significant. Marx argued that technology drives historical change by shaping the "material base" of society. For instance, he suggested that the railway in colonial India would challenge and erode the caste system by introducing new economic activities and altering social hierarchies.^{[5] [6]} Later, Clarence Ayres, a 20th-century economist inspired by Veblen, expanded on these ideas by introducing the concept of "technological drag." According to Ayres, technology progresses as a dynamic, self-generating force, while traditional institutions often lag, resisting the transformative potential of technological change. Ayres’ theory further solidified technological determinism, emphasizing the inevitable clash between technological progress and social conservatism.^[7][8]

Technological determinism seeks to show technical developments, media, or technology as a whole, as the key mover in history and social change.^[9] It is a theory subscribed to by "hyperglobalists" who claim that as a consequence of the wide availability of technology, accelerated globalization is inevitable. Therefore, technological development and innovation become the principal motor of social, economic or political change.^[10]

Strict adherents to technological determinism do not believe the influence of technology differs based on how much a technology is or can be used. Instead of considering technology as part of a larger spectrum of human activity, technological determinism sees technology as the basis for all human activity.

Technological determinism has been summarized as 'The belief in technology as a key governing force in society ...' (Merritt Roe Smith). 'The idea that technological development determines social change ...' (Bruce Bimber). It changes the way people think and how they interact with others and can be described as '...a three-word logical proposition: "Technology determines history"' (Rosalind H. Williams) . It is, '... the belief that social progress is driven by technological innovation, which in turn follows an "inevitable" course.'^[11] This 'idea of progress' or 'doctrine of progress' is centralized around the idea that social problems can be solved by technological advancement, and this is the way that society moves forward. Technological determinists believe that "'You can't stop progress', implying that we are unable to control technology" (Lelia Green). This suggests that we are somewhat powerless, and society allows technology to drive social changes because "societies fail to be aware of the alternatives to the values embedded in it [technology]" (Merritt Roe Smith).

Technological determinism has been defined as an approach that identifies technology, or technological advances, as the central causal element in processes of social change.^[12] As technology is stabilized, its design tends to dictate users' behaviors, consequently stating that "technological progress equals social progress."^[13] Key notions of this theory are separated into two parts, with the first being that the development of the technology itself may also be separate from social and political factors, arising from "the ways of inventors, engineers, and designers following an internal, technical logic that has nothing to do with social relationships".^[13] The second is that as technology is stabilized, its design tends to dictate users' behaviors, consequently resulting in social change.

As technology changes, the ways in which it is utilized and incorporated into the daily lives of individuals within a culture consequently affect the ways of living, highlighting how technology ultimately determines societal growth through its influence on relations and ways of living within a culture. To illustrate, "the invention of the wheel revolutionized human mobility, allowing humans to travel greater distances and carry greater loads with them".^[14] This technological advancement also leads to interactions between different cultural groups, advanced trade, and thus impacts the size and relations both within and between different networks. Other examples include the invention of language, expanding modes of communication between individuals, the introduction of bookkeeping and written documentation, impacting the circulation of knowledge, and having streamlined effects on the socioeconomic and political systems as a whole. As Dusek (2006) notes, "culture and society cannot affect the direction of technology…[and] as technology develops and changes, the institutions in the rest of society change, as does the art and religion of a society."^[15] Thus, technological determinism dictates that technological advances and social relations are inevitably tied, with the change of either affecting the other by consequence of normalization.^[16]

According to scholar such as Hannah Arendt in 1958 speaks about how instrument and tools can classify the whole civilizations, using them to make a criterion on certain things, for example a country can be characterize by instrument or technologies they use to see their symbolic culture and others. Like Netherlands country can be characterize with Windmill.^[17]

This stance however ignores the social and cultural circumstances in which the technology was developed. Sociologist Claude Fischer (1992) characterized the most prominent forms of technological determinism as "billiard ball" approaches, in which technology is seen as an external force introduced into a social situation, producing a series of ricochet effects.^[18]

Rather than acknowledging that a society or culture interacts with and even shapes the technologies that are used, a technological determinist view holds that "the uses made of technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself, that is, that its functions follow from its form" (Neil Postman). However, this is not the sole view of TD following Smith and Marx's (1998)^[19] notion of "hard" determinism, which states that once a technology is introduced into a culture what follows is the inevitable development of that technology. In this view, the role of "agency (the power to affect change) is imputed on the technology itself, or some of its intrinsic attributes; thus the invention of technology leads to a situation of inescapable necessity."

The other view follows what Smith and Marx (1998)^[19] dictate as "soft" determinism, where the development of technology is also dependent on social context, affecting how it is adopted into a culture, "and, if the technology is adopted, the social context will have important effects on how the technology is used and thus on its ultimate impact".^[16]

For example, we could examine the spread of mass-produced knowledge through the role of the printing press in the Protestant Reformation. Because of the urgency from the protestant side to get the reform off the ground before the church could react, "early Lutheran leaders, led by Luther himself, wrote thousands of anti-papal pamphlets in the Reformation's first decades and these works spread rapidly through reprinting in various print shops throughout central Europe".^[20] As such the urgency of the socio-political context to utilize such technology in the beginning of its invention caused its fast adoption and normalization into European culture. We could view its uses in its popularization – for political propaganda purposes – in line with the continued traditions of newspapers in modern times, as well as newly adopted uses for other printed text, adapting to change in a social context such as an emphasis on leisurely activities such as reading. This follows the soft deterministic view because the technological invention – the printing press – was quickly adopted because of the socio-political context, and because of its fast integration into society, has impacted and continues to impact how society operates.

