How to anticipate a technology’s effects? An exploratory model inspired by McLuhan’s New Science and applied to Facebook

Abstract

The article aims to identify the main effects of social networking sites in contemporary culture, taking as its main object the Facebook. As a theoretical and methodological reference, the research adopts an exploratory proposition strongly inspired by a New Science as suggested by McLuhan. It implies the Laws of media, synthesized in the Tetrads (McLuhan McLuhan, 1988). As a result, the study proposes a set of Facebook effects in contemporary culture identified and mapped as new points and questions for future research. The study also presents a method of research which proposes an open dialogue with related disciplines to the field of communication. Moreover, the methodological approach adopted reveals itself as flexible and capable of dealing with depth descriptions of an object, accommodating chance and deviations - different from an orthodox methodological approach - as advocated by Feyerabend. Finally, the study recovers an important part of the work of McLuhan, yet little explored in the Brazilian Communication studies.