Week 9 Reading: ‘Culture’ and ‘Technology’

Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.

Culture and technology incorporate many interests and disciplines within their dynamic field. Both are prone to rapid change and constant growth.

Technoculture therefore needs to be assessed in a similar, dynamic way when relating it to theoretical perspectives.

Technology: (tekhne – craft, logos – system)
The application of a body of knowledge, or science, in specific areas. Also defined as the ability to measure, predict, and control natural forces.

Technique:  the use of skill to accomplish something. Technique is what makes technology useful to us, if we didn’t know how to operate technology, it would lose it’s value.

Culture: Is difficult to define. generally, it involves all human activity around the world. It’s specific meaning refers to self-contained cultures, such as ‘French culture’. It brackets off into other areas such as news, finance, sports etc.

Each of these definitions is prone to change and development, so their core definitions will also change over time. Technology plays a crucial role in the large-scale and popular forms of culture.