Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Technological Power Trip
Just to recap, I am writing on the various uses of technology. My last paper began a comparison of China to 1984 where I examined governmental use of Internet filtering and gross information restrictions. To extend the argument, with this paper I am mainly focusing on the opposing forces at work here. On one hand, with the rise of new media and continuous advances in technology, there seems to be an unlimited opportunity for opposition to launch counter-government attacks to undermine Communism's staunch authority. On the other hand, however, the government is adapting just as quickly. They are utilizing new means to squish out any form of opposition be it in the physical world or cyber space. To link in again with my continuing comparison to 1984, I am examining new media as a marker: whether it prevents Orwell's hypothetical world from ever truly existing, or if it will lead to its inevitable domination.
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I found an article "Does social media produce groupthink?" I know I could probably do something with Diigo but I haven't completely figured it out yet, so here's the link.
ReplyDeletehttp://inventorspot.com/articles/does_social_media_produce_groupthink_30660
Be sure to check out Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where the Chinese issues are thoroughly discussed. In particular, see the "Chinese Internet and Civil Society" conference (both past and present). An abstract from the upcoming June 2010 conference by Jia Dai sounds very relevant ("Public Deliberation in Chinese Blogosphere: A Study on Social Issues" - http://circ.asia/abstracts/). It articulates the opposing ways blogs are seen to function (not just in China).
ReplyDeleteWhat you're saying here suggests a conflict in China between traditional physically violent ways of forcing obedience and more modern coercion through capitalism. Might the new crack-downs in China be those of "Authoritarian Capitalism," as this article suggests? It seems like the decision to coerce physically vs. monetarily is one worth looking at in a capitalized "communist" country.
ReplyDeletehttp://naturalorder.ufm.edu/?p=134
This relates back to the issue of "Digital Natives" our classmate Heather is researching. There's the possibility that unless the people of China attain more access to the internet than the government is allowing, they will increasingly become foreigners to important sites in cyberspace that the government frequently traffics. Thus, the government will have the upper hand because of the native familiarity with those sites they have and the people don't.
ReplyDeleteSee second to last quote on page sixteen of http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/2010survey/PIP_Future_of_internet_2010_institutions.pdf