The theory of determinism and utopian theoretical technology in the development of communication technology

The media has in fact really affected the way people think, feel, and behave. In addition, as we know that today we have been in the era of revolution, namely the revolution of society into mass, because the presence of mass media is needed as part of the priority of human life.

mass media is the extension or extension of the human senses (extention of man). Media not only extends our reach to a place, event, information, but also makes our lives more efficient. More than that the media also help us in interpreting about our lives.

In McLuhan's perspective, the media itself is more important than the content of messages conveyed by the media. Let's say, maybe the content of impressions on television is important or interesting, but actually the presence of television in the family room becomes much more important. Television, with its presence alone becomes important, not to mention its content. The presence of mass media has changed more people's lives, more than what the message they convey.

On the other hand, Science and technology which is a form of 'possible world' or a true 'field of experience' is also very important. Through science and technology 'unfolded' a world that has never existed, has not been imagined or imagined before, where everyone can access all the unseen beforehand into a more real picture. However, the opposition of science and technology is one form of opposition that is full of ambiguity. On the one hand, science and technology unfurl a horizon of expectation: endless journey, boundless knowledge, and unlimited experience. On the other hand, it creates 'enigmatic enigmatic', 'anxiety' anxiety, 'ontological insecurity', 'addiction and addiction', and 'uncertainty of identity and subjectivity'.

The presence of some things that may be caused by science and technology as the impact of the rapid development of technology amid human civilization will obviously create a kind of pattern and shape of different human civilization and various studies.

"The theory of determinism and utopian theoretical technology in the development of communication technology"

Determinism Theory

Today we live in a unique era in the history of human civilization, which is known as the era of mass media. The media has in fact really affected the way people think, feel, and behave themselves. In addition, as we know that today we have been in the era of revolution, namely the revolution of society into mass, because the presence of mass media is needed as part of the priority of human life.

Communication technology used in mass media can not be separated from human life or according to Em Griffin (2003: 344) is called nothing remains untouched by communication technology. And in McLuhan's perspective, it is not the essential content of a medium, but the media itself is more important or the medium is the message.

Examples that can be found in reality is the development of increasingly advanced technology makes everything paced want fast and instant. Technology as a tool that facilitates human work to make the culture want to be made easier and avoid hard work or perseverance. Technology also makes a person think about himself. The social soul is weakened because it feels that it does not need the help of others if it wants something, just with technology as its solution. As a result, not infrequently to close neighbors are less familiar because it already has its own community, although the distance separates, but thanks to unlimited technology space and time.

Marshall McLuhan was the originator of this theory of technological determinism in 1962 through his writings The Guttenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. The theoretical basis is that changes in the way of communication will shape the way of thinking, behaving, and moving into the next century of technology in human life.

As the point is the determinism of the theory, that is, the invention or development of communication technology is a factor that changes the human culture. As stated in the fifth edition of A First Look at Communication Theory by Griffin and Emory A, McLuhan charted the history of civilization of human life into four periods :

1.The Tribal Age. According to McLuhan, in this era is known by the name of the ancient era or the era of the ancient tribe, humans only rely on the sense of hearing in communicating. Communication in this era is based on narratives, stories, fairy tales, and the like in which the ears are "kings," or in the long term people know the notion of "hearing is believing", and the human visual ability has not been much relied upon in communication. so, this primitive era is then displaced by the discovery of the alphabet or letter.

2.The Age of Literacy. Since the discovery of the alphabet or letters, the way humans communicate changed a lot. The senses of vision then became dominant in this era, defeating the sense of hearing. Humans communicate no longer rely on speech, but more to the writing.

3.The Print Age. This era began since the discovery of a printing press that makes the alphabet increasingly widespread throughout the world. The power of words through the printing press is increasingly rampant. The presence of the printing press, and then the print media, makes humans freer to communicate.

4.The Electronic Age. This era also marks the discovery of various communication tools or technologies. Telegram, telephone, radio, film, television, VCR, fax, computer, and internet. Humans then come alive in what is called a "global village". The mass media of this era can bring human beings able to come into contact with other human beings, anytime, anywhere, and immediately.

McLuhan also mentioned that the mass media is an extension or extension of human senses (extention of man). Media not only extends our reach to a place, event, information, but also makes our lives more efficient. More than that the media also help us in interpreting about our lives.

In McLuhan's perspective, the media itself is more important than the content of messages conveyed by the media. Let's say, maybe the content of impressions on television is important or interesting, but actually the presence of television in the family room becomes much more important. Television, with its presence alone becomes important, not to mention its content. The presence of mass media has changed more people's lives, more than what the message they convey.