In examining determinism, “hard determinism” can be contrasted with “soft determinism”. A compatibilist says that it is possible for free will and determinism to exist in the world together, while an incompatibilist would say that they cannot and there must be one or the other. Those who support determinism can be further divided.

“Hard determinists” would view technology as developing independent from social concerns. They would say that technology creates a set of powerful forces acting to regulate our social activity and its meaning. According to this view of determinism we organize ourselves to meet the needs of technology, and the outcome of this organization is beyond our control or we do not have the freedom to make a choice regarding the outcome (autonomous technology). The 20th century French philosopher and social theorist Jacques Ellul could be said to be a hard determinist and proponent of autonomous technique (technology). In his 1954 work The Technological Society, Ellul essentially posits that technology, by virtue of its power through efficiency, determines which social aspects are best suited for its own development through a process of natural selection. A social system's values, morals, philosophy etc. that are most conducive to the advancement of technology allow that social system to enhance its power and spread at the expense of those social systems whose values, morals, philosophy etc. are less promoting of technology. While geography, climate, and other "natural" factors largely determined the parameters of social conditions for most of human history, technology has recently become the dominant objective factor (largely due to forces unleashed by the industrial revolution) and it has been the principal objective and determining factor.

“Soft determinism”, as the name suggests, is a more passive view of the way technology interacts with socio-political situations. Soft determinists still subscribe to the fact that technology is the guiding force in our evolution but would maintain that we have a chance to make decisions regarding the outcomes of a situation. This is not to say that free will exists, but that the possibility for us to roll the dice and see what the outcome exists. A slightly different variant of soft determinism is the 1922 technology-driven theory of social change proposed by William Fielding Ogburn, in which society must adjust to the consequences of major inventions, but often does so only after a period of cultural lag. ^[21]

Skepticism about technological determinism emerged alongside increased pessimism about techno-science in the mid-20th century, in particular around the use of nuclear energy in the production of nuclear weapons, Nazi human experimentation during World War II, and the problems of economic development in the Third World. As a direct consequence, desire for greater control of the course of development of technology gave rise to disenchantment with the model of technological determinism in academia.

Modern theorists of technology and society no longer consider technological determinism to be a very accurate view of the way in which we interact with technology, even though determinist assumptions and language fairly saturate the writings of many boosters of technology, the business pages of many popular magazines, and much reporting on technology ^{[citation needed]}. Instead, research in science and technology studies, social construction of technology and related fields have emphasized more nuanced views that resist easy causal formulations. They emphasize that "The relationship between technology and society cannot be reduced to a simplistic cause-and-effect formula. It is, rather, an 'intertwining'", whereby technology does not determine but "operates, and are operated upon in a complex social field" (Murphie and Potts).

T. Snyder approached the aspect of technological determinism in his concept: 'politics of inevitability'.^[22] A concept utilized by politicians in which society is promised the idea that the future will be only more of the present, this concept removes responsibility. This could be applied to free markets, the development of nation states and technological progress.

In his article "Subversive Rationalization: Technology, Power and Democracy with Technology," Andrew Feenberg argues that technological determinism is not a very well founded concept by illustrating that two of the founding theses of determinism are easily questionable and in doing so calls for what he calls democratic rationalization (Feenberg 210–212).

Prominent opposition to technologically determinist thinking has emerged within work on the social construction of technology (SCOT). SCOT research, such as that of Mackenzie and Wajcman (1997) argues that the path of innovation and its social consequences are strongly, if not entirely shaped by society itself through the influence of culture, politics, economic arrangements, regulatory mechanisms and the like. In its strongest form, verging on social determinism, "What matters is not the technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded" (Langdon Winner).

In his influential but contested (see Woolgar and Cooper, 1999) article "Do Artifacts Have Politics?", Langdon Winner illustrates not a form of determinism but the various sources of the politics of technologies. Those politics can stem from the intentions of the designer and the culture of the society in which a technology emerges or can stem from the technology itself, a "practical necessity" for it to function. For instance, New York City urban planner Robert Moses is purported to have built Long Island's parkway tunnels too low for buses to pass in order to keep minorities away from the island's beaches, an example of externally inscribed politics. On the other hand, an authoritarian command-and-control structure is a practical necessity of a nuclear power plant if radioactive waste is not to fall into the wrong hands. As such, Winner neither succumbs to technological determinism nor social determinism. The source of a technology's politics is determined only by carefully examining its features and history.

