Technological determinism and the evolution of Nollywood

2021 ◽  
pp. 183-194
Author(s):  
Ikechukwu Obiaya
Keyword(s):  
Technological Determinism

The Unified World Order

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Bakare Adewale Muteeu
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
International System ◽  
World Order ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
World Peace ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Open World ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
The Rich

In pursuit of a capitalist world configuration, the causal phenomenon of globalization spread its cultural values in the built international system, as evidenced by the dichotomy between the rich North and the poor South. This era of cultural globalization is predominantly characterized by social inequality, economic inequality and instability, political instability, social injustice, and environmental change. Consequently, the world is empirically infected by divergent global inequalities among nations and people, as evidenced by the numerous problems plaguing humanity. This article seeks to understand Islam from the viewpoint of technological determinism in attempt to offset these diverging global inequalities for its “sociopolitical economy”1existence, as well as the stabilization of the interconnected world. Based upon the unifying view of microIslamics, the meaning of Islam and its globalizing perspectives are deciphered on a built micro-religious platform. Finally, the world is rebuilt via the Open World Peace (OWP) paradigm, from which the fluidity of open globalization is derived as a future causal phenomenon for seamlessly bridging (or contracting) the gaps between the rich-rich, rich-poor, poor-rich and poor-poor nations and people based on common civilization fronts.

Indigenous language newspapers and the digital media conundrum in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 026666692098340
Author(s):  
Kevin Onyenankeya
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Indigenous Language ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The Future ◽  
Major Factors

The future of journalism is being shaped by the convergence of technology and societal shifts. For indigenous language press in Africa battling to stay afloat amidst stiff competition from traditional media, the pervasive and rapidly encroaching digital transformation holds both opportunities and potential threats. Using a qualitative approach, this paper examined the implication of the shift to digital media for the future of the indigenous language newspaper in Africa and identifies opportunities for its sustainability within the framework of the theories of technological determinism and alternative media. The analysis indicates poor funding, shrinking patronage, and competition from traditional and social media as the major factors facing indigenous newspapers. It emerged that for indigenous language newspapers to thrive in the rapidly changing and technology-driven world they need to not only adapt to the digital revolution but also explore a business model that combines a futuristic outlook with a practical approach.

The Need for Speed – Technological Acceleration and Inevitabilism in Recent Danish Digitalization Policy Papers

SATS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
Mads Vestergaard
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Fourth Industrial Revolution ◽  
Sociotechnical Imaginaries ◽  
Official Policy ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Abstract The article explores whether sociotechnical imaginaries of digitalization as inevitable accelerating development can be traced in Denmark’s official policy papers concerning digitalization 2015–2020. It identifies imperatives of speed, acceleration and agility equal to what has been described as a corporate data imaginary as well as tropes of an imaginary of the fourth industrial revolution and inevitable exponential technological development and disruption. The empirical analysis discovers a shift in the studied period mid-2018, before which inevitabilism is prominent and after which the focus on non-economic values increases and the aim of influencing the development, instead of adapting to it, emerges. The article then addresses how imperatives of acceleration and narratives of inevitabilism may be considered problematic from a democratic point of view employing Hartmut Rosa’s critical diagnosis of the acceleration society and the notion of discursive closure. Finally, it discusses the empirical findings in light of technological determinism and constructivism inherent in the notion of sociotechnical imaginaries and introduces a sociotechnical selectionist theory allowing both for human agency in technological development while also providing a mechanism for explaining the emergence of law-like technological trends, as Moore’s Law, at macro level.

Beyond technological determinism: revitalising labour process analyses of technology, capital and labour

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-159
Author(s):  
Paul Thompson ◽  
Knut Laaser
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Process Analysis ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Call Centre ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Work Relations ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Critical Commentary

Technological determinism is a recurrent feature in debates concerning changes in economy and work and has resurfaced sharply in the discourse around the ‘fourth industrial revolution’. While a number of authors have, in recent years, critiqued the trend, this article is distinctive in arguing that foundational labour process analysis provides the most effective source of an alternative understanding of the relations between political economy, science, technology and work relations. The article refines and reframes this analysis, through an engagement with critical commentary and research, developing the idea of a political materialist approach that can reveal the various influences on, sources of contestation and levels of strategic choices that are open to economic actors. A distinction is made between ‘first order’ choices, often about adoption at aggregate level and ‘second order’ choices mainly concerned with complex issues of deployment. This framework is then applied to the analysis of case studies of the call centre labour process and digital labour platform, functioning as illustrative scenarios. It is argued that the nature of techno-economic systems in the ‘digital era’ open up greater opportunities for contestation.

The contributions of Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson to communication and social change theory and practice

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 405-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradip Ninan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Change Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Change Theory ◽  
Communication For Social Change ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article explores the contributions made by Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson to communication for social change theory. It argues that Williams’ critique of technological determinism, his notion of the ‘structure of feeling’, analysis of culture and cultural materialism as a mode of analysis contributes to the theorising of communication for social change. This article also examines Thompson’s contributions to historiography, his engagement with the contextualised histories of ordinary people and their contributions to the making of the public sphere in 18th-century England. This article argues that the contributions made by these two theorists enable a critique of structures and a re-centring of agency, both of which are critical to a renewal of communication for social change theory.

