media societies, individuals everywhere encounter themselves in a world
which becomes closed and virtualized, which, as the story of Narcissus
tells us, requires a fascination with media which extend this closed bubble
in which others become resolved into our own image.The youth Narcissus [from the Greek word narcosisor numbing] mistook his
own reflection in the water for another person. This extension of himself by
mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the ser vomechanism of his
own extended or repeated image. The nymph Echo tried to win his love with
fragments of his own speech, but in vain. He was numb. He had adapted
to his extension of himself and had become a closed system.
Now the point of this myth is the fact that men at once become fasci-
nated by any extension of themselves in any material other than them-
selves. (1994: 51)Medium theory argues that once technologies are integrated into a
‘way of life’, it may be difficult to be without them. Indeed, an individ-
ual’s intolerance at having a connection broken gives a precise measure of
how attached he or she is to that medium. It also changes our very con-
ception of what a medium is. McLuhan, for example, claimed that electric
light and the motor car are both mediums. It is certainly true that if either
stopped working in our immediate environment most of us would seek to
rectify this problem very quickly to the extent that we are very dependent
on them. In the case of transport, the centrality of travel in sustaining
community networks is never more visible than when it breaks down, be
this a public or private instance. Typically, a train strike or a flat battery is
thought of purely in terms of inconvenience. However, the propensity for
individuals to treat such events as moral crises suggests that they are sig-
nificant in ways much more to do with community.
In circumstances where our everyday actions become embedded in
technological networks, technology itself becomes transparent. The
philosopher Martin Heidegger pointed this out in his analysis of the way
in which technology destines the world to be revealed as a reserve of
utility (see Heidegger, 1997). When technology as ‘equipment’ is routinely
used to achieve given ends, the power that it holds can become taken for
granted as the technology itself becomes invisible. As Knorr-Cetina (1997)
explains of Heidegger: ‘Equipment becomes problematic only when it is
unavailable, when it malfunctions or when it temporarily breaks down.
Only then do we go from “absorbed coping” to “envisaging”, “deliberate
coping” and to the scientific stance of theoretical reflection of the properties
of entities’ (10).
The implications of Heidegger’s insight into the conditions of the
visiblity/invisibility of technology in everyday life are integrated by
Knorr-Cetina into an extremely novel account of the social bonds which
individuals form with technological objects.
Given that individuals must develop a certain ‘technical intelligence’
in order to cope with technological change, with switching between theTelecommunity 181Holmes-06.qxd 2/15/2005 1:03 PM Page 181