Langdon Winner, Composing Cyberspace

Langdon Winner,
"Mythinformation"

Langdon Winner (b. 1944) is professor of political science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York); his work focuses on social and political implications of technological change. He formerly taught at the New School for Social Research, MIT, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. A sometime rock critic, Winner was a contributing editor for Rolling Stone in the 1960s and 1970s; he now writes a regular column for Technology Review, published by the MIT Alumni Association, called "The Culture of Technology." His books include Autonomous Technology (MIT Press, 1977) and The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (University of Chicago Press, 1986), from which this article is taken. Earlier versions of "Mythinformation" appeared in Research in Philosophy and Technology (ed. Paul T. Durbin; JAI Press, 1983) and the journal Whole Earth Review in 1985.

"Mythinformation" (Composing Cyberspace p. 226) is not available online.

1. Winner criticizes at length the "revolution" metaphor to describe changes wrought by emerging technologies in the 1980s. Find some current examples from newspaper, magazine, TV, or Internet coverage of the computer or network "revolution" and analyze them using questions and criteria suggested by Winner, such as those in ¶s 8, 9, 10. To what exent do you agree with Winner's conclusion that "it seems all but impossible for computer enthusiasts to examine critically the ends that might guide the world-shaking developments they anticipate" (¶ 7)?

2. Review the four key assumptions of "computer romantics," according to Winner (¶ 27). Which of these assumptions do you or did you share? How widespread do you find this set of beliefs to be, for example, in contemporary media coverage of the Internet? How persuaded are you by Winner's arguments questioning these assumptions?

3. "Current developments in the information age suggest an increase in power by those who already had a great deal of power, an enhanced centralization of control by those already prepared for control, an augmentation of wealth by the already wealthy" (¶ 24), writes Winner. How accurately do you think Winner predicted the social effects of increasing computerization over the past decade? For example, the growth of the Internet in the 1990s exceeded almost everyoneÕs expectations. To what extent do you think Winner underestimated the potential social uses of the Internet? To what extent do you think he accurately foresaw the commercialization of the Internet, the large profits generated by high-tech industries, or other economic and social trends?

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