Lecture #1: The Intertwining of Culture and Technology

This week introduces the key concepts of culture and technology.  This short video lecture discusses some of the main points from this week's readings.

[For some reason Quicktime lost a minute or two in the minute where I make a distinction between tangible cultural objects (e.g., books) and intangible cultural objects (e.g., a folk song). I also make a distinction between cultural objects that are part of the natural world (e.g., a tree that is considered holy) and cultural objects that are artifacts--something made by a person or persons (e.g., Cezanne painting).] 

Some Definitions

As a philosopher by training, I always like to start by defining my terms. So, the first two readings introduce the key concepts of culture and technology.

As we know from the Griswold reading, there are many definitions of culture. Each definition points out important aspects of the meaning of culture. For our purposes in this course, I like this very basic definition taken from a list of definitions by The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition:

Culture
- Culture has been defined in a number of ways but most simply as the learned and shared behavior of a community of interacting human beings (Useem and Useem 1963, 169). 

Of course, there are limitations to this definition, as it excludes objects from being part of culture. In the discussion it asks for your definition of culture, perhaps we can collectively come up with something better.

When we talk about "digital" cultures, we are talking about culture(s) created and enabled by a particular form of technology--the digital computer. Here is a helpful definition of technology:

Technology
- Broadly speaking, technology is how people modify the natural world to suit their own purposes. From the Greek word techne, meaning art or artifice or craft, technology literally means the act of making or crafting, but more generally it refers to the diverse collection of processes and knowledge that people use to extend human abilities and to satisfy human needs and wants. (Excerpt from Standards for Technological Literacy, ITEA, 2000)