How Technology (Alone) Doesn't Change Society

Question 1

What are some popular myths about the media?

Answer 1

Myths

 - tv rots people's brains
 - video games cause violence
 - internet makes people antisocial
 - reading is better than watching tv

Question 2

Digital Divide

Answer 2

An economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies.

Question 3

Ethan Zuckerman

Answer 3

Imagined Cosmopolitanism
• Affordance to and belief that we connect to people all over the world but we really just connect with those near and like us.

Question 4

“We need to examine how these inherent capacities (of media) are enhanced or thwarted by the institutional structures that regulate profit from, or are even surprised and destabilized by scopic technologies.”

Answer 4

Susan Douglas

Question 5

What are the results of an echo chamber?

Answer 5

Echo Chamber

 - narrow vision
 - confirmation bias (seeking out opinions that confirm your own)
 - become extremist towards beliefs

Question 6

Soft Determinism

Answer 6

Technology is just one factor in shaping society.

Question 7

How does society shape technology?

Answer 7

Industries (the electric car)
Textuality (imagined cosmopolitanism, ethnocentric)
Marketing
Context (Manga in US & Japan)
Audiences & Users (changing billboards)

Question 8

Susan Douglas

Answer 8

Douglas

 - Ethnocentrism and Narcissism instead of the global village
 - soft determinism