CRITIQUE

1. In particular, Winner is worried that flashy consumer gadgets marketed to us to fill our needs as individuals mask profound social or collective consequences. This a pattern he sees throughout the early 20th century, where the modern world was to be a place in which personal desires would be fulfilled through consumption of industrially produced commodities but missing from the picture was any attention to collective goods and collective problems.”

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2. I think Winner’s argument is a persuasive one, and I like the way he uses a broad historical set of examples from the early 20th century to make his point about looming 21st century technological change. I wish he would say more about, why “market forces” are not enough by themselves, to indicate what kinds of technologies would be best for us to choose as a society of consumers.

• Introduction

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3. In this article from 1996(before Google, before You tube, before Facebook), philosopher of technology Langdon Winner argues that in terms of online information systems, to invent a new technology requires that society also invents the kinds of people who will use it.

• Introduction

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4. The effects that concern Winner the most seem to be political ones. Winner introduces the term “myth information” to point out the danger of holding the simplistic, utopian view that “the spread of information machines is somehow inherently democratic and that no one needs to lift a finger to achieve democratization and create a good society.

• Introduction

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5. In the end, Winner wants us to avoid sleepwalking through periods of technological change-what he calls “technological somnambulism” and instead make active choices about what technologies we use, and how we use them. This is a special responsibility for those in the information industries, working as creative or engineers to build these new systems and insert them into workplaces, schools and homes: “Persons whose professional work gives them insight into the choices that matter must be diligent in expressing their knowledge and judgements to a broad public.”

• Introduction

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6. It is about making judgment of the work’s worth or value.

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7. State the significance or importance of each part of the text or art.

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8. Examine how the structure and language of the text or art convey its meaning.

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9. Give the reader a sense of the writer’s overall purpose and intent.

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It is a subjective writing because it expresses the writer's opinion or evaluation of a text.