The essence of McLuhan's theory is clearly a picture called technological determinism. Which means the discovery or development of the actual communication technology that changed the human culture. Determinism according to the source wikipedia indonesia comes from the Latin determinare which means to determine or set limits or limit. In general, this thinking holds that the living conditions and human behavior are determined by the physical, geological, biological, psychological, sociological, economic and religious factors that exist including the changes in human civilization. Determinism also holds that human ethical behavior is determined by the environment, customs, traditions, norms and ethical values ​​of society. The term was incorporated into a philosophical term by William Hamilton who applied it to Thomas Hobbes. The early adherents of this determinism thought were democritus who believed that cause and effect became the explanation for all events according to the basis of any change that took place therein. Thus, it can be concluded that according to McLuhan human existence is determined by the change of mode of communication in each place of their civilization.

But not limited to this alone, it turns out the presence of so many technological disekian civilization that passed by human being was still encountered dilemma which then appear along with the rapid development of communication technology that is in a state where human being is dominated by communication technology that created by herself. Communication technology is not controlled by humans but it is just the opposite, we are controlled by them. For example, how uneasy we are to miss one episode of our favorite soap opera we watch every day. Or maybe if we have more than a week not to open Friendster page on the internet. One day just do not watch television maybe we will feel how we have missed how much information that day. This is the fact that the presence of mass media, and all the advancement of other communication technologies that should make human life better become an irony where the dominance of mass media and communication technology is increasing rapidly and not so improving.

Furthermore, Frederic Le Play (1806-1882) uses this determinism perspective to analyze traditional factors and traditional cultural values ​​in the process of social order formation. According to the theory of determinism is a monocausal theory that considers there is a single factor that causes a change. He gives a fundamental question, what should be done so that people can return to life with a sense of security, back in a life that is driven by ethical values, and re-united with understanding? He replied that the structural factor, in this case the family and patterns of relationships influence whether society will move towards social order as expected.

Family circumstances according to Le Play is influenced by the environment and work, which ultimately affects the pattern of a family relationship. The pattern of relations then affects the emergence of problems and social facts. Le Play then saw the people of Central Asia encountered a grassland environment, which then gave birth to the pattern of work as a traveler, and built a family pattern that placed the father as the absolute holder of power. The population explosion caused them to then be dislocated, then searched for new fields. In the hunt for new fields, they find a different geographical environment on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. They then recognize livelihoods as fishermen. They no longer survive with large family models, but turn them into small families. Individualism then becomes their personality, and there is a competition that then generates the awareness of the importance of contractual relationships.

The people from Central Asia, some of them found the mainland of Africa and Central America which then forced them into hunters because the environment they encountered was a jungle. Culture and law of the jungle became the cause of the unstable family structure. Those who are strong will be leaders and dictate what the community should do.

The theory of geographic determinism Le Play, in addition to indicating the determinism of structural factors is also colored by a strong spirit of ethnocentrism. He thinks that western humans have their own advantages over other races. The belief in the natural environment is so strong that it ignores human possibilities to tame nature itself. In relation to this context, Veeger reminds us that the view of geographical determinism is only useful insofar as we are warned by him that man is always limited by circumstances, but within this limited space of movement man is free to act, to think and follow technological developments throughout his own civilization as a human being.

Utopian Theory of Technology

Science and technology is a form of 'possible world' or 'field of experience'. Through science and technology 'unfolded' a world that has never existed, has not been imagined or not imagined before. The opposition of science and technology, however, is a complete opposition to ambiguity. On the one hand, science and technology unfurl a horizon of expectation: endless journey, boundless knowledge, boundless experience. On the other hand, it creates 'enigmatic imbalance', 'anxiety', 'ontological insecurity', 'addiction and addiction', and 'uncertainty of identity and subjectivity'.

There are three main trends of thought about science and technology in its role of building a 'home' (oikos) or 'place' (topos) for human society, namely: 1) utopianism as an optimistic view of the positive role of science and technology, dopplopism, as pessimistic views of science and technology, and 3) 'hyper-topianism' (hypertopianism), as the 'fatalist' view of science and technology.
Utopianism, as a propensity for thinking about a future "perfect society" and the central role of science and technology in building it. 'Utopia' in Greek means 'unplaced'.

