How Is the Internet Reshaping What We Mean by Culture - Research Paper Example

How is the Internet reshaping what we mean by culture? What implications does the Internet have for individuals, organizations, and society? The Internet and the Technological Advancement One of the he most significant technological progresses in the last century is the advent of the Internet. The advancement in the world of communication has been phenomenal as the Internet has reduced the distances and made the world a smaller place than ever before. With this technological advancement, information access has become easy. E-commerce makes it possible for an individual to make a transaction in any part of the world within a matter of few clicks. Therefore, it would be fair to say that over the past few years, the Internet has become an economical, cultural and ideological phenomenon (Agre, 2002). This article aims at exploring the impact of the Internet on the culture and finding out the implications that the Internet has brought for individuals, organizations and the society. To explore the implications of the Internet on culture, it is also important to understand what culture is. According to Damen culture is, “learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day living patterns” (Damen, 1987). In simple terms, culture the learned and shared behaviour of a community of interacting human beings (Useem et al, 1967). Culture is a very diverse term that has numerous connotations depending on the society. However, it is clear that any concept of human interaction and patterns of human living involves a certain culture. The Internet has certainly revolutionized the interaction and the pattern of living. Therefore, the Internet is definitely reshaping ‘culture’. We can illustrate this with the help of a simple example. Though the Internet has been crucial in reducing the distance by serving as a means of communication, it has also created a divide among the people who are online and who are not online. Therefore, the process of bridging the gap has actually contributed to creating a digital divide. This is more evident when we think about the developed nations and the under-developed nations. The under developed nations are most often the excluded category with the onset of what is known as ‘cyber culture’. Has the Internet made an impact on culture? When we analyze the phenomenon called the internet, we can see that the Internet is very powerful because of two main reasons. Firstly, the Internet serves as the biggest resource of information and secondly, it provides an interactive medium to communicate and share the information that is available. To add to this, the information on the internet is constantly increasing day by day. The Internet today can fulfil any task given – provide news or entertainment, research, communication, voting, banking and trading transactions, shopping and so on. However, one challenge that is being faced is that this medium is that it is very open and unregulated. Each user has the right to provide user-generated content that has often led thinkers to contemplate about the impact of the Internet on culture. The vastness of internet has made it clear that the Internet fosters a more complex system of relationships and culture that what existed previously. The interesting debate that has ensued is that whether the internet has created a cultural divide or has been successful in erasing the culture divide that was present. Over the years, the internet has been such a revolution that most of the society was awed by it that it was difficult to look at the aspects that were negative. The triumphal, self-congratulating rhetoric surrounding the Internet has made it impervious to criticism (Siegel, 2008). In this article, the attempt is to discuss the positive as well as the negative implications on culture that the internet has brought along. A very crucial aspect of the internet on the society is that it has created what can be called the ‘global village’ (Zurawski 1998). Internet has been able to erase many national, international, political, racial and social boundaries. Effective interaction and communication has made it easy for ethnic cultures to amalgamate, assimilate and develop more tolerance for each other. Let us take the example of economics and finance. In the pre-internet era, currency was a big deterrent in activities like shopping, banking or stock trading. Now, with the Internet and e-commerce, the currency barrier has been set aside. It is possible for an individual to engage in an online transaction in any country without having the physical currency of that country. People across the globe can engage in stock related transactions without having to be physically present in a particular place at a particular time. Internet has been able to provide anonymity that has in a way contributed to removing some cultural boundaries (Carney, 2009). On the Internet, individuals from various nationalities can participate in forums and engage in discussions without subjecting any individuals to any form of racial or cultural divide. The anonymity has provided the freedom of expressing which the traditional culture did not provide to many diverse groups and communities. In this way, the Internet has provided an inclusion and opened a pathway for better communication and assimilation. Each individual can participate in discussions in the forums and express their individuality. However, another aspect that needs to be taken care with this anonymity is that it can have other repercussions too as anonymous discussions are most of non-regulated and hence open. This lack of