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For one of my courses we read a chapter, "Breakages Unlimited," from Brian Winston's book, Misunderstanding Media, which I think offers a great framework for thinking about technological change through the lens of culture. In the chapter, he looks at the introduction of technology into culture from economic, industrial, and scientific perspectives, positing that the revolutionary rhetoric surrounding communications technology has existed for ages. However, the uptake of a technology, he says, follows four stages, accompanied by three intervening periods of transformation. To put this in context, the model would suggest that the vaunted "Internet revolution" closely follows the adoption patterns of the telephone, the motion picture, or any number of new technologies.
The phase I found most interesting was the third period of transformation, "the law of supression of radical potential." As products reach consumers, instituitional forces, like the government, entrenched industries, and other forces limit the potential of a technology for social change. In his words, "general social constraints operate to limit the potential of a device to radically disrupt existing social formations."
When I learned of this, I immediately thought of the attempts by the entertainment industry to limit the ability for networked personal computers to share intellectual property. In the model, the MPAA and RIAA see the potential for computer to distribute culture like movies and music without them and seek to supress the radical potential of these machines. A perhaps more powerful example is the Chinese government's attempts to control Internet content through a nationwide firewall. If the Navy's success in constraining peer-to-peer radio use in the early 20th century or the relatively toothless VCRs we have today are a guide, much of the potential of the Internet may never be realized.
On the topic of file-sharing, Slashdot has a discussion today about the RIAA's lawsuit against a Michigan Tech student accused of piracy. The university president issued a release condemming the actions of the RIAA: although Michigan Tech pledged to cooperate with the RIAA in shutting down file-sharing on campus, the RIAA sued the student individually.
