Media Determinism and the Social Design of Web Based Computing

Abstract

New information technologies, and the ongoing digitalization of different media forms have intensified questions about the effect of media upon social life. From as early as the Ancient transposition of speech into writing, critics have maintained that media has a determining effect upon culture. This project does not seek to endorse or reject or reshape this thesis in relation to any particular medium or historical epoch. Instead, I hope to reframe the debate by doing a survey of the different arguments about the ways media shapes culture, organize an archive of those positions, and then do a conceptual topology of those arguments. By using a team of graduate students to gather together the many ways media determinism has been thought-about different media, in different media, and within very different epochs- the project will seek a fresh cross disciplinary perspective upon an age-old issue. It is hoped that this study will enable me to understand the role of the media determinism thesis within a culture's complex "negotiation" with the new media technologies. More specifically and urgently, it will develop terms with which to challenge those who use arguments about media determinism (whether it is supposed to be for good or ill) to win the authority, outside any political negotiation, to shape the global information network and computing interfaces.