The “World Wide” Web

Digital technology is something that we use second-handedly in our society. It’s a part of who we are. Technology in our society is abundant and its hardly a case where people don’t see another without some form of digital technology in their possession from smart phones, watches, or music devices. But “we” refers to only a significantly small portion of the world wide population (about 30%/ 2 billion out of a 7 billion) have access to the digital culture that North America and Europe thrive under.

What about those that don’t have access to the internet? Why aren’t they privileged to the same benefits of the digital technology we have access to? This is due to lack of economic resources, literacy and education that we have vastly available online and around us and other reasons. To create these devices, they need money which requires resources that can be refined and traded and placed on the market to make that money. Geographically speaking they just don’t have access to the same resources as us let alone tools to refine them into products to put on the market. This relates to why some societies are more advanced than others, which I recommend watching or reading Guns, Germs, and Steal. The point that is made, due to geographical locations, access to resources, and the medical technology available has placed societies in their current positions and explains partly why continents in Africa don’t have anything to do with the digital technologies that we have. Places such as Asia, have very limited access to the the full capabilities and resources loaded on the “world wide web”.

Not everyone that does have access to the Internet uses it the same way. Andrew Carver states that the digital technology and internet is the fastest growing invention toward education. Prior to the internet, education through what is considered “old fashion ways” such as lectures, taking tests, buying textbooks and reading. In this modern New Media era, knowledge and resources on how to build a house, creating a pipebomb, taking apart a car, learning about WWII, or learning how to make ice cream from scratch.

In this link to a Ted Talks, Steve talks about how because of the internet, it has drastically changed and challenged the previous conceptions of education and the pursuit of knowledge. Online schools and degrees are now available and this opposition to sit in classroom and get lectured when free resources are available at the tip their fingers. Technology plays a key role in shaping this institution, while not everyone is on board with this change and the fear of the machines replacing the leaders in these institutions, digital technology has and will forever be a major impact. Looking back on past fears of the written language, the printing press, to now; society has always over estimated the dangers of what will happen when these these technologies become a part of the society. Yes there are consequences to the introduction to these technologies, but one thing is for sure; they will continue to integrate into society with or without us.

Nakamura and the Monocultures

The computer has made several objective cultural changes. From military/academic purposes, turning to the internet, becoming a commercial and domesticated technology, introducing societies to “the new media”. Originally the computer started as a giant clunky machine used for the militaristic purposes. Once the war was over, they continued to use the technology for learning/academic purposes and in the turn of the 21st century, the computer became a domestic everyday household item to handheld item bringing some societies to the “New Media”

In Nakamura’s reading, she discusses how with the introduction of this “New Media”, new terminology is developed along with new languages that are practiced off and on the computer or in and on the Internet.
Manovich talkes about two “layers” to this new media; the cultural and computer layer. This is another way of talking about the the cultural layer being the contents of the media and the computer layer as the coding, infrastructure, and framework of the technology. He argues that the computer layer is influencing the cultural layer people often interact with. Such as the word stereotype which derives from machine language. He also mentions how the Internet strains this warped idea of a Utopian space in which alteration of the self image is feasible such as online avatars, cosmetic, etc.

During class we had discussed these controversial topics that have been around longer than the New Media in which the battle and struggle continues in this new digital space. These cybertypes are present in the New Media.
Things such as emoji’s that enforce this cultural gap in which over 800 characters are present and only two depict cultural diversity, but stereotypical manor that could be considered demeaning or derogatory.

Another example of the presence of racism still heavy in the New Media is Resident Evil 5. There was controversy on the game enforcing Western Notions on another culture through violence. Does this game re-enforce western “white supremacy?” The games protagonist is Chris Redfield; a White Western male. Throughout the game, Chris is traveling around Africa (where the virus originates) and is shooting native africans that have been infected and some that haven’t been. The pre-determined conditions that these natives are infected gives a good excuse for Chris to go around and shoot to his hearts content, but underlying hints of stereotyping and racism is shown with a woman being dragged away into a house by a native. This falls back to the white male dominant western figure who will fight his way through the game to find the truth. The game tries to represent cultural diversity by providing Chris with a female black character. Regardless of the controversy that the game brought it didn’t change the sales of the game and players logging on to fight off the infected.
Here is the article:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/02/10/editorial-is-resident-evil-5-racist

The belief that monocultures are being created through the New Media can be attributed that the Internet is a database that collects information. The culture created from the internet creates these subcultures and categorizes people and information into different places.

Digital Revolution is Upon Us

Blog #1: DTC 475: Chapter 1 Digitized Lives

After reading the first chapter, it’s given me a better view of the positives and negative impacts of digital technology to our society and placing a better scope on the accessibility of digital technology. It is stated in his book that around  4-5 billion people have no access to the digital world. So only around 2 billion people out of 7 billion people have access to the digital world. Reed goes on to explain that those that even with access vary in levels of access. I watched a documentary on how the Chinese Gov’t keeps close tabs on what their people can have access to and limit information in and out of the internet.

My impression of digital technology has always been a cynical view that it’s dumbing the world. In Frontlines documentary called “Digital Nation” they talk about how our generation has grown up accustomed to a fast pace life of information consistently being thrown at us. We have this need for “instant gratification” which results in us turning to short statements of information to process quickly and move on. Tumblr, failblog, reddit, instagram, pinterest all offer this way of feeding information to us instantly to occupy our time. People’s attention is meant for shorter and quicker information. When people text, words are often shortened or mispelled which has bled into the generations academic work.

The thing about the internet I dislike the most is the ability of taking on another identity; anonymous. Being anonymous can bring out the true colors of person without having to answer to their actions. It’s a dangerous place when people given the chance to say anything they want freely without a face or anything leading it back to them (generally IP addresses and other information can be traced, but not always done).

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Even though I’m cynical about how technology has dumbed us down and made us lazier and less impersonal and more impatient, Reed makes good points about the positives that come from the use of digital technology. Calculators change how we process and use information. We let the technology doing the thinking for us and spit out an answer, while our grandparents generation had to solve everything on their own. Granted the ability to solve problems by hand has made us slower, the process itself has sped up and made us more efficient in getting larger pools of data. Advancement in medical work and other scientific work has helped us advance further because of the digital technology we have access to.

What I am sure of is that digital technology isn’t something we can reverse and step away from as a society. Its a secondary part of our lives next to breathing and eating.