“Era bom que trocássemos umas ideias sobre o assunto”: análise à retórica da tecnologia

Abstract

Technology, especially information and communication technologies, is a central variable in modern propaganda. Propaganda implies someone having powerful means of spreading a message, a possibility guaranteed by technique. This relationship can be drawn under a second form: technology as propagated content. The aim of this paper is to analyze this aspect, but articulating it with the material disposition of technology in everyday life as an also propagandistic way of presenting it. To this end, the concepts of "propaganda"by Jacques Ellul and "rhetoric"by Michel Meyer are articulated. In Ellul, propaganda is a totalizing practice; in Meyer, rhetoric is about questioning, an aspect sometimes absent of media - a fact associated with propaganda. It is believed that technology today presents itself as a totalization and with lack of questioning about its orientation. To demonstrate this, a set of cases and data are shown that identify the existence of a rhetoric of contundency in the communication of technology (called “front plane”) and in the experience of technical artifacts as consumer goods in everyday pragmatics (called “background plane”). In sum, an analysis is made of the state of the discussion about technical development, checking its weakness and highlighting its ethical and political implications.