尼尔·波兹曼的技术风险认知思想分析

An analysis of Neil Postman's Technology Risk Perception

技术风险认知是当代工程技术的一大难题,其面临两个悖论:一方面工程师希望人们对新技术的认知达到更高水平,但由于技术受益者的趋利性而产生的信息鸿沟阻碍人们的技术认知;另一方面人们对技术风险的接受既期望于工程师和专家,又对专家意见持怀疑态度。因此,要解决技术风险认知的问题就首先要解决风险信息的问题。尼尔·波兹曼用从媒介到技术的研究进路来研究技术和人类的关系,这种研究进路的优点有二:其一是从技术和思维两个角度出发衍伸出来的技术风险认知观以媒介作为技术代表,从媒介特性细化了技术风险,并把细化的技术风险放在技术文化中去研究,形成一个整体;其二是把媒介、信息作为技术主体,将技术风险研究回归到技术。

Technology risk perception is a major challenge to contemporary engineering. It also faces two dilemmas. Firstly, engineers expect that people can achieve a higher level of perception of new technologies, while this kind of perception has been hindered by the information gap generated from technology beneficiaries＇ inclination to profits. Secondly, people＇ s acceptance of technology risk relies on engineers and experts, whereas they are also skeptical about experts＇ opinions. Therefore, to solve the problem of technology risk perception we must solve the problem of risk information in advance. Neil Postman investigated the relationship between technology and humankind via the approach which is from media to technology. There are two advantages of this approach： the first one is that the technology risk perception derived from technology and thought takes media as the technological representative and specify the technology risk in terms of media properties, so that the specified technology risk can be studied as a whole in the culture of technology. The second one is that the media and information can be taken as the technical subject, and the study of technology risk can be returned to technology itself.