Thomas More uses the term 'utopia' to describe an imaginary society in a distant place, as a model of the future of a democratic and classless, future society with wise men. 'Utopia' becomes a generic term for describing any kind of story or narrative that tells of a community in the future where everything is beautiful, fun and flawless. Marshal McLuhan, for example, optimistically sees technology as a 'human extension' utopia in the future. This optimistic view is expressed also by various thinkers, such as Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1624), Herman Kahn, The Next 200 Years (1976) to Howard Rheingold, Virtual Reality (1993).

Technological utopianism (techno-utopianism / technoutopianism) refers to any ideology based on the belief that the advancement of science and technology will ultimately lead to utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal. Therefore an ideal techno-utopia is a hypothetical society, in which laws, government, and social conditions operate only for the benefit and welfare of all its citizens.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, some ideologies and movements such as counter-cyberdelic, California's ideology, transhumanism, and Singularitarianism have emerged promoting techno-utopia forms as an affordable destination. on the other hand, Cultural critic Imre Szeman argues technological utopianism is a rational social narrative because there is no evidence to support it. He concludes that what it shows is the extent to which modern societies put a lot of faith in the narrative of progress and technology overcoming things, despite all the opposite evidence.

Furthermore, based on one of the sources of Breslow, H. In 1997 on Civil Society, Political Economy, and Internet the Virtual Cultural Specification as Identity & Communication in Cybersociety states the most prominent aspect of the utopian position is the implied idea that there is a technological solution to the social problem. This solution is often depicted in terms of technological effects on communitarian and populist forms of democratic participation. The communitarian argument suggests that the Internet will facilitate community engagement by increasing the ease of communication among citizens by transcending geographical and social boundaries. This argument suggests that bonds generated by these interactions will in turn encourage the formation of new deliberative space and new forms of collective action. The populist model, in contrast, emphasizes the role of technology in altering the interaction between society and government. Ward (1997) points out that the mechanism of change is usually described in the form of on-line referendums and initiatives.

In, Budge, 1996, Cox, 1999, Ward, 1997 The utopian position is largely based on the idea that communication media is essential in determining the effect (McLuhan, 1964). This approach usually brokers the potential for democratic communications through computers with reference to the actual design of the network. Through networks that provide communicative interaction, democratic participation and a sense of community facilitated (Rheingold, 1993). Simply put, Utopians assume that cyberspace will make it easier for people to communicate politically and vice versa. The utopian position tends to follow-up with one of Habermas's principal interests (1992, 1989), arguing that communicative action, arising as a result of this interaction, may limit the subversion of deliberative democracy in the hands of imperative-driven markets.

The utan view focuses on the optimistic, positivistic and affirmative nature of life on the development of science and technology. Williams describes four types of utopian fictions of this kind, which describe: a) heaven, in which a happier life is described in another world; b) an externally changed world in which a new life is made possible through changes to nature; c) the coveted transformation, in which a new life is attained through human efforts; and d) technological transformation, in which a new life is made possible through technical invention. All this is done to create a tendency of thinking about a future society in the future and the role of science and technology center in building it.

Technology is a design for instrumental action that reduces the uncertainty in causal relationships involved in achieving desired outcomes. Technology usually has two aspects: hardware aspects (consisting of material or physical objects) and software aspects (consisting of information base for hardware). Both aspects are important for the practical use of computers, but because the hardware is more visible to casual observers, then we would think the main technology is hardware.
Communication technology in modern society like the United States.

Communication technology is the hardware equipment, organization, structure and social values ​​that individuals use to collect, process and exchange information with other individuals. Furthermore, more important is the nature and how the new media functions for most people to exchange information. In fact new communications technology is not only characterized by the presence of new single technologies such as microcomputers and satellites, but incorporates elements of new types of communications such as using satellites to provide wid wid of programming for cable television systems. Examples of new communications technologies are network teleconferencing, electronic systems, computer bulletin boards, and interactive cable television.

Changes in human communication as a result of new technology
New communication systems have certain levels of interactivity, such as two-person or face-to-face conversations. Interactivity is the ability of a new communication system to talk back to the user or almost like an individual participating in a conversation.

The new media is also demassified that a special message can be exchanged for each individual in a large audience. Equate individualization such as new media for interpersonal face-to-face communication, except that they are not face-to-face.

New communication technologies are also synchronized, which means they have the ability to send or receive messages at the right time for an individual.

New media type

Microcomputer

Stand-alone units, usually with the provision to load individual software and sometimes connected with other microcomputers in the network. The microcomputer processing center unit that reads and executes program instructions is a single semiconductor chip.

