Technological Determinism

Until the mid-1980s, technological determinism was the most popular and influential theory of the relationship between technology and society. Technological determinism views the development and diffusion of technology as developing independently of society, but producing societal effects. Scholars have since criticized this assumption, and a new, more nuanced theory of technology in society has been articulated, often referred to as the social shaping, or social constructivist, approach to technology.

Historically, the dominant approaches toward technology tended to focus on the ideology of technological determinism, where technology is perceived to be an autonomous, self-determining, and omniscient process. Such determinism treats technology as both panacea and scapegoat and, for instance, can detract from questions regarding power and political prestige. Many of these dominant discourses about technology (for example, popular media treatments) treat technology as something inevitable. This uncritical perspective is apolitical and often ahistorical; technological change is seen as something somehow divorced from societal concerns, or from the history and politics surrounding the development and deployment of a technology. It perceives technological development as a passive activity, and focuses on thinking about how people and societies should adapt to technology, rather than how people and societies can actively shape technology.

Historians of technology who adhered to this deterministic agenda tended to focus on either particular technological artifacts, or on the individuals who designed the technologies (for example, through biographies of brilliant inventors). No attention was paid to the influencing factors of socio-economics, ideology, or how particular members of society were affected by, or affecting, technological change. Critics of this philosophy worry that an objectification of technology can distract people from asking crucial questions regarding the varied social actors that contribute to the design, development, and diffusion of technology. Subscribing to technological determinism can lead to an unwitting assumption that technological change causes social change.

Technological determinism assumes that technical progress follows a unified and unilinear path, with technological “progress” as the ultimate result. It also assumes that societies, individuals, and organizations must adapt themselves to technology, and that other societal and organizational outcomes will necessarily follow. The difficulty with assigning “effects” to technology, as determinists would have us do, is that not all of the “effects” are the same for everyone and every situation. Different social actors exhibit varying levels of interpretation in how they design, conceive, or expropriate technologies.

Futuristic scenarios for communication technologies provide a good example of technologically determinist discourse. Many of the technologies were heralded as signaling a revolution in social applications, leading to widespread social change. For instance, early pronouncements on the telegraph assumed that global peace would transpire after its advent, as everyone would be “linked up.” Another example of technological determinist theorizing can be found in early “information superhighway” discourse in both media and governmental policy statements, which positioned the Internet as a necessary technology for economic competitiveness, social edification, and job creation. This was also extended to proclamations that the Internet could connect and revive dispersed communities in a sympathetic global village.

An example of technological determinist theorizing on reproduction can be found in the discourse that positions medical and technical progress in reproductive technology as portending more equity for women. For example, the birth-control pill has been extolled for promoting the 1960s sexual revolution, and for allowing more women to participate in the workforce. But these simplistic assertions detract from more complex explanations, emanating from a rapidly changing socio-cultural and political-economic milieu.

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