Homework 3

Technological determinism, combined with Moore’s law, incorporates the view that the capacity of devices, especially to perform multiple functions, will naturally increase. The black box fallacy emerges under the logic that as capacity naturally increases technology has no choice but to allow all hardware to be combined into one black box. If it were simply up to technology, that might be the case, but this view does not take into account the cultural forces that also affect convergence. As Jenkins points out, we still have multiple black boxes for different contextual situation. “What we are seeing now is the hardware diverging while the content converges” (Jenkins, 2003, p. 15).

Two of Rogers’ five factors affecting diffusion, relative advantage and complexity, help illuminate the cultural aspects that make a single black box improbable (Gourville, 2006). A single black box does not currently offer a relative advantage over the plethora of devices we use. For example, a portable device for logging online has a smaller screen than one used at home. A single device would have to compromise between size and portability. Multiple devices have a relative advantage because they have the ability to offer many models with different functions, mobility, quality, and price. Diffusion of one black box would also be hindered by complexity. Some consumers find it complicated to work a computer or a DVD player, and those same consumers would see one black box as extremely complex.

Conflicting objectives among different industries also contribute to the reason a black box has not yet, and probably will never be, realized. Sony’s internal war provides a perfect example of how different industries want the same technological devices to have very different capabilities (Rose, 2003). If two branches of the same corporation cannot agree on product specifications, it is highly unlikely that society as a whole will ever reach one black box. It is likely that as technology increases we will see an increasing number of black boxes that better suit the needs of individual consumers.