Against the abstract connectionism: a reply to André Lemos (original) (raw)
Related papers
A critique of the essentialist critique of cyberculture
ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to analyse the critique of cyberculture through a discussion of the essence of technology. The article revisits the classic treatment of this theme and its actualization in the viewpoints of the new critics of digital culture. The central argument is that the traditional critical perspective (fundamentalist or pessimistic) fails to address the phenomena of digital culture due to this essentialist bias. The article proposes an analysis of cyberculture based on Actor-Network Theory (ANT), arguing that a focused view, sticking closely to the constituent networks of technical phenomena and the associations that form the social, may offer a solution to the empirical failure of critique.
Critical digitality: from the virtual to the digital
Praxis Filosófica, 2017
This paper argues that the idea of “virtual” or “virtuality” belongs to a theoretical perspective that intends to explain components of the phenomenon of technological society nowadays. Firstly, the digital perspective is explained in its ontological basic structure: binary codes that organize a physical set or hardware according to logical rules, therefore the idea of a network society, virtual communication and digital human beings are concepts that are not really grasping the problem of the digital technology in our society. A digital perspective assumes the need to understand digital technology in its physical functioning, which allows a complete picture of the problem and enables the subsequent critical analysis of the virtual perspective. Secondly, the virtual perspective is analyzed from the digital perspective to its main metaphysical assumptions: simulation, as a presupposed moral ideal; and functionality, as a presupposed instrumental ideal. Finally, the conclusion explains the possibilities given by the digital perspective in order to assume new challenges of the digital universe, in contrast to a virtual perspective which would pre-limit such possibilities to previous needs to be satisfied. Thus, this paper rather than showing a well-defined argument it urges a reorientation of our notions of the virtual and the digital.
Introduction: Applying Critical Theory to the Study of ICT
Social Science Computer Review, 2006
A s three academics located in the domain of information systems (IS), we are delighted to act as guest editors and to highlight scholarship that applies a critical lens to the examination of information and communication technologies (ICT). In this editorial, we briefly present how reference disciplines-particularly sociology-have addressed issues of technology in society, placing this discussion in the context of the comparatively new disciplinary field of IS and its paradigmatic roots. We argue that IS has been dominated by inquiry adopting the philosophical approach of positivism but stress that there is a small and growing body of theoretical and empirical research from a critical perspective. We discuss this broadening field of critical research and critical research in IS in particular. Finally, we are pleased to introduce the articles we have chosen for this special issue that apply critical theories and methods to a number of ICT applications. Looking back at the entirety of sociology as a discipline, studying the role of technology in society has been marginal at best. Although never central to their doctrine, Marx, Weber, and Parsons all noted that technology played an instrumental role in society, subordinate to economic action, effectively a means to an economic end (Shields, 1997). With the arrival of the Frankfurt School in the mid-20th century, the study of the role of technology in society merged with the burgeoning field of critical theory, in which technology was part of a critique of modernity and the developments and institutions associated with modern society. For sociologists, critical theory allied technology with modernity and again viewed it instrumentally, as a tool of the modern state used for more perfect subjugation of the masses and the individual. In the later half of the 20th century, sociologists have drawn on authors such as Habermas, Offe, Bourdieu, Foucault, Calhoun, and Kellner to develop a more sophisticated critique of domination with an emancipatory interest, the fusion of social or cultural analysis, and the role of technology in society. Critical theorists of technology are typically seen by sociologists as mild technological determinists who have focused on the coevolution of modernity and technology and their joint limitations, pathologies, and destructive effects (Kellner, 1989). The Discipline of IS In the context of how ICTs are viewed and studied in IS, it is useful to take a little time to discuss the emerging discipline of IS-a subject of contestation within the IS community.
Applying Critical Theory to the Study of ICT
Social Science Computer Review, 2006
A s three academics located in the domain of information systems (IS), we are delighted to act as guest editors and to highlight scholarship that applies a critical lens to the examination of information and communication technologies (ICT). In this editorial, we briefly present how reference disciplines-particularly sociology-have addressed issues of technology in society, placing this discussion in the context of the comparatively new disciplinary field of IS and its paradigmatic roots. We argue that IS has been dominated by inquiry adopting the philosophical approach of positivism but stress that there is a small and growing body of theoretical and empirical research from a critical perspective. We discuss this broadening field of critical research and critical research in IS in particular. Finally, we are pleased to introduce the articles we have chosen for this special issue that apply critical theories and methods to a number of ICT applications.
Cyberculture theory and the actuality of mass culture debate
The 1990's were witness of a polemics about new media technologies that continues today as dispute about cyberculture's meaning. There are, in one side, some theorists that see in new media an advance that cuts off with linear and vertical communication. Contrasting with those, there are others that see in it a modern form to promote our cultural alienation. We argue in favor of culture industry thesis in this article, adopting a critical instance towards the subject, but at the same time thought if cyberculture contemporary theorists aren't victims of a long term problem and that has to do with the intellectual closeness from which modernity may be prisoner as " cultural " epoch, according to Martin Heidegger.
Chapter Title: 'The Differance Engine: Videogames as Deconstructive Spacetime' Critiques Media Studies 2.0 approaches to new media (especially the videogame) and suggests a deconstructive approach that foregrounds undecidability in place of first person performative or third-person constative theories.
A definition and criticism of cybercommunism
Capital & Class, 2009
When defines his idea of cybercommunism using an adaptation of the Leninist formula 'Socialism -free access to internet + the power of the Soviets', he omits the crucial part about electricity. The cybercommunist idea that the information society is more 'spectral' and 'malleable' than mere the previous 'crudely' economical societies conceals the question of what types of communities it favours. The political economy of cybercommunism also demands an analysis of the material conditions of cyber-freedom that can be conceptualised, for instance, in terms of levels of decreasing alienation.