This week has focused on an introduction to digital culture. Through the short films and the core readings, I’ve been considering the following key themes:
First concerns the role of embodiment in digital culture. As Miller argues, one tenet within digital culture positions technology as enhancing embodied experience (e.g. through the development of cyborgs). A second (transhumanism), positions technology as the next step in human evolution, by digital technology rendering obsolete (as opposed to enhancing) embodied Being. Either way, discussions around digital technology (and its role in education) fundamentally problematise the body and its role in lived experience.
Second concerns the relationship, in digital culture, between the human (natural) and machine (artificial). A key theme within many of the short films is that the essence of humanity is, in some way, under threat from rapid advancements in digital technology. Such representations put me in mind of Stan Cohen’s arguments around Folk Devils and Moral Panics, as well as Ulrich Beck’s approach to risk, modernity and individualisation. As authors such as Zigmund Bauman have argued, modernity is characterised (in part) through the construction of binary opposites (e.g. ‘man’ – ‘woman'; ‘human’-‘machine’). It seems to me that the more human and machine are positioned as binary opposites, the greater the potential to view the former as intrinsically threatened by developments of the latter. In this context, the social construction of human as homo faber (tool making man) I found particularly helpful in resolving the (unhelpful) dichotomy between the organic (human) and artificial (machine).
Thanks for this post Nick. You are one of the first to post your synthesis, so it’s great to see what you’ve done as I get ready to do mine. I like the way you present two problems, both resolved by the concept of homo fabor.
Thanks Katherine! I found it really difficult to know how to compose the summary, and I didn’t really refer to any of the tweets etc that I’d sent to my lifestream over the week, and which I probably should have! Will look forward to reading yours and others, so I can pick up some pointers on how to tweak the formula for subsequent weeks.
Hi Nick, have just posted my summary for week 1 and am now reading yours. Totally agree that the concept of homo faber is helpful in highlighting how man has always sought to use tools to compensate for his limitations, and that technology is in fact just another ‘tool’. Also picked up on the way we perceive ourselves to be under threat from advancements in technology but related it specifically to AI. Very interesting week and looking forward to week 2!
Hi Clare
Thanks for commenting. Yes I think homo faber helps to highlight that are use of digital technology is an extension, rather than a move away, from our technology in previous eras. Looking forward to Week 2 as well!
Nick, by extension of your themes of (1) the role of digital technologies and education, and (2) the human-machine binary problematic, I think it is also helpful to consider Sian Bayne’s (TEL reading) view as digital education practitioners, we need to move away from the education-technology, and “acknowledge that the two are ‘co-constitutive'”. (p. 14)
Hi PJ
Many thanks for your comments. I very much agree. Bayne’s article is very useful in highlighting some of the undercurrents shaping the mantra of technology enhanced learning, and of the dangers of viewing technology as separate from the social, discursive (and ideological) contexts in which learning occurs and in which ‘humans’ are socially produced.
Hi Nick,
This is a super summary of the week, and an excellent proposition of two principal themes. Great to see references to literature in there as well – although adding some links (if possible) to some of these works would be really useful to others. I’d certainly like to follow up on the Bauman work you mention.
It is really great to see the idea of binary opposites raised here – it’s a very helpful way of approaching many of the themes in this course I think, and one that I seem to return to often. A ‘nature – technology’ split seems to justify our privileging of essential and authentic human characteristics, yet they seem to me to be pretty hard to isolate and define. What are the educational implications of this kind of dualistic positioning I wonder? What exactly is this ‘humanness’ that is under threat, or in line for enhancement, though technology use in education?
This is a really excellent distillation of themes, and for future weekly summaries I’d recommend adding a bit more reflection on your lifestream itself. What we’re looking for here is some commentary on why you’ve added particular tweets, images or videos in the feeds, how course themes and readings have influenced those choices, and how your specific lifestream content might be shaping your understanding of the course.
Great start here Nick!
Thanks Jeremy!
This is really helpful, and I will incorporate more commentary and reflection on the selection of material and its role in shaping my ideas, as you suggest
In relation to references, I was referring particularly of Bauman, Z. (1991) Modernity & Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Great, thanks for the ref!