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GOR 2001 - contentThis is the http://kiwi.uni-psych.gwdg.de/congress/gor-2001/contrib/contrib/silberer-guenter/contrib/leaning-marcus/leaning-marcus Document. Main Author: Leaning, Marcus Co-Authors: ; Institution: Department of Media Arts, University of Luton Contribution Title: New Media and the Post-Human Self: An alternative account of the relationship of technology to the individual in the self encountered in interpersonal communications using new media. Authors Email: marcus.leaning@luton.ac.uk URLs:
Abstract German (version: 25/06/2002 - 07:47, size: 0) English: Previous accounts of identity, self and subject within new media interpersonal communications technologies (e.g. chat rooms and newsgroups) have failed to acknowledge the contribution of technology to the way the individual encountered is structured. This paper proposes an alternative account of the self encountered in new media that recognises the contribution of technology to the self. Firstly, a Latourian reading of Internet communications technology is proposed in which the characterisation of technology as a tool is challenged. Instead it is argued that technology has to be understood as a network of both human and technological actors. The interactions between human and technological actors involve the relegation of human agency through ’delegation‘ to technological agency in the control of the individual. The use of technology is understood as submersion within a set or network of social practices. Secondly, the manner in which technology as a set of social practices reflects upon us and in turn configures our subjectivity and action is examined. Here social practices are seen in a Giddensian fashion as both ’restrictions and resources‘. The way in which our conscious action is enabled and structured by our immersion within technological systems is considered. Thirdly, it is proposed that as human aspects of the self are relegated and technological aspects promoted then the self encountered in new media must be described as post-human. Article (version: 25/06/2002 - 07:47, size: 11640) An alternative account of the relationship of technology to the individual in the self encountered in interpersonal communications using new media. With all the research that has been performed on the idea of cyber-space as an alternate reality or somehow mystical space (Heim 1991) it is sometimes easy to forget how computers and the Internet were actually intended as a tool to complete difficult or complicated tasks rapidly and with accuracy. As noted in many accounts of the origins of the computer industry, computers were conceived with specific tasks in mind, the calculation of artillery shell trajectories (Wise 2000) or keeping hospital records (Myers 1988) for example. Computers were conceived as applied technologies, devices to perform tasks that were beyond normal human capabilities. The sheer complexity of modern computers and networking systems has seemingly blurred this original rationale for usage. I contend that only by looking at computers and the Internet in this more simplistic fashion can we begin to understand the effective and substantive nature of the technology. To examine information communication technologies such as the Internet as tools affords us a range of critical perspectives that may be lost if we move further up the scale of complexity and begin to view them as some form of enabling or 'invocational' technology (Cheshire 1997) that offer us doorways to an alternate reality. Here I want to pursue one of these perspectives in relation to the Internet. I hope to explore the ways in which the use of this technology necessitates a re-conceptualisation of the way in which we view the individual we encounter in interpersonal communication using the Internet. However the use of the word tool when referring to such technologies implies a certain stance or position in our relation to the technology. A tool is something we use, it is something we can pick up and put down. Perhaps most importantly a tool is something that does what we want. It is dead, inert and passive and while it may extend our capabilities it has no effect upon us or the world without our specific intention. Latour (1987) offers a different description of the use of a tool that I believe may prove particularly useful in examining technologies such as the Internet and activities such as communicating through the Internet. Latour claims that in using technology we are integrating ourselves into networks where both the technology and human actors must be considered as having agency (effective if not volitional). Latour examines how we both delegate tasks to technology, the labour saving device, and are in turn regulated by the technology. Technology, argues Latour, regulates our action though our integration into technological systems. We have technology perform the tasks that are too mundane or difficult for normal people. However in 'delegating' to technology we accept the way in which the technology will perform the task, that the task will be performed in a specific fashion. This fashion, or way of performance then sets the way in which the task is carried out and we work with this way of doing the task. Latour cites the example of a door, it makes it possible to walk through a wall without having to knock it down and rebuild it each time but we accept the location of the door as a restriction as to where we can pass through the wall. In this way technology reflects back upon us, it in part structures our action. No longer do we have complete volition of where we choose to pass through the wall. If we accept the benefits of a door we must also accept that it limits our freewill. In using technology our way of performing an action is limited and corralled by the technology. Here he is not talking of strict technological determinism but rather of the way in which through delegating tasks to technology we abdicate complete conscious control of that task. Relating this to interpersonal communication through the Internet we can see how the 'technology' of the software that allows communication in some way limits the way in which we can communicate or present ourselves. The technology permits us the opportunity to communicate across vast distances instantaneously but it imposes its own regime upon the way in which we can communicate. This regime permits only certain methods of communication and polices this by the default of our usage. By using the technology to present