Cultural Technics

ISBN-13: 9783639140682 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 256 str.

Robert Macdougall

Opis

As we move further into a new millennium often typified by the rapid dissemination of digital communication technologies, many questions arise with respect to the way these new tools potentially impact the individuals and groups who use them. Attendant to these questions is the degree to whichtechnology users themselves might adapt such tools totheir own purposes as the Internet, and all of itsapparatuses, spread into the hidden space and placesof the world. Deferring, for the time-being, thestanding promise of digital communication systemsdesigned to enhance productivity, multitaskingabilities and cognitive flow, this investigation intomedia-cultural interfaces is inspired by a conceptionof communication as a formative mechanism, somethingwhich not only speeds the relay and transmission ofinformation, but simultaneously constitutes (and inpart determines) the structure of our symbolicreality. This book documents the establishment ofan early E-mail system at a Native American communityin the Northeastern United States, and interrogatesthe nature of the human-machine interactions thatoccurred there.

O autorze

Robert MacDougall's academic interests center around the social,
political and cognitive roles played by communication media
through history. He teaches media studies and researches
various digital technologies as socio-political environments.
He is promoting a biological understanding of the human-
technology interface.