The Shifting Ground of the Media Environment: Slack & Wise vs. McLuhan

Slack, J. D., & Wise, J. M., (2007). “Agency” In Culture and technology: A primer. New York: Peter Lang.

Concepts
Agency; actor-network theory; actor; delegation/prescription; translation

Summary
 In this chapter Slack and Wise present an alternative to deterministic views of technology which are made too “reductive” in their focus on causality. They propose, instead, an approach based on agency as a means of shifting critical attention to the wider “cultural field” in which the human-technology relationship exists.

Quotations
 “…the actor/agent is the structure (network) and the structure is the actor/agent. There is no actor without a structure; there is no structure without actors. And neither are stable things… There are, instead, ongoing processes of translation, delegation, and prescription.” (p. 145)

“The process of delegation does not just occur once, when the object is invented or manufactured, but over and over. When describing an actor-network or a map of articulations, we do not see a stable schematic before us… Instead, what we see is a series of constant movements, transformations, and circulations.”

“…technology is every bit as crucial an actor as the human. Humans may delegate to technologies, but technologies invariably prescribe back.” (p. 146)

Commentary
 In order to set up their theory of articulation and assemblage, Slack and Wise use this chapter to assert that we will not be able to understand the relationship between humans and technology through deterministic approaches because they rely too much on causality, and thus restrict the focus of the relationship only to how one acts upon the other. Instead, they propose we view this relationship as a network, in which the actors have varying degrees of agency and power which co-influence one another simultaneously.

The Actor-Network Theory that Slack and Wise use as a framework for this chapter reminded me of McLuhan’s theories — except not as one-sided. The belief that technologies are more than tools, that they are “active participants” (139) in the way humans navigate the world, is in line with McLuhan’s belief that technologies are not neutral, that they are always working on us.

However, McLuhan would urge us to keep the focus on the technology and its effects on our culture — on what they are enhancing or obsolescing — completely ignoring the human actors in the situation. Slack and Wise, on the other hand, use the concept of the network to show that the cultural effects of technology are derived from a sort of dialogue in which attitudes and behaviors are translated back and forth between man and machine (the processes of delegation, prescription and transformation).

When we apply McLuhan’s tetrad, we’re getting a relatively static image of a technology at a particular point in time. The four aspects work simultaneously in different directions, but it obscures how humans and technologies themselves are actively and constantly renegotiating the environment in which they coexist. In other words, McLuhan is very much interested in the cause and effect, but as Slack and Wise point out, there is never simply one cause — that the effects of technology don’t come from one action or behavior. They are instead nodes where several behaviors connect and as the actors continue their dialogue, these nodes shift and make new connections. 
 
 If McLuhan’s view of technology is that each technology creates new “ground,” then Slack and Wise look closer to find the fault lines of the tectonic plates.

Question
 In the Baym reading, she tells us the “truth” about our relationship with technology lies somewhere between the two poles of determinism: the “social shaping of technology” perspective (44). How is Baym’s perspective similar to Slack and Wise’s theories of articulation and assemblage? How is it different? Does it avoid the problems of causality that Slack and Wise find with the other deterministic perspectives? Which do you find more convincing?