Term Paper on "Explore Jodi Deans Claim That Publicity Represents the Ideology of Technoculture"

Term Paper 17 pages (5214 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Technoculture

Jodi Dean makes the claim that publicity represents the ideology of technoculture. Analyzing this idea requires considering the meaning of publicity and the nature of technoculture as well as how the two fit together. Technoculture arguably identified the cultural system we live in today, a system marked by the widespread use of technology. More than this, we can say that the technology used has become pervasive and links business, entertainment, and social life in a more and more seamless way as people accept the potential of technology while often failing to see the way their lives and interactions are being changed by technology. Some of the concerns raised about this by critics of the changes sound much like whistling in the wind. The growth and dissemination of technology is now unstoppable, and the direction taken by the culture evolves automatically based on the technological choices made by consumers. Technoculture embraces both old and new technology and is based on a view of the supremacy of technology as a force and a conduit for communication, and publicity as the ideology of technoculture shows that more and more communication involves a form of self-advertising for companies, organizations, movements, and individuals alike.

Technoculture and Publicity

Dean (2002) views technoculture as being trapped in what she calls "a weird matrix," noting that "at just that moment when everything seems fully public, the media pulses with invocations of the secret" (p. 1). Dean notes how the media uses secrets as demonstrations of vulnerability and emphasizes security as a way of gathering and protecting secrets. A second and seemingly opposing aspect of technoculture is a seeming openness that is also characterized as more democratic than other actions in the public forum and that involves the exposure of the intimate:

That is to say, technoculture materializes aspirations long associated with the public sphere. Indeed, it sometimes seems a machinery produced by the very ideals inspiring democracy. Advances in computer-mediated interaction provide ever-greater numbers of people with access to information. No longer a privilege of the elite, information is available to anyone with a computer. Similarly, more people have opportunities to register their thoughts and opinions on political topics than ever before. Chat rooms, cybersalons, and e-zines are just some of the new electronic spaces in which people can participate as equals in processes of collective will formation (Dean 2002, p. 2).

Some theorists see the new technology as reflecting the ideal of the public sphere in that it offers universal access, uncoerced communication, freedom of expression, participation outside of traditional political institutions, and contributes to the creation of public opinion by means of public discussion. The fuel in the system is publicity, which links together the ideals of openness, inclusivity, visibility, equality, accessibility, and rationality (Dean 2002, p. 2). The new technology, like much of the old, carries the culture to the masses, and as Dean (2000) writes, "Cultural politics is about altering the boundaries that order American democracy" (p. 78).

Sclove (1995) takes the view that technologies "promote unintended social consequences" (p. 10), and the recognition of this fact has produced a number of concerns. Many have worried that the widespread use of the Internet will harm human interaction and reduce the sense of community in society, though others argue that this is not the case. Esther Dyson also refers to the way Americans in particular revere frontiers, and for her, cyberspace is a new frontier, a "place where you can go and be yourself without worrying about the neighbors" (in Kennedy, Kennedy, & Aaron 1997, p. 640). She says that what attracts people to cyberspace is that it is so different than the community they are accustomed to in their usual lives, and one difference is that cyberspace involves a degree of freedom not possible elsewhere. It brings together many different communities under one heading:

Formerly a playground for computer nerds and techies, cyberspace now embraces every conceivable constituency: schoolchildren, flirtatious singles, Hungarian-Americans, accountants -- along with pederasts and porn fans. Can they all get along? (in Kennedy, Kennedy, & Aaron 1997, p. 640).

In 1998, an early study by Robert Kraut, a professor of social psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, found that the Internet was dangerous to one's social and psychological well-being. Tranvik (2001) asks the key question when he asks about the new technologies "will they cause unimaginable levels of social isolation, or will they bring a new society with a friendlier face" (para. 1).

The fear has been that they will bring more isolation, while many users believe they interact more with others online than they do in life. Cyberspace most certainly does constitute a new community to which virtually anyone may belong, and how helpful or harmful this may be will be clear in time.

However, seeing the Internet as a separate community does not mean that this is a community completely isolated from the physical surroundings of the user, and it also does not mean a community that cannot be reached by the political and social forces of the socio-political entities of the real world. At one time, it was thought that the Internet could not be controlled, but to a degree, it can. Countries like China and Saudi Arabia have found ways to block large portions of the Internet and criminalize access to those sites. Of course, this is precisely why countries like Canada are considering doing something to correct the situation, but it must be recognized that governments will not give up their power willingly. Just as technology can overcome many obstacles governments might place in the user's way, so can governments track users more thoroughly and so may be able to identify who is by-passing their controls, leading to retaliation. In addition, they would certainly see a need to retaliate against Canada. The new technology is liberating and democratizing as it gives everyone access to information as never before, but the process can be slowed to a great extent by a hostile government and even by attackers like viruses and worms.

Privacy and Access

While much of the emphasis has been on the growth in new media technology, in fact all media are becoming more integrated and even coordinated. This creates both a huge body of data for anyone to access but also raises more and more concerns about privacy at the same time, as Dean (2002) notes when she writes,

On the one hand, interconnected media exacerbate the drive for content, for the scoop, for information, in their competition for audience. There must be some secret out there that has not yet been revealed. On the other hand, with the abundance of information available on the Internet, cable television, and radio come more personal concerns about the disintegration of privacy (Dean 2002, pp. 71-72).

Privacy in the new media environment is diminishing by the day as we are all monitored by cameras and other means throughout the day, meaning, as Dean (2002) states, "We are all potential information" (p. 72).

In terms of computer technology, different solutions to the problem of privacy have been implemented, with encryption being one of the solutions implemented for a wide variety of types of communication. Encryption means the coding of messages and data files sent across the Internet, preventing third parties from reading the message, while the intended receiver may decode the message and read it. This means that the recipient must have access to a special key, or block of encoded data, that unlocks the message, allowing the receiver to display it as an image, hear it as a sound file, or otherwise recreate it in its original form. Encryption of this sort may be achieved in a variety of ways, such that the approach can be used not only for Internet file transfers but also for telephone transmissions, the sending of cable and television signals, and other firms of electronic information transfers. Some of the methods of encryption depicted below are used because they have been shown to be effective, and these will continue to prevail so long as they are effective.

Encryption emerged as a political issue in the 1992 when the Clinton Administration proposed a law requiring the including of what became known as a Clipper Chip in every decide that could encode messages, thus allowing the government to decode messages under certain circumstances. This proposal was seen as a challenge to privacy. Concerns about protection with encryption are only one of the concerns raised about privacy, but clearly privacy is a major concern of computer users today. Dockrill (1987) points to the usual concerns about invasion of privacy by computer and finds that many of these scenarios focus upon deliberate efforts of governmental agencies, cloaked within their administrative powers, to amass and utilize more and more information concerning individuals or the activities of individuals or organizations. Certain specific proposals have caused particular concern, such as that for the establishment of a National Data Center in the early 1970s. Dockrill then notes:

Throughout the literature,… READ MORE

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