Summary Cynthia Selfe Meagan Cronin

Part A: In Cynthia L. Selfe’s essay, “Least We Think the Revolution is a Revolution Images of Technology and the Nature of Change” she states how technology is becoming so used now of days. She also contradicts herself very much. Cynthia Selfe states “Quite simply put, like many Americans, we hope computers can help us make the world a better place in which to live.”(pg293) Basically she is saying how Americans rely on computers so much to help us in our daily lives, but also to help other countries get better medicine or giving a computer to a less privileged child in Africa. She then begins to describe how even though we use technology so much and we love almost everything that it does we cannot be too careful in fully trusting computers. “This optimism about technology often masks in a peculiar way, however a contrasting set of extremely potent fears.” (pg 293) In her next chapter Cynthia describes how Americans tell each other how we hope that “technology will help create a global village in which the peoples of the world are all connected-communicating with one another and cooperating for the commonweal.” (pg 294) Basically what Selfe is saying is that things like mountains and ocarinas will not be in the way for people to communicate in other countries. The internet is going “to erase meaningless geographical borders, eliminate racial and ethnical differences, re- establish a historical family which binds people together…”(pg 294) As Selfe goes on she brings up pictures of advertising and she analyzes them. What most of the companies are doing are trying to related to the consumer. In this essay Cynthia is contradicting almost everything that she says. She feels that many women are taken advantage of and there is a certain stereo type about some women, that does not include gays or people of color. “To enrich the lives of their family and to meet their responsibilities at home…” (pg 307) What Selfe is trying to get across when she says this is that women are “supposed” to be able to have dinner on the table by 5:00 and take care of the house and the children while the husband it at work. Well now of days there is so many single parents both mothers and fathers that advertising is getting to the point where they need to sell to those certain people.
Part B: “We believe strongly in the beneficial ways that technology promises to improve our lives. At other levels, we fear the effects of technology, and the potent changes that it introduces into familiar systems.” (pg 292) Selfe uses evidence like when she is explaining how we use technology so much, and we think it is such a great thing that we are afraid to let it totally take over.
“They are laden with cultural information, shot through with the values, ideological positions, and social understandings that comprise our shared experience.” (pg 294) The evidence that Selfe uses is how when we watch a commercial Americans can break down the commercial to the point where they completely understand what it is saying. “..because we commonly construct meaning with and through them, because they are so loaded with social significance to us….” (pg 294)