ABSTRACT
The development of new technologies is an important, if not the most important, basis for speculation and action within modern societies. The recognition of technochoice is central for an understanding of the development and significance of technology in the modern era. Within technocratic and technophobic forms of thought there has been a great degree of speculation on the progressive and regressive consequences of technology, technique, science, industry, mechanicism, and so on. Technology can be examined as a necessary condition for the development of specific social arrangements and as providing the possibility for certain social advances to occur. Particular technologies impose specific costs upon definite sectors of the population. Technologies may have unintended effects or consequences which are not under the control of those responsible for their initial development. Williams examines the new communications technologies in a way that goes beyond the traditional focus on centralized private or public control of the media.
