The New Ecology 19
such as Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin justify an inevitability
of future outcomes.
36
While Bauer is sceptical of this technologically
deterministic approach to culture and history, others, such as Tim Jordan, tend to assume that such determinism is inevitable even if it should
also be resisted, creating a counter-mythology of heroes in the form of
hackers, “the warriors of this everyday technological determinism”, who
hack to “resist being technologically determined themselves”.
37
Behind
such assertions is another fundamental myth, that of progress, which, as
Michael L. Smith argues, leads to a belief that technological changes are
inevitable and unstoppable.
38
Such a simplistic, teleological viewpoint is
counter to the media ecology approach throughout this book: this kind
of narrative retrofits the evidence to match the final outcome – the rise
of Google is inevitable, unstoppable, even though, as Foer observes, it
was as much Microsoft’s fear of the Department of Justice investigation
in the late 1990s that prevented it from wiping the young company from
the map (as it had done with Netscape in the mid-1990s) as any “inevitable” technological progress.
39
Similarly, Galloway points out the numerous opportunities that more established media companies had to change
the course of history, as when Excite and Blockbuster failed to acquire
Google and Netflix in the early 2000s.
40
It is easy to demonstrate in
countless ways how the myth of inevitable, technologically determined
progress is false – we are all wise after the event. Brian Winston even
went so far as to suggest “a ‘law’ of the suppression of radical potential”, whereby new communications media are prevented from attaining
their full potential in the short term due to the constraining influences
of existing institutions, whether family, home, workplace, church, or
political leaders.
41
When treated as an external force operating upon
society, an almost divine inspiration that moves mere mortals to behave
in new ways, technology becomes a religion suited to the secular, consumerist age. And yet while rejecting this simplistic, reductionist, and
frequently self-serving view (“You cannot oppose Apple/Google/Amazon/Facebook: this is the end of times, and only the elect will be judged
worthy.”), obviously a book on big tech and journalism must believe at
some level that technology has an effect on society.
Fernando de la Cruz Paragas and Trisha Lin have offered a much
more nuanced examination of technological determinism that corresponds to the media ecology approach adopted here.
42
Rejecting the
reductionist stance of earlier critics, and using Burrell and Morgan’s
four paradigms of social theory as a starting point, they demonstrate
usefully the obvious point that technological determinism is a continuum with society rather than a dichotomy. Burrell and Morgan in the
late seventies constructed a matrix for discussing the main debates
of sociology – whether reality is given or constructed by the mind,
whether experience is required to understand something, whether humans have free will or are entirely shaped by environment, and whether
such as Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin justify an inevitability
of future outcomes.
36
While Bauer is sceptical of this technologically
deterministic approach to culture and history, others, such as Tim Jordan, tend to assume that such determinism is inevitable even if it should
also be resisted, creating a counter-mythology of heroes in the form of
hackers, “the warriors of this everyday technological determinism”, who
hack to “resist being technologically determined themselves”.
37
Behind
such assertions is another fundamental myth, that of progress, which, as
Michael L. Smith argues, leads to a belief that technological changes are
inevitable and unstoppable.
38
Such a simplistic, teleological viewpoint is
counter to the media ecology approach throughout this book: this kind
of narrative retrofits the evidence to match the final outcome – the rise
of Google is inevitable, unstoppable, even though, as Foer observes, it
was as much Microsoft’s fear of the Department of Justice investigation
in the late 1990s that prevented it from wiping the young company from
the map (as it had done with Netscape in the mid-1990s) as any “inevitable” technological progress.
39
Similarly, Galloway points out the numerous opportunities that more established media companies had to change
the course of history, as when Excite and Blockbuster failed to acquire
Google and Netflix in the early 2000s.
40
It is easy to demonstrate in
countless ways how the myth of inevitable, technologically determined
progress is false – we are all wise after the event. Brian Winston even
went so far as to suggest “a ‘law’ of the suppression of radical potential”, whereby new communications media are prevented from attaining
their full potential in the short term due to the constraining influences
of existing institutions, whether family, home, workplace, church, or
political leaders.
41
When treated as an external force operating upon
society, an almost divine inspiration that moves mere mortals to behave
in new ways, technology becomes a religion suited to the secular, consumerist age. And yet while rejecting this simplistic, reductionist, and
frequently self-serving view (“You cannot oppose Apple/Google/Amazon/Facebook: this is the end of times, and only the elect will be judged
worthy.”), obviously a book on big tech and journalism must believe at
some level that technology has an effect on society.
Fernando de la Cruz Paragas and Trisha Lin have offered a much
more nuanced examination of technological determinism that corresponds to the media ecology approach adopted here.
42
Rejecting the
reductionist stance of earlier critics, and using Burrell and Morgan’s
four paradigms of social theory as a starting point, they demonstrate
usefully the obvious point that technological determinism is a continuum with society rather than a dichotomy. Burrell and Morgan in the
late seventies constructed a matrix for discussing the main debates
of sociology – whether reality is given or constructed by the mind,
whether experience is required to understand something, whether humans have free will or are entirely shaped by environment, and whether