Although "The deterministic model of technology is widely propagated in society" (Sarah Miller), it has also been widely questioned by scholars. Lelia Green explains that, "When technology was perceived as being outside society, it made sense to talk about technology as neutral". Yet, this idea fails to take into account that culture is not fixed and society is dynamic. When "Technology is implicated in social processes, there is nothing neutral about society" (Lelia Green). This confirms one of the major problems with "technological determinism and the resulting denial of human responsibility for change. There is a loss of human involvement that shape technology and society" (Sarah Miller).

Another conflicting idea is that of technological somnambulism, a term coined by Winner in his essay "Technology as Forms of Life". Winner wonders whether or not we are simply sleepwalking through our existence with little concern or knowledge as to how we truly interact with technology. In this view, it is still possible for us to wake up and once again take control of the direction in which we are traveling (Winner 104). However, it requires society to adopt Ralph Schroeder's claim that, "users don't just passively consume technology, but actively transform it".^[23]

In opposition to technological determinism are those who subscribe to the belief of social determinism and postmodernism. Social determinists believe that social circumstances alone select which technologies are adopted, with the result that no technology can be considered "inevitable" solely on its own merits. Technology and culture are not neutral and when knowledge comes into the equation, technology becomes implicated in social processes. The knowledge of how to create, enhance, and use technology is socially bound knowledge. Postmodernists take another view, suggesting that what is right or wrong is dependent on circumstance. They believe technological change can have implications on the past, present and future.^[24] While they believe technological change is influenced by changes in government policy, society and culture, they consider the notion of change to be a paradox, since change is constant.

Media and cultural studies theorist Brian Winston, in response to technological determinism, developed a model for the emergence of new technologies which is centered on the Law of the suppression of radical potential. In two of his books – Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television (1997) and Media Technology and Society (1998) – Winston applied this model to show how technologies evolve over time, and how their 'invention' is mediated and controlled by society and societal factors which suppress the radical potential of a given technology.

Some interpret Karl Marx as advocating technological determinism, with such statements as "The Handmill gives you society with the feudal lord: the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist" (The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847), but others argue that Marx was not a determinist.^[25]

Technological determinist Walter J. Ong reviews the societal transition from an oral culture to a written culture in his work Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982). He asserts that this particular development is attributable to the use of new technologies of literacy (particularly print and writing,) to communicate thoughts which could previously only be verbalized. He furthers this argument by claiming that writing is purely context dependent as it is a "secondary modelling system" (8). Reliant upon the earlier primary system of spoken language, writing manipulates the potential of language as it depends purely upon the visual sense to communicate the intended information. Furthermore, the rather stagnant technology of literacy distinctly limits the usage and influence of knowledge, it unquestionably effects the evolution of society. In fact, Ong asserts that "more than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness" (Ong 1982: 78).

Media determinism is a form of technological determinism, a philosophical and sociological position which posits the power of the media to impact society.^[26] Two foundational media determinists are the Canadian scholars Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. One of the best examples of technological determinism in media theory is Marshall McLuhan's theory "the medium is the message" and the ideas of his mentor Harold Adams Innis. Both these Canadian theorists saw media as the essence of civilization. The association of different media with particular mental consequences by McLuhan and others can be seen as related to technological determinism. It is this variety of determinism that is referred to as media determinism. According to McLuhan, there is an association between communications media/technology and language; similarly, Benjamin Lee Whorf argues that language shapes our perception of thinking (linguistic determinism). For McLuhan, media is a more powerful and explicit determinant than is the more general concept of language. McLuhan was not necessarily a hard determinist. As a more moderate version of media determinism, he proposed that our use of particular media may have subtle influences on us, but more importantly, it is the social context of use that is crucial.^[27] See also Media ecology. Media determinism is a form of the popular dominant theory of the relationship between technology and society. In a determinist view, technology takes on an active life of its own and is seen be as a driver of social phenomena. Innis believed that the social, cultural, political, and economic developments of each historical period can be related directly to the technology of the means of mass communication of that period. In this sense, like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, technology itself appears to be alive, or at least capable of shaping human behavior.^[28] However, it has been increasingly subject to critical review by scholars. For example, scholar Raymond Williams, criticizes media determinism and rather believes social movements define technological and media processes.^[29] With regard to communications media, audience determinism is a viewpoint opposed to media determinism. This is described as instead of media being presented as doing things to people; the stress is on the way people do things with media. Individuals need to be aware that the term "deterministic" is a negative one for many social scientists and modern sociologists; in particular they often use the word as a term of abuse.^[30]

• Instrumental conception of technology – Philosophical conceptPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Determinism – Philosophical view that events are determined by prior events
• Historical materialism – Marxist historiography
• History of science and technology
• Orthodox Marxism – Body of Marxist thought, prominent until World War I
• Philosophy of technology – Studies of the nature of technology
• Theory of the productive forces – Technological determinism in Marxism

• [as cited in Croteau, D. and Hoynes, M. (2003) Media Society: Industries, Images and Audiences (third edition), Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks pp. 305–306]

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• Colin Rule, "Is Technology Neutral?"
• Megan McCormick, "Technology as Neutral"
• Daniel Chandler, "Technological or Media Determinism"
• Chris Kimble, "Technological Determinism and Social Choice"
• Vysotskyi, O., Deviatko, N., & Vysotska, O., "Theory of technologies of geographical determinism in international relations"