Democratizing Technologies

I think one of Gitleman’s major points in writing this book is to challenge, once again, the idea of technological determinism—particularly the optimistic idea that new technologies will deterministically pave the way for more democratic societies. In the “Coda,” she criticizes scholars who suggest that digital hypertexts will democratize reading, education, and the social order, and, by the same token, she criticizes scholars who produce “shockingly reductive” histories which suggest technological revolutions which made modern democratizing technologies possible (p. 220).

Gitelman discusses how the phonograph was lauded as a democratizing technology that would bring classical music and excellent ideas to the masses. She then goes on to discuss how, in practice, the technology was used to reinforce racial stereotypes as “coon songs” became all the rage. Similarly, Gitelman discusses how the typewriter seemed to make possible a kind of “automatic writing”; however, in practice, the this “automatic writing” was to be carried out by women—for men—in a economic system that was hierarchically structured along gender lines. As a bit of an aside, I’m reading a very interesting book called A History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist, in which the author discusses the advent of the airplane. Again the claims about the airplane were optimistic. Airplanes would “democratize” the war—making everyone vulnerable and exposed, thereby decreasing the likelihood of an attack. Moreover, people thought that airplanes would do away with the very causes of national conflict by bringing people closer to one another. The opinion that this technology would be used for bombing, making war more brutal and lethal than it had ever been, was simply preferred less than the vision of a more democratic, more peaceful future.

Now, I’m not saying that it should be assumed that any new technology will bring about the Armageddon. But I do wonder why there seems to be an impulse to crown each new technology as a force for human liberation. Perhaps, Gitelman’s most important point is that technologies must be understood within the social-historical-material-cultural contexts in which they are produced and consumed. It stands to reason that as long as people continue to live in racist, sexist, and militaristic cultures, then racism, sexism and militarism will be written all over new technologies. Or to put it another way, we can expect that technologies will be used in ways that will reinforce existing patterns of injustice. Technologies will not by themselves correct injustice, just like laws will not by themselves correct injustice. What matters is how people make meanings for, and make use of, technologies.