The Structure of Technological Revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth

  • Scott D. N. Cook
Chapter
Part of the Philosophy and Technology book series (PHTE, volume 11)

Abstract

We seem always today to be in the midst of one technological revolution or another. We imagine the future shaped by them. And in our accounts of the past, we point to them as significant forces that have given form and direction to our civilizations. Yet nowhere do we find any substantive discussion as to what exactly a technological revolution is. In fact, we refer to them as though their nature were obvious. We make use of historical examples to characterize the appearance of exciting new technologies and to prescribe ways for dealing with their “impact.” And we make these comparisons and prescriptions with such alacrity as to suggest that an explication of what we take the form of a technological revolution to be is simply unnecessary. In these various ways we have, nonetheless, developed an implicit characterization of technological revolutions that consistently results in alarmingly faulty histories and a posture toward current technologies that is frighteningly misleading and ultimately irresponsible. My aim here is to begin to surface this characterization, which I call the Gutenberg Myth, and to suggest that we are in need of an historically and conceptually more accurate and prescriptively more responsible understanding of the structure of technological revolutions.

Keywords

Social Change Technological Revolution Mass Literacy Scientific Revolution Computer Literacy 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1995

Authors and Affiliations

  • Scott D. N. Cook
    • 1
  1. 1.San Jose State UniversityUSA

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