Culture and technology
Parent categories: culture - technology
Related: culture industry - music industry - music and technology
Technology is one of the major driving forces of change in every society. As Ray Kurzweil has argued in The Age of Spiritual Machines, the speed of change in technology is increasing ever faster. For example: Mobile phones have an influence on how we interact with each other and also on the way we interpret reality. In the wireline era, the first question we asked someone when you called them was: 'How are you?'. In the wireless era people ask: 'Where are you?'. I would argue that the use of mobile phones has had a more profound influence on society than the internet. --2003
Context
Since the industrial revolution, culture was revolutionised through technology.Mass media
Mass media are those media reaching large numbers of the public via radio, television, movies, magazines, newspapers and the World Wide Web. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines.
During the 20th century, the advent of mass media was driven by technology that allowed the massive duplication of material at a low cost. Physical duplication technologies such as printing, record pressing and film duplication allowed the duplication of books, newspapers and movies at low prices to huge audiences. Television and radio allowed the electronic duplication of content for the first time.
Mass media had the economics of linear replication: a single work could make money proportional to the number of copies sold, and as volumes went up, units costs went down, increasing profit margins further. Vast fortunes were to be made in mass media. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media
Effects of movable type printing on culture
The discovery and establishment of the printing of books with moveable type marks a paradigm shift in the way information was transferred in Europe. The impact of printing is comparable to the development of language, the invention of the alphabet, and the invention of the computer as far as its effects on the society. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Effects_of_printing_on_culture [Jan 2005]Gutenberg's findings not only allowed a much broader audience to read Martin Luther's German translation of Bible, it also helped spread Luther's other writings, greatly accelerating the pace of Protestant Reformation. They also led to the establishment of a community of scientists (previously scientists were mostly isolated) that could easily communicate their discoveries, bringing on the scientific revolution. Also, although early texts were printed in Latin, books were soon produced in common European vernacular, leading to the decline of the Latin language. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Effects_of_printing_on_culture [Jan 2005]
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