ourselves in far off places we accept technology's limitations on the way in which we can communicate. The structure of the technology limits the ways to which the technology can be used. The technology can be said to 'reflect' back upon us, we don't simply have a master servant relationship with technology, rather it is a dynamic bi-directional relationship. We use technology to perform tasks but we are in turn structured by the use of the technology. All this is very well, technology limits what we can do with it, we can only use Internet technology to communicate in certain ways, but so what? What difference does this make? I want to argue that in using technology we are accepting limitations upon the way we can present ourselves online that have seemingly been ignored in previous accounts of online communication. Many previous accounts have focussed upon the idea that new media technology offers a new opportunity to completely control the presentation of self that one meets online. These claims are primarily built around the idea that on line we can completely control the social 'cues' we give out and therefore the self we present is purely of our own intention. The self here is a purely conscious entity, a master of its social situation and able to skilfully use this knowledge in the presentation of what the world will know of it. However I contest that the nature of the relationship we have with technology means that the presentation of self is not one of complete volition. It is my assertion that we need to look at the level of thinking or consciousness to understand the way in which technology structures our social action and in turn our presentation of self. We are so used to using technology, to being part of technological networks, that technology infects us at the lowest levels of conscious thought, our practical consciousness. Our 'practical consciousness' is that aspect of our consciousness that allows us to be in the social world. This is part of the Giddensian model of consciousness. Anthony Giddens (1979, 1991) sees two elements of mind, practical and discursive consciousness. Discursive consciousness is that knowledge that we can reflect upon consciously, we can bring it to mind. Practical consciousness however, is the mundane day to day essential practicalities of living in a social world. It is not the knowledge we think with or bring to consciousness but knowledge that we use pre reflexively. It is the internalised, pre-reflexive, inter-subjective reality that buffers our moment to moment interactions with the world, the 'rules and resources' that order everyday life. This is Giddens's idea that social life does not simply restrict the action of preconceived agents, rather social life provides resources that allow us to 'be' in the social world. There are no preconceived agents rather we are constituted through being in the social world. I maintain that the technological network is a social system with its own rules and resources. Again here we are referring back to the idea that technology is not just a tool but a system or set of social practices. As we are part of the technology, the technology reflects back upon us as rules and resources. Therefore in using the technology we enter into a network, we are an actor (or actant) within that network. Our actions in the network are performed pre-refelexively, they are structured and made possible through the rules and resources that the technology provides. The rules and resources provided to us by our role in the network of technology enter into our practical consciousness and become part of the way in which we can Act and Be. In using technology we are submersing our being into a network of actors. It is however a two way process, we give up aspects of our self, our volition is restricted or corralled, but simultaneously we gain new aspects of being, we are gaining technological being. When we are using the technology we are Being in a network of technology. In using technology we have integrated ourselves firmly into technology but technology is also integrated into us at the level of practical consciousness. Our very way of being, our entry point into the social world, our presence in the world, is, in this sense, technological. Communicating using the Internet is not simply using technology to reach distant places rather in using the technology we are in part technologically constituted. The self that we encounter through electronic media is in part constituted through that media as the media makes it possible to 'Be' in that system. This sense of 'being' is not just one of an extension of presence of an existing entity, rather the self or identity does not exist outside of social world. In this case the 'social' world is a technological system and therefore the self that exists in this world must be in part considered a partly technologically constituted entity. This idea poses a challenge to the concept of the self as purely a human phenomena which uses technology or tools. If aspects of our consciousness, our very basis of human self, are technologically constituted we cannot claim to be that purely human entity. We must move on to a new description of the Self. I propose that in environments where technology plays such a key role in determining and constituting our selfhood we should consider the self to be 'post human' in the sense that the humanist notion of a completely free agent constituted prior to the means of communication is redundant. The post human agent is an acknowledgement of the role that technology plays in structuring our self and identity. When we want to talk of issues of identity and subjectivity of people
using the Internet we must include the role technology in accounts of the
self.
References Cheshire.C, (1997) The Ontology of Digital Domains, in Holmes.D Virtual politics: Identity and Community in Cyberspace, Sage, London. Giddens.A, (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory Macmillan, London. Giddens. A, (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity ,Polity, Cambridge. Heim.M, (1991) The erotic ontology of cyberspace in Benedict.M, (1991) Cyberspace: First Steps, (pp. 59-80), MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. Latour.B, (1988) Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door Closer, Social Problems, Vol. 35 No.3, pp 298-310, June 1988. Meyers, J, A Short History of the Computer Online Available http://www.softlord.com/comp/ 12.04.01 Wise.R, (2000) Multimedia: A Critical Introduction, Sage: London. |