DAY 220

SOCIAL & POLITICAL COMMENTARY

Technology

PORTRAYING SOCIAL IMPACT

The term “technology” is defined as “a manner of accomplishing a task, especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge.”¹ Technology has a long history, and each sector of society—transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, financial—has advanced in some way due to the impact of technology. As a social issue, technology includes communication—newspapers, books, and its latest incarnations, computers, cell phones, and PDAs—and how it affects patterns of social interaction. Social issues also include moral or ethical aspects of using a particular type of technology (embryonic research), changes in technology that usurp jobs and cause changes in employment (newspapers vs. the Internet), or allow larger numbers of people to work from home, thus causing changes in social interaction.

Convey technology’s social impact—place it into a timeline, give it a point of reference, apply it to a place, an industry, or an event. Give it contrast—pair old with new, version against version, one brand with another. Reveal its impact through the use of scale (size), color, and placement within a composition. Inform the viewer of its place in social infrastructures by using repetition and order. Include the tools, people, and processes for a complete survey. —MLR

Men and a woman reading headlines posted in street-corner window of Brockton Enterprise newspaper office on Christmas Eve, Brockton, Massachusetts. Photo by Jack Delano; Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.