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

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

COMPETING THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY Neutrality theory Technological determinism/Substantive theory/Convergence theory Ambivalence theory Mediation theory Critical theory Rhetorical theory

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

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

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

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

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.

CRITICAL THEORY (cont’d) Technology transfer/development goes through two instrumentalizations. Primary Instrumentalization –Decontextualization –Reductionism –Autonomization –Positioning

CRITICAL THEORY (cont’d) Secondary Instrumentalization –Concretization –Vocation –Aesthetic Investment –Collegiality

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

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

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

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER: AN INTERACTIVE ACT Participant Ideology Exigency Knowledge LanguageControl