Technology and Society

Raymond Williams has written an article where he analyzed television as a cultural technology. He looks at different versions of cause and effect regarding technology and society, explains the history of television as a technology, and examines the social history of the uses of television as a technology.

One of the author’s main points is that we often fail to realize the specific meanings of how a technology has supposedly changed society. Williams argues that television hasn’t changed society, but instead several causes and effects could have changed society with the help of television. Television alters one’s perception of reality and in effect alters the reality we create by influencing our actions. Television is also a centralized entertainment medium and it centralizes our styles and behaviors because people all watch the same programming.

Another main point the author makes is regarding visual broadcasting’s contradictory issue pertaining to programs’ funding. Without sufficient funding, a program will lose creative possibility because they cannot hire the desired actors; use the desired special effects, etc to create their envisioned program. To resolve this issue, programs turned to advertisements and sponsors for funding. Those who fund their programs, as well as the producers and broadcast systems broadcasting their programs, in turn limit their creative possibilities because they will stop funding should they disagree with the messages of the shows. Oh the drama of art versus money.

~T