The Virtual World: A Tension between Global Reach and Local Sensitivity [2004]1 (original) (raw)
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CULTURAL BORDERS IN VIRTUAL SPACE: THE INTERACTION OF LOCAL CULTURES
Globalization trends leading to an intensification in migration processes and intercultural interaction. They are influenced by information society technologies, which guide interpersonal and intercultural communication through the virtual information space. The study of the socio-cultural specificity of the functioning of social networks as a new paradigm of social community and their impact on the transformation of the social structure has been initiated by new social practices and normative orientations and possibilities of social control over them. The effectiveness of the communication network as a universal sociocultural mechanism is the result of the coming into existence and functioning of culture in relation to social parameters. The use of information and communication technologies makes bridging intercultural boundaries much easier. As the overall number of Internet users has increased, so has not only the social significance of the networks, but also the numerous problems associated with personal self-identification in these communities, social practices, normative values and possibilities of social control over them. In these circumstances, the model of cultural identification and self-identification is not just transforming, but there are also new trends outlining themselves in the representation of the "cultural core". From here one can identify the major trends for development of cultural differentiation processes and for overcoming cultural boundaries in virtual space, which can both lead to intercultural dialogue and to the destruction of the "cultural kernel".
Social network systems and virtual environment as one of the consequences of the globalization process, and its influences on its users, are discussed in the present study. Some basic concepts, including the necessity of redefining and even reconceptualizing them, are discussed briefly. This research addresses the facilities as well as the attributes of Facebook as a Social Network System, and particular features of disembodiment, re-construction, and re-presenting social identities which are already constructed as a member of small societies. Due to this, "Whether 'virtual communication environments', 'social networks' are perceived as something like 'escape way' from socio-cultural restrictions or not" was questioned. For the purpose of the study, an online questionnaire consisting of 55 close-ended questions, with brief information about the purpose and the significance of the study, was posted at various FB users' profiles. However, only the first 100 volunteer 'Turkish Cypriot' users were taken as the sample.
The Cultural Imaginary of the Internet: Virtual Utopias and Dystopias
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Contemporary cultures offer contradictory views of the internet and new media technologies, painting them in extremes of optimistic enthusiasm and pessimistic foreboding. While some view them as a repository of hopes for democracy, freedom and self-realisation, others consider these developments as sources of alienation, dehumanisation and danger. This book explores such representations, and situates them within the traditions of utopian and dystopian thought that have shaped the Western cultural imaginary. Ranging from ancient poetry to post-humanism, and classical sociology to science fiction, it uncovers the roots of our cultural responses to the internet, which are centred upon a profoundly ambivalent reaction to technological modernity. Majid Yar argues that it is only by better understanding our society's reactions to technological innovation that we can develop a balanced and considered response to the changes and challenges that the internet brings in its wake.
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The last two decades have witnessed the world going through a transition which has been multidimensional and decisive. From business to personal life, education to training, information exchange, communication, beliefs and culturealmost everything has witnessed some kind of transformationnot only in terms of what we do but also how we do it. What is being witnessed in today's information age is the birth of a global culture. The most rapid technological developments in human history have taken place in the later part of last century and they have given rise to two contradicting transformations. On one hand, the technological advancements such as electronic and now computer-based communications systems have brought people together in unprecedented ways. Sitting in one corner of a room we can locate anybody on earth and connect and communicate with them. We can create and contribute to online communities in varied ways. On the other hand, some of the technological advancements have brought changes that have served to isolate individuals and communities. This is because of increased comforts and easy access to communication technology. This paper is an attempt to raise questions about how technology has started infiltrating our core values of the collective existence of human beings. The authors dig into disparate threads in research literature and review the finding. Putting together the threads, some conclusions have been drawn regarding the dual role played by the technology in our lives. It is an attempt to understand and make a strong argument that as a collateral damage, technology interventions are pushing us towards being lesser human.
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The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories
The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories, 2017
I first describe the personal genealogy and then history of what became the biennial conference series on "Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication" (CaTaC). The series, begun in 1998, was among the first scholarly efforts to foster critical attention to the rôles of culture and culturally variable norms, practices, and communicative preferences in the design, implementation, and responses to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially as connected via the internet. The beginnings of CaTaC in a particular experience of culture shock grounded its defining concerns with recognizing and thereby seeking to overcome ethnocentrisms embedded in both ICT design and research and scholarship on their diffusion and impacts across the globe: such ethnocentrisms could be observed to issue in a 2 "computer-mediated colonization," i.e., processes of cultural homogenization that thus threatened local cultural traditions and diversity. I review highlights and developments across the 16 years of the series, especially as they refract our defining concerns into four thematic foci: embodiment and gender; democracy and freedom of expression; design; and identity and selfhood. On balance, our signature concerns and critical attention to "culture" (an increasingly problematic concept) has become ever more mainstream since 1998: on the other hand, it is also apparent that the factors that incline both designers and scholars towards ethnocentrism remain. Hence our defining efforts to recognize and overcome such ethnocentrism, for the sake of avoiding cultural imperialism of various sorts, remain pressing and salient.