regulation can result in creating divides also. It is important for the individuals to be mature and respect the members of the forums in which they participate. If the freedom of expression is well used, the Internet can be a great way of bridging the cultural divide. Along with anonymity, another aspect where the Internet has proven to affect the culture is the “equalizing” effect that the computer mediated communication has provided (Voiskyounsky, 1998). This means that the people from any diverse and ethnic and minority communities, physically disabled group, youth, people in the administration can express their ideas without inhibitions or embarrassed. In a social set up, we have often seen that the people from diverse communities often feel ashamed to speak up, express the opinion and argue as they feel that they are constantly judged. The Internet provides an equalizing platform. Therefore, the Internet promotes the expression on alternate view and promotes freedom of expression. This is true in a corporate environment too. With the advent of the Internet, the companies have become global with teams consisting of people from across the globe working in the same project. Many business associates and global counterparts feel that the Internet is an open and easy way of communication while taking away the social pressure. This type of communication has reduced the societal pressure of attempting to be similar with the people across the globe while fostering open interaction. As Sproull and Kiesler have mentioned, “In some companies that use computer networking, communication is strikingly open as employees cross barriers of space, time, and social category to share expertise, opinions, and ideas. In a democracy, people believe that everyone should be included on equal terms in communication; no one should be excluded from the free exchange of information” (Sproull and Kiesler, 1992). When we look at the Internet from a global perspective, apart from the equalizing factor, it has also created equations of dominance. It has been seen that the Internet facilitates dominant cultures to push the inferior cultures to a further inferior position. One reason could be that the language that has been used primarily on the Internet is English. The culture promoted by the English language has predominantly been the dominant culture and with the advent of the Internet, it has further strengthened. As English has been so dominant in the world of the Internet, a noticeable trend is that the digital cultures based on languages like Chinese or European languages has considerably weakened. In addition, any technological advancement first happens in English language and it takes a little while for it to adapt to other languages. Therefore, to be on the forefront in technology, most people are learning English so that they do not remain backward in any way in terms of technology. Due to this, there is an increasing concern among scholars of many nations that many local and indigenous cultures would be totally wiped out and replaced by the English led digital culture. The Internet has also created what is known as the ‘digital divide’ (Carvin, 2000). As with an economic set up, there are haves and have-nots. The internet revolution originated in the west and took its time to travel to the rest of the world. Even now, there a whole chunk of population that does not have internet access. For example, in a country like India, which is regarded as a hub of software technology, the internet penetration is less that 7% (Internet User and Penetration in India, 2009). This shows that in a world that is technological advanced, there is a huge chunk of population that has no internet and hence is isolated from the advancements. The situation is even worse in the under developed countries where the Internet is considered as a luxury and is confined to the elite. Apart from the divide in terms of the Internet access and the lack of the required hardware, another issue that is closely related is the internet culture divide. It has been noticed that the technology is always built with some inherent cultural biases or divides and this can cause further exclusion. For example, a lot of technology is unsuitable for use for those who are visually challenged or physically challenged to use the computer keyboard. Many games and software are designed in such a way that it creates further divides. It is very critical that the quality and the quantity of diverse culture content are drastically improved to close this huge digital cultural gap. Once this gap is bridged, it can even help in dealing with any social, cultural, racial and economics divides. At present, any attempt to bridge this divide has been confined to teaching the use of the Internet. The need of the hour is to get technical well-informed individuals who are culturally conscious and who can help the diverse groups that face exclusion to better represent themselves in the modern day digital media. The modern-day generation is getting increasingly tech savvy and the age of Internet initiation is getting lower by the day. The young generation is very advanced and hence they have access to information from across the globe. The latest gadgets, latest fashion trends, the latest career options, all are present at the fingertips. As the internet advanced to this level only during the past couple of decades, the older generation sometimes feels out of place. That generation had to go through a process of relearning to understand what the World Wide Web is all about so that they can fit in with the thoughts and ideas of the present generation. Among this