Theories of technological change

The "Great Man" theory.

The solitary scientist-genius.

Teleological - only inventors that move society towards current state of technological sophistication are considered significant.

Other inventions regarded as mistakes or anachronisms

Thus task of the technological historian limited to

1) Separating the important technological advancements from the unimportant 2) Identifying the persons) responsible for those advancements, 3) Relating a narrative of their success and 4) Awarding them their proper place in history.

Shortcomings highlighted by disputed inventions.

Ignores social, political, historical and economic context for invention.

Technological Determinism

Other historians focus on effect of technical breakthroughs on the future course of history

Assume that:

"new technologies are discovered by an essentially internal process of research and development which then sets the conditions for social change and progress. The effects of the technologies, whether direct or indirect, foreseen or unforeseen, are as it were, the rest of history"

Douglas Gomery

"The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the industrial capitalist."

Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy

'Technique has become autonomous; it has fashioned an omnivorous world which obeys its own laws and which has renounced all tradition'

Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society

In modernity the idea that the constant advance of technology constantly changes the way in which we live is taken for granted.

To live in the era of the microchip is to witness (if only as a bystander) new technology altering the texture of daily life

Microchip - part of a complex of radically new science-based societies

Collective memory of western culture filled with narratives of technologically-induced change: invention of the compass = Columbus = America

Focus of attention on the consequences rather than the genesis of inventions.

Technology conceived entirely in artificial terms as a "thing"

Reinforces sense of its decisive role in history.

Contrast with more abstract forces

Technology seen as virtually autonomous agent of change.

Popular discussion of technological determinism sees complex events "explained" as result of technological innovation.

Invention depicted as taking on a life of its own.

Computers - the essential technological infrastructure of the economy, a precondition for maintaining the entire social order (Y2K).

Technological determinism continuum: hard - soft.

Hard - agency imputed to technology itself

Soft - history of technology is a history of human actions

Nonetheless once developed a technology may direct the course of events.

'the absolutely erroneous assumption that technologies are "neutral", benign instruments that may be used well or badly depending upon who controls them...

Jerry Mander

"There can be no 'general-purpose tools'"

Joseph Weizenbaum

(computer scientist)

'To a man with a pencil, everything looks like a list. To a man with a camera, everything looks like an image. To a man with a computer, everything looks like data'

Jerry Mander

Technological determinism focuses on causality but is mono-causal

Represents a simple 'billiard ball model' of change.

Implications of technical determinist approach

Impact of tech. det. on our understanding of aesthetics in cinema.

Starting premise - each technological advancement contains within it a certain potential.

This potential is then realised by perceptive individuals.

Applying technical determinist approach to cinema: each technological advancement offer potential.

What filmmakers can achieve artistically is determined by the technological parameters available to them.

Some truth in the tech determinist approach: state of technology imposes some limits on film production

However - does technology predetermine filmmaking practice?

Anything inherent in film technology predisposing to narrative films?"