Is technology shaped by society, or is society shaped by technology? Can it be both?

I found myself really struggling with this debate. It seems like it should be simple, but of course it never is. I find that this is a general, over-aching question most of the articles present in some way. And while I don’t like to make generalizations, I can’t help but return to this question, like so many of these authors.

On one side of the spectrum, we have technological determinism, the theory that technology drives culture and “steers society” (Kaplan). And this can be separated into “hard” and “soft” determinism. Thomas Misa explains that “the “soft” view holds that technological changes combine with social reception and discrimination, resulting in an impact subject to social malleability. The “hard” view holds that technological changes impact culture autonomously and without social intervention” (Bogost, Montfort 6).

On the other side, Raymond Williams discusses technology as a medium that becomes available in an occurring process of social change. “This view emphasises other causal factors in social change. It then considers particular technologies, or a complex of technologies,as symptoms of change of some other kind” (293).

However, Willams also proposes a different interpretation: a combination of “restored intention to the process of research and development” while creating new technology, coupled with a central need, in purpose and practice, for the development of said technology (293).

This interpretation will allow us to investigate the initial purpose and goals behind a given technology, returning power to the research and development, while simultaneously restoring meaning to technology as a direct need, not as a marginal, symptomatic creation.

So can it be both? Isn’t it always?