The Lisbon strategy and structural reforms in Europe

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Amable ◽  
Lilas Demmou ◽  
Ivan Ledezma
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Work ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Lisbon Strategy ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
European Social Model ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Market Liberalisation ◽  
Macroeconomic Environment ◽  
Lisbon Agenda

The Lisbon strategy, launched in 2000 to promote growth and employment by developing a highly competitive European economy, is an incoherent mixture of economic liberalism, social democratic aspirations and neo-Schumpeterian technological determinism. This article presents the macroeconomic environment of the Lisbon strategy and calls into question the generally accepted notion that Europe lags behind the USA in terms of productivity and innovation. It discusses the implications of the most important integrated guidelines that member countries should follow to implement the Lisbon agenda and argues that they represent more a neoliberal programme than a renewal of the European social model. This article also presents the results of empirical work that tested the effectiveness of the various market liberalisation measures promoted by the Lisbon agenda. These results show that one should not expect significant results in two key areas: innovation and employment.

scholarly journals Informatics and the Challenge of Determinism

Sci ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Philip Moore ◽  
Hai Van Pham
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Technical Information ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Information Systems Design ◽  
Novel Technologies

Motivation: There is a paradox at the heart of informatics where practical implementation generally fails to understand the socio-technical impact of novel technologies and disruptive innovation when adopted in ‘real-world’ systems. This phenomenon, termed technological determinism, is manifested in a time-lag between the adoption of novel technologies and an understanding of the underlying theory which develops following research into their adoption. Methods: We consider informatics theory as it relates to: social informatics and how humans’ function in society, the relationship between society and technology, information systems, information systems design, and human–computer interactions. The challenges posed by novel technologies and disruptive innovation are considered as they relate to information systems and information systems design. Open research questions with directions for future research are discussed with an introduction to and our proposed approach to socio-technical information system design. Significance: We conclude that the adoption of disruptive innovation presents both opportunities and threats for all stakeholders in computerised systems. However, determinism is a topic requiring research to generate a suitable level of understanding and technological determinism remains a significant challenge.

scholarly journals Twenty years of unnecessary forward slashes: towards a post-ontological critique of Tim Berners-Lee's evolving aspirations for the Web and the World Wide Web Consortium from the cultural studies perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Dick
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Uniform Resource Identifier ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
The Web

Since it was first formally proposed in 1990 (and since the first website was launched in 1991), the World Wide Web has evolved from a collection of linked hypertext documents residing on the Internet, to a "meta-medium" featuring platforms that older media have leveraged to reach their publics through alternative means. However, this pathway towards the modernization of the Web has not been entirely linear, nor will it proceed as such. Accordingly, this paper problematizes the notion of "progress" as it relates to the online realm by illuminating two distinct perspectives on the realized and proposed evolution of the Web, both of which can be grounded in the broader debate concerning technological determinism versus the social construction of technology: on the one hand, the centralized and ontology-driven shift from a human-centred "Web of Documents" to a machine-understandable "Web of Data" or "Semantic Web", which is supported by the Web's inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, and the organization he heads, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); on the other, the decentralized and folksonomy-driven mechanisms through which individuals and collectives exert control over the online environment (e.g. through the social networking applications that have come to characterize the contemporary period of "Web 2.0"). Methodologically, the above is accomplished through a sustained exploration of theory derived from communication and cultural studies, which discursively weaves these two viewpoints together with a technical history of recent W3C projects. As a case study, it is asserted that the forward slashes contained in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) were a social construct that was eventually rendered extraneous by the end-user community. By focusing On the context of the technology itself, it is anticipated that this paper will contribute to the broader debate concerning the future of the Web and its need to move beyond a determinant "modernization paradigm" or over-arching ontology, as well as advance the potential connections that can be cultivated with cognate disciplines.

scholarly journals Public relations practitioners’ perception of new media influence on promotion of mutual understanding between organisation and strategic publics in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (S1) ◽  
pp. 506-528
Author(s):  
Harvey G.O. Igben ◽  
Michael E. Ilaya
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Public Relations Practitioners ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Private Organizations ◽  
Fundamental Goal

New media is a trending innovation and its influence in the promotion of mutual understanding between organizations and strategic publics is a more contemporary issue. This study evaluates the perception of public relations practitioners on the incorporation of new media into the process of promoting good relationships between organizations and strategic publics in Nigeria. The fundamental goal is to examine if public relations practitioners find new media helpful in carrying out public relations activities in their organizations. This study is hinged on Technological determinism theory.  Findings show that public relations practitioners of both public and private organizations do perceive the adoption of new media technologies in the performance of their function for the promotion of mutual understanding as supportive to quick and interactive approaches to dissemination of information from organizations to strategic stakeholders and the public. The study recommends that more public relations practitioners of organizations especially public organizations should be encouraged to use new media in course of executing their professional assignments.

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