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Introduction: What’s Culture Got to Do with It? 19

assumptions: if technology determines its users along specific value
sets, it is clearly not value-neutral, and if it is value-neutral, then it
clearly cannot determine its users along specific value sets. Moreover,
both philosophical assumptions—technological instrumentalism and
(hard) technological determinism—are called into serious question on
both theoretical and practical grounds in the chapters collected here
and in the larger literature. 19
Since Aristotle, philosophers have recognized that theory must
be tested and engaged in praxis (cf. Nichomachean Ethics, esp.
1179a35–1179b3). (Admittedly, philosophers have not always prac-
ticed this recognition!) To determine more carefully the fundamen-
tal assumptions underlying the prevailing conceptions of an
electronic global village—including their potential paradoxes and
contradictions—thus requires nothing less than an inquiry on a
global scale into what happens in praxis as CMC technologies are
taken up in diverse cultures. Such an inquiry, moreover, is by no
means of interest only to philosophers. Rather, it requires and in-
tersects directly with the full range of methodologies, approaches,
and insights of multiple disciplines, beginning with communication
theory and cultural studies. And of course, no single scholar or re-
searcher can hope to undertake such an inquiry as a solitary exer-
cise. This global inquiry simply requires an interdisciplinary
dialogue of global scope.
The first conference on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology
and Communication (CATaC’98) was devoted to just such an inter-
disciplinary global dialogue. As noted above, the papers collected
here—most originally presented at CATaC’98—represent some of
the best contributions. At this point, it may be helpful to note the
strengths and limits of CATaC’98, in order to develop a more com-
plete understanding of the larger context of these chapters, includ-
ing the trajectories for future research they and CATaC’98 limn out.

Cultural Limitations
On the one hand, CATaC’98 achieved an exceptional scope in terms
of the cultural domains represented by participants and presenters:
studies included North/South, East/West, Industrialized/Industrial-
izing, and Colonial/Indigenous countries/peoples. 20
But there were also striking absences: China, France and the
Francophone countries (except Switzerland) and Arabic/Islamic
21
countries were not represented. For that, in this volume, Deborah
Wheeler’s study of Internet usage in Kuwait provides important