What role do ICTs play in the historical versus a modern view of culture?

Information Communication Technologies have fundamentally changed societies. It is accepted now that "...technology, action and social context are inseparable phenomena, each influencing the other..." With this in mind, what is the contrast between a historical versus a modern view of culture and what role does technology play in constructing these views? What are the distinctions and how do we measure them?

In the Handbook of New Media, the introduction raises the following idea: “… every system affords a certain range of interpretations and that range is determined by the discourses that have been inscribed into it' (2004:27). (Lievrouw, L., Livingstone, S. pg. 4)”. What this points out is the need to examine the working framework of cultural systems in relationship to technology.

Wikipedia defines culture as having four specific components: values, norms, institutions and artifacts. These are the pillars that structure the systems that every culture devises. Cultural epochs can be looked at as chunked points on a spectrum and pre- and post New Media cultures each have different stories to tell about how ICTs have influenced historical versus a modern views of culture. The differences between cultural epochs are better observed when the evolution of the New Media culture and the analytic focus of field of New Media studies involve examination of the social shaping and social consequences of the "dynamic links and interdependencies among artifacts, practices and social arrangements… (Lievrouw, L., Livingstone, S. pg. 3.)" These are some of the very same factors that can be found within the definition of culture. These terms also straddle the evolution of ICTs and most importantly, the generational span of the two most recent “media cultures”, each of which exhibit both historical and modern views of culture.

This is fertile ground for discovery of the contrasts between historical views versus a modern views of cultures influenced by ICTs. Even with the tremendous power of “These dynamic interrelations [between artifacts, practices and social arrangements] [they] are not infinitely flexible, however [and the] ... use of the term infrastructure is intended to suggest that artifacts, practices and social arrangements - and the relations among them - can and do become routine, established, institutionalized and fixed..." It is possible to conclude that cultures solidify in much the same terms from one cultural epoch to another and that there is also a new and concurrent “mutual shaping process in which technological development and social practices are co-determining” (Lievrouw, L., Livingstone, S. pg. 4.) what society ultimately becomes. This appears to be the starting point for locating the distinctions about how Information Communication Technologies affect culture and how we might measure them in relationship to forming and contrasting historical vs. modern views of culture.


Lievrouw, L., Livingstone, S. (eds) (2006) The Handbook of New Media, Updated Student Edition, London. pg. 3-4.