What is Critical Theory?

The authors of : "Critical Theory, Cultural Analysis and the Ethics of Educational Technology as Social Responsibility" see as "inherently concerned with [the] ethics of social responsibility and is rooted in the arts and humanities" (Yeaman et al, 1994). Which, to me, means the authors see Critical Theory (CT) as being a means of looking, in this case specifically at technology, at what effects a "thing" might have on society; are those effects good or bad?; why are they good or bad?, etc.

Coming from a literary background, I define critical theory as the lens through which people choose to view the world. People may choose to view the world through the eyes of a Marxist; which leads them to see all things in terms of class struggle and oppression. Likewise, the Feminist lens colors all things in terms of gender struggle and oppression. There are as many critical theories as you care to think of.

All critical theories have the same goal in mind: to make sense of the world with which we are confronted.

CT could prove useful in terms of instructional technology (IT) if IT were in largely uniform use throughout the world. The difficulty is that IT is NOT used uniformly throughout the world. It is difficult to use one lens to view a subject area as diverse as IT. Given IT's multitudinous variations and applications, any CT applied would be reduced to one of two things: painting its observations in strokes so broad as to be mostly useless when applied to the various distinct identities of IT OR critiquing the various applications of IT in such small batches as to be mostly useless to all but the niche market to whom the CT applies.

Of course...I could be wrong.

References
Yeaman, A. R. J., Koetting, J. R. , & Nichols, R. G. (1994). Critical theory, cultural analysis and the ethics of educational technology as social responsibility. Educational Technology. 34, 5-13.