Whose voice is it anyway?
After four weeks into this subject (Writing and Editing for the Digital Media), reading all the ‘readings’, participating in the class discussions, reading all the blogs and responding (after hibernating for 4 weeks!) - there is one issue that keeps popping up every time I think about this phenomena called the WWW, internet, Web 2.0, hypertext, etc. I'll admit that my approach is more of a ‘half-empty glass’ kind of approach, rather than a bright, sun-shiny one.
I do love the euphoria of this whole new virtual imagined community sans borders, surpassing time zones - blogging away, uploading home-made videos, creating virtual social networks, getting their voices heard, becoming the reason for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: You (in December 2006), etc. What I think about is - who is this ‘You’? And hence who is NOT this 'You'? I know several of them. They fall under this category, not because they are:
(a) puritanical and resist any new change (sort of prudish, wowsers)
(b) arch pessimists (the ‘Nay’ - this won’t work folks)
(c) phobic and scared to try new things (I fall under this category)
(c) phobic and scared to try new things (I fall under this category)
(d) just plain indolent and/or indifferent
The reason is because they are so completely excluded from everything! ‘Oral’ communities - where there is NO exposure to any form of ‘written’ language (any language, in any written medium!). What are called ‘No literacy’ societies. http://faculty.law.pitt.edu/hibbitts/or-lit.htm
There are several such societies that have never seen a newspaper in their lives. Where NGOs work with them to try and set up a library so they can see what print looks like! As you may imagine - all this also accompanies other sister concerns like no electricity, no piped drinking water, etc. And they are not in this condition because of war or because they are refugees, or anything. Just by virtue of being marginalized for centuries. Centuries of oppression and disadvantage. Then of course there are those that are probably slightly better off than them - but have no exposure to the English language! NONE of these people, and several others excluded from this phenomena because of several other reasons - comprise the ‘You’ that Time magazine hails as the Person of the Year!
So, is the WWW a truly global phenomenon that is setting the whole world free? That’s the myth. Like the Gutenberg Myth. Gutenberg Myth social theorists and anthropologists try to dispel the notion that the single technological invention of the ‘printing press’ - released the whole world from illiteracy, as SOON as it was invented. The counter theory states that there were several other social and technological phenomena (cost of paper, etc) that needed to be in place before the whole world was set free! (Scott D.N. Cook, ‘Technological Revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth’, Internet Dreams, London: MIT Press, 1997).
The internet has set some people ‘free’. Many others are still trapped exactly where they were even as far back as 50 years ago! I wonder about the ‘excluded’ just as I am happy about the ‘included’... But if you are happy to accept that those it excludes don’t matter and only those that matter are the neo-liberal, democratic voices of the heard, then yeah - it’s global! Not many seem to want to admit or even discuss the large sections that are very much in the realm of exclusion! It’s just something to bear in mind I thought, while we revel in all the great things happening with the internet and all its spiralling, snowballing, cascading effects on our lives ... (changes in news journalism formats, using bloggers’ opinions as credible sources in polemical pieces, print newspaper vs online, subscription for online news, twitter being hacked, etc etc!)
So, is the WWW a truly world-wide phenomenon that is setting the whole world free? It definitely has the potential to BE - maybe 10, 20, 100 years from now. But right now - it’s anything but ‘global’.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=zgBrXkE6p9wC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=Technological+Revolutions+and+the+Gutenberg+Myth&source=bl&ots=ru_Y4PKTKX&sig=DHB2rQlABZgmxTXI61FpNF8dWoI&hl=en&ei=p5SKSs--KMGdkAWJr6gk&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
The reason is because they are so completely excluded from everything! ‘Oral’ communities - where there is NO exposure to any form of ‘written’ language (any language, in any written medium!). What are called ‘No literacy’ societies. http://faculty.law.pitt.edu/hibbitts/or-lit.htm
There are several such societies that have never seen a newspaper in their lives. Where NGOs work with them to try and set up a library so they can see what print looks like! As you may imagine - all this also accompanies other sister concerns like no electricity, no piped drinking water, etc. And they are not in this condition because of war or because they are refugees, or anything. Just by virtue of being marginalized for centuries. Centuries of oppression and disadvantage. Then of course there are those that are probably slightly better off than them - but have no exposure to the English language! NONE of these people, and several others excluded from this phenomena because of several other reasons - comprise the ‘You’ that Time magazine hails as the Person of the Year!
So, is the WWW a truly global phenomenon that is setting the whole world free? That’s the myth. Like the Gutenberg Myth. Gutenberg Myth social theorists and anthropologists try to dispel the notion that the single technological invention of the ‘printing press’ - released the whole world from illiteracy, as SOON as it was invented. The counter theory states that there were several other social and technological phenomena (cost of paper, etc) that needed to be in place before the whole world was set free! (Scott D.N. Cook, ‘Technological Revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth’, Internet Dreams, London: MIT Press, 1997).
The internet has set some people ‘free’. Many others are still trapped exactly where they were even as far back as 50 years ago! I wonder about the ‘excluded’ just as I am happy about the ‘included’... But if you are happy to accept that those it excludes don’t matter and only those that matter are the neo-liberal, democratic voices of the heard, then yeah - it’s global! Not many seem to want to admit or even discuss the large sections that are very much in the realm of exclusion! It’s just something to bear in mind I thought, while we revel in all the great things happening with the internet and all its spiralling, snowballing, cascading effects on our lives ... (changes in news journalism formats, using bloggers’ opinions as credible sources in polemical pieces, print newspaper vs online, subscription for online news, twitter being hacked, etc etc!)
So, is the WWW a truly world-wide phenomenon that is setting the whole world free? It definitely has the potential to BE - maybe 10, 20, 100 years from now. But right now - it’s anything but ‘global’.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=zgBrXkE6p9wC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=Technological+Revolutions+and+the+Gutenberg+Myth&source=bl&ots=ru_Y4PKTKX&sig=DHB2rQlABZgmxTXI61FpNF8dWoI&hl=en&ei=p5SKSs--KMGdkAWJr6gk&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Yeah - there's that great quote, "the future is already here, but it's unevenly distributed" (or something like that).
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, technology has already been "unevenly distributed" for centuries, more or less, right? In that case: will the internet make this "unevenness" better or worse? If things are changing, will they now change faster or slower?
Absolutely. We are yet to invent or discover - a single, truly, uniform uniting force!! Point is - do we all want one or feel the need for one? I certainly hope the internet is doing that or will do that, much better than and much faster than its predecessors - press, telegraph, telephone, tv, radio (not in that order!)
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Always good to remember there not only is there more to the world than the corners of the internet that you frequent, there is more to the world than the internet and its current users. Even when everyone has potential access to things like the internet, it may be worth noting that some people might not want it! More power to those that can live full and satisfying lives without it; they'll at least be less distracted!
ReplyDelete