Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change:
... five ideas about technological change. First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price. Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners. Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.
The reasons for my assessment of Postman can be seen in the above: he is disposed to see the downsides more readily and to assume that change is bad. While change can be bad, we should recall the first point about winners and losers. Sometimes the there is a more democratic spread of winners and the point about ecologic change (4th point) means that we need to be aware also that Fiske's (et al's) point that popular culture is adept at repurposing cultural artefacts and subverting hegemonic as part of the ecology. To be sure this doesn't erase hegmonic moves by the rich and powerful, but it does mean that they can't simply stand still or assume that things will uncomplicatedly work 'for' them.
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