How do technologies become cultural technologies?

Terry Flew explains that we first need to look at the three levels of understanding technologies:Understanding technologies not simply as physical objects tools and artefacts.Recognising the content they produce and their contexts of use.And the systems of knowledge that accompany their use and development.

Once we understand that technology can be merely a tool used to create something or interact with others in society and thus impact on, and enhance culture. When this starts happening, we start to see the role of the technology changing from being a tool, to becoming part of the culture itself. Think about myspace of facebook. These technologies have augmented culture and in the same right, become a form of culture themselves.

'The concept of cultural technologies is a way of understanding technologies not simply as material forms that impact upon culture, but rather as themselves cultural forms' (Flew T.2005)

Langdon (in Flew) sums it up by saying that "technologies are not merely aids to human activity but also powerful forces acting to reshape that activity and its meaning".

Flew, T. (2005). New Media