An ontological view of technologized communications supports critical analysis of broadly defined instrumental activities that include not only traditionally recognized media tools and products but also activity systems, operational sequences, and social arrangements. A triadic perspective integrates material (physical-artifactual) and discursive (sociocultural) dimensions, with attention to relational (mutual-personal) practices that underlie technology use and communication. The triadic field is the time-space in which artifacts are administered, meanings circulate, and human relations emerge. Modern and postmodern cities provide an illustration of this broad conception of technologized communications. Concluding discussion considers how technological “enframing” of experience can be offset by participatory openness supported by technologized communications. The emergence of human identity through technologized communications is presented as a focal value.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adams, R. (1975). Energy and structure. Austin: University of Texas Press.
2.
AlSayyad, N. (Ed.). (2001). Hybrid urbanism. Westport, CT: Praeger.
3.
Altheide, D. (1995). An ecology of communication. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
4.
Altheide, D. (2000). Identity and the definition of the situation in a mass-mediated context. Symbolic Interaction, 23(1), 1-27.
5.
Basalla, G. (1988). The evolution of technology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The human consequences. New York: Columbia University Press.
7.
Beniger, J. (1986). The control revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
8.
Borja, J., & Castells, M. (1997). Local and global. London: Earthscan.
9.
Brah, A., & Coombes, A. (Eds.). (2000). Hybridity and its discontents. London: Routledge.
10.
Brand, S. (1987). The media lab. New York: Viking.
11.
Buber, M. (1970). I and thou. New York: Scribner.
12.
Carey, J. (1989). Communication as culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
13.
Cassell, P. (1993). Introduction. In P. Cassell (Ed.), The Giddens reader (pp. 1-37). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
14.
Castells, M. (1991). The informational city. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
15.
Christians, C. (1997). Technology and triadic theories of mediation. In S. Hoover & K. Lundby (Eds.), Rethinking media, culture, and religion (pp. 65-84). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
16.
Couch, C. (1990). Constructing civilizations. Greenwich, CT: JAI.
17.
Couch, C. (1995). “Oh, what webs those phantoms spin,” SSSI distinguished lecture, 1994. Symbolic Interaction, 18(3), 229-245.
18.
Couch, C. (1996). Information technologies and social orders. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
19.
Coutard, O. (Ed.). (1999). The governance of large technical systems. London: Routledge.
20.
Dematteis, G. (1988). The weak metropolis. In L. Mazza (Ed.), World cities and the future of the metropolis. Milan: Electra.
21.
Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretive ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
22.
Duncan, H. (1965). Culture and democracy. New York: Bedminster.
23.
Earle, W. (1989). Evanescence. Sister Bay, WI: Caxton.
24.
Engeström, Y., & Miettinen, R. (1999). Introduction. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R.-L. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 1-16). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
25.
Feenberg, A. (1999). Questioning technology. London: Routledge.
26.
Feenberg, A. (2000). From essentialism to constructivism: Philosophy of technology at the crossroads. In E. Higgs, A. Light, & D. Strong (Eds.), Technology and the good life? (pp. 294-315). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
27.
Fitzsimons, D. (1995). Planning and promotion: City reimaging in the 1980s and 1990s. In W. Neill, D. Fitzsimons, & B. Murtagh (Eds.), Reimaging the pariah city (pp. 1-49). Aldershot, UK: Avebury.
28.
Garcia Canclini, N. (1995). Hybrid cultures. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
29.
Garcia Canclini, N. (2001). Consumers and citizens. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
30.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
31.
Giddens, A. (1987). Structuralism, post-structuralism and the production of culture. In A. Giddens & J. Turner (Eds.), Social theory today (pp. 195-223). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
32.
Gold, J., & Ward, S. (Eds.). (1994). Place promotion. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
33.
Graham, S. (2002). Communication grids: Cities and infrastructure. In S. Sassen (Ed.), Global networks, linked cities (pp. 71-91). New York: Routledge.
34.
Graham, S., & Marvin, S. (1996). Telecommunications and the city. New York: Routledge.
35.
Graham, S., & Marvin, S. (2001). Splintering urbanism. London: Routledge.
36.
Grossberg, L. (1996). Identity and cultural studies—Is that all there is? In S. Hall & P. du Gay (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 87-107). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
37.
Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs identity? In S. Hall & P. du Gay (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 1-17). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
38.
Hanks, W. (1996). Language and communicative practices. Boulder, CO: Westview.
39.
Hansen, M. (2000). Embodying technesis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
40.
Harvey, D. (1990). The condition of postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
41.
Hayles, N. K. (1999). How we became posthuman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
42.
Herman, E., & McChesney, R. (1997). The global media. London: Cassell.
43.
Hughes, T. (1987). The evolution of large technological systems. In W. Bijker, T. Hughes, & T. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems (pp. 51-82). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
44.
Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great American cities. New York: Vintage.
45.
Kostoff, S. (1991). The city shaped. Boston: Bulfinch Press.
46.
Kotler, P., Haider, D., & Rein, I. (1993). Marketing places. New York: Free Press.
47.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
48.
Lear, J. (1990). Love and its place in nature. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
49.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
50.
Leiss, W. (1990). Under technology's thumb. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.
51.
Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1993). Gesture and speech. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
52.
Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
53.
Levinas, E. (1981). Otherwise than being. The Hague, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
54.
Levinson, P. (1988). Mind at large: Knowing in the technological age. Greenwich, CT: JAI.
55.
Lofland, L. (1973). A world of strangers. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
56.
Lofland, L. (1998). The public realm. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
57.
Luhmann, N. (1989). Ecological communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
58.
Lynch, K. (1981). Good city form. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
59.
Lyon, D. (1994). The electronic eye. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
60.
Lyon, D. (2001). The surveillance society. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
61.
Marvin, C. (1989). Experts, black boxes, and artifacts: New allegories for the history of electric media. In B. Dervin, L. Grossberg, B. O'Keefe, & E. Wartella (Eds.), Rethinking communication, Vol. 2, paradigm exemplars (pp. 188-198). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
62.
Meier, R. (1962). A communications theory of urban growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
63.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.
64.
Mitcham, C. (1994). Thinking through technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
65.
Mitchell, W. (2000). E-topia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
66.
Morley, D., & Robins, K. (1995). Spaces of identity. London: Routledge.
67.
Mumford, L. (1961). The city in history. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
68.
Mumford, L. (1970). The culture of cities. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (Original work published 1938)
69.
Neill, W. (1995). Promoting the city: Image, reality, and racism in Detroit. In W. Neill, D. Fitzsimons, & B. Murtagh(Eds.), Reimaging the pariah city (pp. 113-161). Aldershot, UK: Avebury.
70.
Park, R., & Burgess, W. (1925). The city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
71.
Radder, H. (1996). In and about the world. Albany: State University of New York Press.
72.
Rappaport, R. (1979). Ecology, meaning, and religion. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
73.
Robins, K., & Webster, F. (1999). Times of the technoculture. London: Routledge.
74.
Sassen, S. (1991). The global city. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
75.
Schutz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
76.
Schutz, A., & Luckmann, T. (1973). The structures of the life-world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
77.
Sclove, R. (1995). Democracy and technology. New York: Guilford.
78.
Sennett, R. (1970). The uses of disorder. New York: Vintage.
79.
Simmel, G. (1950). The metropolis and mental life. In K. Wolff (Ed. & Trans.), The sociology of Georg Simmel (pp. 409-424). New York: Free Press.
80.
Suchman, L. (1987). Plans and situated actions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
81.
Tajbakhsh, K. (2001). The promise of the city. Berkeley: University of California Press.
82.
Tarr, J. A., Finholt, T., & Goodman, D. (1987). The city and the telegraph: Urban telecommunications in the pre-telephone era. Journal of Urban History, 14(1), 38-80.
83.
Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
84.
Taylor, J., & Van Every, E. (2000). The emergent organization. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
85.
Taylor, M. (1987). Altarity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
86.
Ward, S. (1998). Selling places. London: Routledge.
87.
Winograd, T. (1996). Bringing design to software. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
88.
Woodward, W. (1996). Triadic communication as transactional-participation. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 13(2), 155-174.
89.
Woodward, W. (2000). Design/communication as mutual-personal creative action. Cultural Studies: A Research Annual, 5, 337-362.
90.
Woodward, W. (2001). Triadic exchange as design practice. Communication Review, 4(2), 279-304.