Teleconference

Small group meetings owned by interactive electronic communications between three or more people in two or more separate locations. The three main types of teleconferencing are video teleconferencing, audio teleconferencing, and computer teleconferencing.

Teletext

Interactive information service that allows individuals to request frame information to view on home television screen.

Videotext

An interactive information service that allows individuals to request frames of information from a central computer to view on a video display screen.
Satellite Communications. Satellite communications consist of phone messages, television broadcasts and other messages from a place on another surface. These satellites are usually located at stationers or around the equator about 22,300 miles from the earth's surface. Basically, satellite television transmissions, telephones and other information eliminate the effect of distance on communication costs.

Positive Impact of Information and Communication Technology in Education

Information needed to be faster and easier to access educational goals.

Innovation in learning grows in the presence of e-learning innovations that further facilitate the educational process.

The advancement of ICT will also enable the development of a virtual class-based or class-based teleconference that does not require educators and learners to be in one room. Administration system at educational institution will be easier and smoothly because of application of ICT system.

The emergence of mass media, especially electronic media as a source of knowledge and education center. The emergence of new learning methods, which allow students and teachers in the learning process. With technological advances creating new methods that enable students to understand abstract material, as material can be made with the aid of abstract technology.
Learning system does not have to go through face to face. With technological advances the learning process does not have to bring together students and teachers, but can also use the postal service, the internet and others.

Reduce the use of ICT in education compared to developing and other developed countries. Improving the quality of human resources through the development and utilization of information and communication technology.

ICT as a decision support system in education. Teachers improve their competence in the various fields of science and the profile of educational institutions recognized by the Government. Sharing research results, research published on the internet will be easy to use by others around the world quickly.

Expert consultation, expert consultation in the field of invitation can be done easily even if the experts are very much in place.
Online libraries, online libraries are libraries in digital form.
Online discussion. An online discussion is a discussion conducted over the internet.
Online classes. Online classroom applications can be used for distance education institutions, such as universities and open schools. "Computer Aided Instruction" has seen little improvement in student performance on multiple choice, standardized testing in some areas. Computer Aided (or assisted) Instruction (CAI), which generally refers to self-directed learners or tutorials on PCs, has been shown to slightly improve the student's test scores in reading and math skills or other subjects, although whether this increase is correlated with a significant increase in student learning.

ICT is used in different school subjects. The use of ICT for simulation and modeling in science and mathematics has proven to be effective, as it has word processing and communication (e-mail) software in language development and student communication skills.
Out-of-school access affects user trust. Students who use computers at home also use computers at school more often and are more confident than students who do not have access in their homes.

It can not be denied, the achievement can occur because of the great support of Indonesian people, especially internet users and social media. Any information about Komodo Island can be informed quickly to various corners of the world. The phenomenon that occurred in Indonesia this time is one positive example of technological progress, especially in Indonesia.

Explanation of the development of Internet, Smartphone and Social Media
In the present era, technology is very closely related to the Internet. The development of the internet that greatly affect the social life and how to communicate someone., Based on the data of the Association of Internet Service Providers Indonesia (APJII), internet users in Indonesia continues to increase. In 1998 only 500ribu people who use the internet, but started in 2012 internet users skyrocketed to 63 million people. That number is even predicted to continue to rise to 139 million people by 2015.

The development of mobile phones is also increasingly facilitate communication through social media and internet. Only from a mobile phone we can get so much information in brief. Smartphones, that's the name for sophisticated mobile phones that can work almost the same as a laptop or laptop computer but is much smaller. When viewed from this point of view, technological advancements give us the opportunity to live more easily. It is an easy way to get or distribute the desired information.

The development of technology in the present that continues to grow, thus making the Internet and many social media is also growing. Although not yet to all parts of Indonesia, but things smell of technological progress has spread to almost all levels of Indonesian society. Most people who access the internet atupun social media in Indonesia are those who use mobile phones. Based on research from AC Nielsen institutions also recorded 95% of mobile phone users in Indonesia use the tool to access the Internet.

Now it feels like there is no limit with others even though they are hundreds of thousands of miles from one's location. It is because of advances in today's technology. The concept of McLuhan is proven to be true, now especially in Indonesia, a lot of people are dependent on technology and it is very difficult to get away from things about technology. Even in this era when one does not use these technologies, the person can not be well received in the environment (eg in a job, some companies have special requirements about the ability to use various technologies). Technological advances in communicating these masses have brought many impacts and changes in society.

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