Content area
Full text
Book reviews
Conversation and Technology - From the Telephone to the Internet
Ian Hutchby
Polity Press
2000
232 pages
Hardback L50.00; paperback L14.99
Communication technologies affect the way we talk. Human conversation is structured according to rules and conventions, which are affected when we talk through, or with, technological artefacts. Based on the method of Conversation Analysis, Hutchby argues that we modify the rules in order to adapt to the particular affordances of communication technologies.
This concept borrowed from J.J. Gibson is the key in Hutchby's critique of the various theories emphasizing the social construction of technology. Artefacts, like other materials, allow some forms of use while excluding others. Hutchby defines this approach as relationist rather than realist, because the affordances of an object depend on the "species" in question, i.e. we do not enjoy the "walk-on-ability" of water utilized by some insects.
The fact that a telephone conversation always starts with an opening phase aimed at identifying caller and called and moving on to the issue of the phone call, reflects a media characteristic: people cannot identify each other by view, and there are...