IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 77

who wish to conduct research regarding the technological shortages of Korean society are facing various problems in choosing the right topic. He sees the answer to
the question in the fact that technology is an imported
phenomenon in Korean society [4]. This is at variance
with Ihde's ideas. Ihde believes the problem of the lack
of the transfer of technology infrastructure lies in the
lack of students of science and in the absence of proper
economic infrastructure.
Perhaps we may accept management weaknesses in
countries that are not industrialized, but the question
remains as to why economic, social, and institutional
infrastructure are not properly achieved in most countries where technology is barely in conflict with the culture of those societies. Is there not any connection
between social, political, and economic institutionalization with major cultural connections? If this is the case,
then, should we not expect Ihde's answer to explain the
theoretical aspects of this cultural connection between
technology and the target community? Ihde is only giving a policy-making and managerial answer and ignoring
the cultural and social aspects of technology transfer.
Many institutional discrepancies that would result in the
lack of proper infrastructure for the transfer of technology in the target communities is a result of the cultural
contradictions of new technology with the social context
of those communities. The fundamental solution to
these institutional discrepancies, or as Ihde puts it, the
lack of technology transfer infrastructure, is the solution
to the problem of the localization of technology, or in
other words, creating a framework for understanding
and analyzing this issue.
Ihde's thoughtful and comprehensive response to
this question can be derived from another important
concept in his thoughts. Ihde introduces the new concept of pluriculture, which is a postmodern form of
multiculture. According to Ihde, pluriculture will shape
the future culture of the modern world. Pluriculturalism refers to a state of the cultural life of today's man
in which different cultures are intertwined and comprise a global form of contemporary human life. From
Ihde's point of view, as the Copernican Revolution
denied the centrality of the earth, and the Darwinian
revolution decentered anthropocentrism, the pluricultural revolution will eliminate the cultural centrality of
the West and bring about the recognition of other cultures as well. This is the last step in the evolution of the
new civilization, in which various societies are trading
culture in a diverse market, offering something and
receiving something else, and each one plays its own
role in shaping the new culture. What makes such an
important revolution possible is the growth and
development of communication technologies, especially image technologies such as television and cinema.
DECEMBER 2020

∕

According to Ihde, it is true that media tools are not
neutral, but because of their two-sidedness, they have
become a place for cultural and pluricultural exchanges
[17, pp. 65-70].

A Critique of Ihde's Ideas about Pluriculture
Pluriculture can be an answer to our central question
about the relationship between culture and technology for
it eliminates the distance between cultures and their differences in the process of intertwining cultures. In other
words, Ihde's pluriculture which, in his view, is the final
destination of the new civilization, questions our question
and downplays the basis of cultural conflicts, at least for
the future of globalization based on technology [19].
Firstly, in examining Ihde's response, one can criticize the two-sidedness of the media and the possibility
of cultural exchanges using communication technologies. Ihde seeks to illustrate a non-westernized globe
with media, in which different cultures have a peaceful
partnership in building a new culture for the man of the
21st century. For several years, especially in the 20th
century, different scholars have undermined the theory
that media is a medium for connecting thoughts and
cultures to each other from various perspectives. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer criticize the media as
one of the tools of " cultural technology. " Media, from
their point of view, is dependent on the capitalist
dynamic to maximize profits rather than fostering freedom of thought, and serves the interests of hegemonic
capitalism and its interests in shaping the mentality of
the people [15]. Following his famous quote " The medium is the message, " Marshal McLuhan states that the
notion that a medium is a mere form is false and mediums themselves contain a message [30, pp. 7-23]. This
theoretical statement of McLuhan later became the subject of quantitative testing by researchers. One of these
samples was an interesting research project conducted
by Ronald Yaros on the effects of two types of edited
news stories on 235 non-expert individuals. The results
confirmed McLuhan's theory [41].9
From criticizing Ihde's views regarding media, we
shall now move on to more important criticisms. Let us
suppose that the media provides humankind with a twosided and fair means of communication between different cultures. In this way, pluriculture must be a
synthesis of different cultures that, from the basic to the
superstructure,10 will be a combination of different cultures. This idea of Ihde's may be partly confirmable in
terms of the cultural superstructure of contemporary
9

To study more about this context, refer to [7] and [24].
10
These terms have been discussed for a long time in cultural studies, but
here we use these word merely in order to show the differences of the deep
layers of cultures and their superstructural layer (i.e., customs and habits).
For more details, refer to [1].

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020