Making new media make sense

There are different ways to make sense of new technologies being released. People react to new technologies based on the possible risks it brings, what the technology is good for, and what benefits it may bring. Baym discusses three perspectives in which scholars, users, and non-users view new technologies. The three perspectives are technological determinism, social construction of technology, and social shaping. Technological determinism is the idea that machines change us. Baym describes that technological determinists focus on the authenticity of identity and the well-being of "real" relationships. Due to the lack of visual and auditory social cues on the internet, it is hard to entirely trust internet users, creating a problem of anonymity.  

 

The social construction of technology perspective is the idea that people have the power to change both technology, and society. Users shape the development of the technology and the way it is used in society. Baym says, "Rather than viewing social change as a consequence of new media, it views new technologies and their uses as consequences of social factors." Lastly, the social shaping perspective emphasizes a middle ground between technological determinism and the social construction of technology. The consequences of technologies arise from the social qualities new technologies offer, as well as the way in which people use the technology and the elements offered by the technology. Baym says, however, that eventually people stop questioning new technologies as they become domesticated into society. Eventually new technologies become mundane and part of everyday life and are no longer seen as causes of change. 

Baym uses examples in each of the perspectives to show both utopian and dystopian views that arise from new technologies based on the perspective. For example, Baym cites an excerpt from an essay by Nick Carr in which he says that technology is changing the way in which he thinks. This provides a dystopian view of the technological determinist perspective by saying that technology may alter the way in which we think. This chapter was very informative and provided an array of possibilities to think about new technology and the way it changes us or we change it, for either the better or the worse.