Chapter ten rounds out this volume with a survey of literary and cinematic attempts to confront the impact of computer technology on our identities and societies. Beginning with literary depictions of technologies, ranging from Frankenstein to Neuromancer, the authors explore texts that decry computers as weakening the power of human bodies, strengthening the control of corporations over public life, and speeding the pace of human existence beyond our ability to cope. Turning to film, the chapter describes the contest between human and machine in movies ranging from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tron, WarGames, Blade Runner, AI: Artificial Intelligence, to The Matrix Trilogy. While reviewing other texts like magazine advertisements and comic strips, this chapter emphasizes the power of pop culture to shape our understanding and usage of computer technology, while inspiring today's engineers to imagine the machines of tomorrow.

 

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While the chapter outlines pieces of literature and film to illustrate ways in which popular culture reflects social responses to technology, there are plenty of other media from which students may draw their analysis. The week before classroom discussion of chapter ten, ask students to select one newspaper cartoon that humorously addresses an issue addressed in the course. Students shall reproduce the cartoon on an overhead transparency (or create handouts) and offer a 1-2 minute oral summary of the cartoon's purpose and implications.

While certain cartoons such as Dilbert, PC and Pixel, Foxtrot, and Adam@Home will appear to be obvious choices for this activity, invite your students to focus on cartoons whose characters and message do not typically confront technological issues. The purpose of this activity, after all, is to outline ways in which all sorts of pop culture texts address the impact of technology on our lives.

While giving their presentations, students should consider the following questions: how does the cartoonist seek to provide "equipment for living" to the reader? In other words, in what ways does the cartoon help the reader deal with some manner of tension, regret, guilt, or apparent failing in regards to technology? For excellence in this presentation, the student should make at least one reference to one of the pieces of literature or film discussed in the chapter. 

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Download a PowerPoint slideshow for this chapter 

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To request sample test questions, contact Matthew Smith at <msmith@wittenberg.edu>. [Instructors only. Proof of institutional affiliation will be required.]

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Longo, R. (Writer). (1995). Johnny Mnemonic [Film]. Culver City, CA: TriStar Pictures.

This film serves as a bookend of sorts to the more simplified depiction of cyberspace suggested in chapter one, when we proposed viewing the 1982 film, Tron. While Johnny Mnemonic is not a great film by any means, its depiction of the online environment as a graphically rich site of physical sensations continues to intrigue students more than a decade after the film's release. Compare and contrast Tron and Johnny Mnemonic. How have our perceptions and expectations of cyberspace changed? Is there any likelihood that Johnny Mnemonic's imagination of the online environment may come to pass?

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