A RHETORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON TECHNOLOGY

1
A RHETORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON TECHNOLOGY

• Defining Technology and Technology Transfer
• Competing Theories of Technology
• Rhetorical Theory of Technology
• My Rhetorical Perspective on the Impact of
  Culture on Technology

2
TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFR

• Technology two aspects
• The physical artifact
• Technical Rationality the cultural aspect
• Technology Transfer
• The narrow sense from one country to another
• The broad sense from the laboratory to the
  marketplace

3
COMPETING THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY

• Neutrality theory
• Technological determinism/Substantive
  theory/Convergence theory
• Ambivalence theory
• Mediation theory
• Critical theory
• Rhetorical theory

4
NEUTRALITY THEORY

• Proposition Technology has no particular
  consequences for social organization and the
  non-technical aspects of culture.
• No inherent ethical or cultural values
• Technology use external to technology
• Problem confusion between technology as a
  process and as a product a partial picture of
  technology

5
DETERMINISM/SUBSTANTIVE/CONVERGENCE THEORY

• Proposition There is some form of inner logic
  or dynamic in modern industrial technology that
  results in similar social consequences.
• problem ahistorical perspective of technological
  development

6
AMBIVALENCE THEORY

• Proposition Technique (and culture) is not
  neutral but ambivalent, capable of various
  alternative developments.
• Technology somewhat contextualized
• Recognition of inherent values in technology
• Problems
• Political optimism about socialist culture
• Underestimating the impact of technology on
  culture

7
MEDIATION THEORY

• Proposition Technology as one of the artifacts
  of culture embodies the dominant values contained
  in that culture.
• Cultural values and production relations of
  capitalism, such as control and efficiency, are
  embodied in both the concrete technology itself
  and its technical rationality.
• Problem theory underdeveloped, lacks elaboration

8
CRITICAL THEORY

• Proposition Technology is an ambivalent process
  of development suspended between different
  possibilities.
• Technology development is overdetermined by both
  technical and social criteria of progress and
  therefore conforms to the prevailing hegemony.
• The process of adaptation between social
  institutions and technological development is
  reciprocal.

9
CRITICAL THEORY (contd)

• Technology transfer/development goes through two
  instrumentalizations.
• Primary Instrumentalization
• Decontextualization
• Reductionism
• Autonomization
• Positioning

10
CRITICAL THEORY (contd)

• Secondary Instrumentalization
• Concretization
• Vocation
• Aesthetic Investment
• Collegiality

11
RHETORICAL THEORY OF TECHNOLOGY

• Technology Transfer
• is a process of individual and collective meaning
  construction and communication
• is a rhetorical phenomenon
• involves not only the product but also a set of
  practices
• is a reciprocal process
• is affected by the culture, which dictates a
  particular way of constructing, interpreting, and
  communicating meaning

12
RHETORICAL BARRIERS

• Cultural and rhetorical differences
• Differences in perceptions by the participants
  about the meanings of technology, about what
  constitutes the knowledge about technology
• Conflict of interests between the different
  parties involved government, experts,
  technicians, ordinary users

13
RHETORICAL ELEMENTS

• Exigency Scene
• Ideology Scene
• Participants Agent
• Knowledge Production and Communication Act
• Knowledge Acquisition and Control Purpose
• Language (Medium of knowledge distribution)
  Agency

14
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AN INTERACTIVE ACT
Exigency
Ideology
Knowledge
Participant
Language
Control