Politics

In conjunction with my belief that technology is not a neutral tool, I also feel strongly that technology is not political.  From what I can tell, people can misunderstand what technology conveys to be of its own initiative, free of human influence.  But in fact, there seems to be evidence that when there is a set agenda, technologies can be used to facilitate and manipulate certain situations to appear one way or another, where the political component comes from the individual in use of that technology. For instance, in my News Analysis class, we recently talked about the fall of the statue of Saddam Hussein in April of 2003.  This “moment in history” was more or less framed to be the end of the war in Iraq; however, that was far from the truth.  Television coverage from news broadcast stations such as CNN and Fox News were able to effectively illustrate this state of “victory” through camera angles and voice-overs.  In essence, the individual (or in this case the news network) had complete control of the use of these technologies to portray a specific political frame.  It is the only role of the technology to enable the network to do so, or in other words, to add agency to the network

The idea that technology is political scares me to no end, implying that technology has a mind and will of its own.  Although I do not question the politics which surround technology, I do delegate the political ideas and decisions to come from the creators, investors, and consumers of that technology.  We are the ones who create technology’s political agenda.  Once this agenda is set, though, we must also live with a potentially revamped assemblage that may change our culture and therefore “the institutions and structures of everyday life” (p.175).  Technologies promote a certain social structure and way of life.  This is why when technologies are added or taken away from society, they alter and redefine the status quo.  I feel that it is important for humans to not forget that we are ultimately in control of the way our society operates and the way people interact within our culture.  That is to say that we have agency over the technologies we bring in and out of our culture.  It is a scary thought to imagine handing over such agency to technology.  At this point I do not believe that is happening, nor possible, but as the technology revolution continues I am concerned with what the future and its goals may bring in this respect as new, “more powerful” technologies are introduced.