Mankind has a long history in dividing our past into era's or 'ages'. The Tool, Bronze, Dark Ages and so on. With the amazing development of technology in the last two centuries, eras have been named by their defining technology, the Machine, Automation, Atomic, Space Ages, and finally, the much celebrated Information Age, which is used to describe the current period of rapid technological change" {Spurgeon, 1992 #10}. This use of technologies to define the age we live in is widespread, but is generally acknowledged as a technological deterministic practise, as it supports the argument that technological invention drives social change. On the surface there is much to support this argument, however, when one delves deeper, you see how this is not the case, as there is also much to support the opposite to this argument, social constructionism. Since its early development in the 1890's, cinema has been one of the most popular and successful mass communication technologies ever created. Used for education, entertainment, escapism and propaganda, cinema was the entertainment for the masses. Due to this fact, then, film considerably influenced society and our way of life. However, it had also become apparent that society too has a huge influence over cinema. Consumer demand dictates, to a degree, what films are made, who stars in them, plot, setting and characterisation. It is my theory that both technological determinism and social constructionism are equally true, and that one doesn't cancel the other out, rather, that they compliment one another.
             Since the invention of the Kinetograph in 1890, by Thomas Edison, it took only four short years for the first commercial viewing parlour to open in New York. Using 35mm film with sprocket holes, this device set the standard for film production for the next 100 years. The theory of social constructionism, which states that technological development and change is d...