technological buzz, there are many individuals who are in their 70s or 80s who feel isolated and cut off because they have no internet awareness. This is dangerous as it could lead to conflict among the generations, as the older generation gets dependent on the newer one for basic communication that happens on the Internet. A common scenario that has been seen is that the younger generation is generally very impatient with the older generations as they are slow in internet adoption and the older generation is very surprised by the younger generation who do not have much qualms about publishing any private and personal information on the internet (Zook, 2007). The widespread notion that the Internet is for the newer generation only needs to be corrected in this case and an effort from the society to ensure that there is Internet access as well as education or the earlier generation can help in solving this divide. The amount of plagiarism, scams and cheating that happens on the Internet cannot be ignored. With the dependency on the Internet for any monetary transaction, we have seen many credit card frauds happening as the information can be hacked by the experts. Secure bank related information has often been leaked and resulted in swindles worth millions of dollars. The instances of plagiarism are also on the rise because of easy access of data and research material. This has directly hit the culture of trust and belief that was present before. It is very common for the academicians, teachers to suspect that the assignments presented to them are plagiarised, and that is why they screen any assignment for ensuring that it has not been plagiarised. The number of phishing instances has also been on the rise and therefore, there is always an air of suspicion. Overall, even though it has created an environment of mistrust and suspicion, it has also resulted in making people more cautious as well as conscious while dealing with online transactions. Therefore, it is very clear that cyber culture lacks in building an environment of trust but builds a culture that makes people to be more cautious. The culture of the modern media has also been impacted largely due to the advent of the internet. Different from the traditional forms of media, the digital media has a lot of user-generated content via blogs and websites. Therefore, the traditional media is under a lot of scrutiny as the users have enough forums to point out any errors and express their opinions (Lasica, 2003). Today’s media is what we call the participatory media as it has democratized what was hitherto confined only to a smaller group. Even though this initially sent ripples of fears to the giant media houses, over a period, they have also opened to a participatory culture where they invite and publish reader-generated content. Hence, the media has changed from a broadcast based medium where only a few groups give information to the rest of the world to an environment that is more inclusive where the users as well as readers can express the opinion without fear. In conclusion, it is very evident that the internet has had a big role in reshaping culture and considering how dynamic the internet is, it would be fair to say that it will continue to influence culture in the times to come too. Be it the media, the dominance of cultures, the equalizing effort, the Internet has managed to make an impact on all these aspects and hence reshaped the culture. As the Internet and technology are two aspects that are imperative in the coming days, it is crucial that the society is also flexible enough to adopt the changes in the society. The challenge here is that the pace at which the technology is progressing is much faster than the pace at which the cultural aspect of the society is progressing. Therefore, it is important to maintain a balance to ensure that there is no rift or clash because of the difference in progress. Overall, it is clear that the cultural aspects will continue to be redefined with the progress in technology. References Agre, Philp E. (2002). Introduction: The limits of cyber space. Science as Culture, 11( 2) p 149-153. Carney, Ryan (2009) The Internets Impact on Culture: Shifting the Balance to the Center, Review of Communication, 9(4), p 355 — 364 Carvin, A (2000). “More than Just Access: Fitting Literacy and Content into the Digital Divide Equation.” EDUCAUSE-Review (35(6) p 38-47. Damen, L. (1987). Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom. Addison-Wesley p 367 Kiesler, S. and Sproull, L (1992), Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization, MIT Press. p 13. Siegel, L. (2008). Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. Spiegel & Grau p 8. Useem, J., Useem, R. and Donghue, J. (1963) ‘Men in the middle of the third culture’, Human Organizations, 22(3), p 169-179. Voiskounsky, Alexander E. (1998), Culture Diversity and Unification. Proceedings Cultural Attitudes Towards Communication and Technology p 100 – 103. Online Resources Internet Usage and Penetration in India, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/21485962/Internet-penetration-in-India-2008-to-2013 Retrieved on 9 Nov 2010. Zook Genevive (2007) Technology and Generation Gap. Retrieved from http://www.llrx.com/features/generationgap.htm Retrieved on 9 Nov 2010. Lasica, J,D (2003), Participatory Journalism Puts the Reader in the Drivers Seat. Retrieved from http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060218311.php Retrieved on 9 Nov 2010. Zurawski, Nils (1998) Culture, Identity and the Internet. Retrieved from http://www.uni-muenster.de/PeaCon/zurawski/Identity.htm. Retrieved on 9 Nov 2010. Read More