Writing a Digital History with Digital Documents

Abstract

The popular image of technology and social change is one where the development of our society is persistently driven by new technological discoveries. In this relationship humans have come to accept that our society will frequently become rewritten by great technological progress. As such, taking a historical approach to social change is often drawn upon in the sociological study of science, technology and innovation. We look back across the changes in our history to understand the role technology and innovation had in getting us to where we are today. Such technological determinism believes that our technological revolutions have made us and our modern condition (Williams, 2003). Writers such as Toffler (1981) and Poster (1995) posit grand societal changes as being driven by technological innovations, and point to the inherent capacities of a technology as the elements that define those transformations.