Culture And Technology - Essay Example

Culture And Technology Discuss the cultural and social implications of new media technologies. Effects are being felt in, for example, intellectual property, notions of authorship, patterns of communication and consumption, the experience of space and time, ethics and privacy. Analyse the cultural ramifications of the internet and/or other digital technologies by focusing on one of these areas. Introduction In the present scenario, the world has changed in a contemporary outlook owing to different factors that include the advent of technology and globalization. Globalization and technological advancement have changed the entire scenario of communication. In the past decade, people have less connectivity to any kind of information relating to varied culture and social life of diverse nations. Notably, now people of different nations have knowledge of various culture and social life practiced in different nations. The human being is a collection of belief, culture, and values without these factors humanity cannot be completed. Throughout the globe, millions of people live with different cultural background, values, and beliefs. In this respect, technological advancement has helped the different cultures to flourish and make it visible to every corner of the nation. New age communication has been playing a significant role in changing the outlook of the world in a frantic manner. Internet is the most development in relation to new age communication. With the advent of internet, the world has observed a new revolution in the field of global communication (Harorimana 2010). People of different parts of the nations have been connected through virtual medium. Virtual media gives an ideal platform to every human being to establish contacts among different regions of a country. New age technologies like internet, emails, social networking site, video conferencing, mobile internet and social applications have changed the lifestyle of people on a global context. However, new age technologies have also changed the social as well as cultural scenario of entire nation (Speed et al., 2002). In the past decade, very few people have knowledge about different trends across the globe, whereas in present decade, with the help of new technological devices everyone knows about current culture and social life of people. Apparently, new age technologies have brought advancement in the cultural and social life of people (Harorimana, 2010). In this regard, the essay emphasizes the cultural as well as social implications that are presented by new media technologies. Discussion Technological advancement has changed the global outlook to a large extent with respect to connectivity, communication and data exchange. New media technologies are identified to have both positive as well as negative implications in the social and culture life of worldwide people. Therefore, new change has been creating a positive or negative impact among the social and cultural aspects of human being. Cultural and social aspects have been playing an important role in human being life. Notably, without proper cultural and social background, human being cannot survive in the world (McJohn, 2009). New age technologies have been creating an impact among the cultural and social life of people. Advent of technologies has been generating new kind of improvement among the life of the human beings with better support in every aspect of life. Technological innovation has made the life of human being easier and innovative. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype among others have been changed the means of global communications. People of varied regions have been connected by the social networking sites and it has been generating a new kind of social and cultural beliefs amid the people worldwide. New age technologies have improved the pattern of communication and on the other side, it has enhanced the communication process, which has changed the social and cultural aspects. In past decades, people of different regions have been hesitating to communicate other region people, but now the scenario has changed immensely. Social networking sites have bridged this gap between people from different regions and diverse cultural and social background (Mendel et al., 2012; Weiser & Brown, 1997). Globalization has developed a new form of work culture among the employees of different organizations and new age technologies have been playing an important role in changing organisational cultural and social life of employees. With the help of Facebook, Twitter, social massagers and social applications, people from different cultural backgrounds are now able to communicate freely with each other. Respectively, it is identified that new age technologies have generated new kind of social and cultural life amid human beings (Mendel et al., 2012; Bikchandani et al., 1992). Cultural and social aspects are the base of humanity. Cultural and social aspects have been surrounded by proper communication and in this regard, new age technologies have been supportive in developing the communication system (Parens, 2000). Therefore, new age technologies have been an innovation with the new beginning in terms cultural and social aspects. Social networking sites have changed the cultural and social aspects of global people to a certain extent. New age technologies have been generating a positive impact on the global cultural and social aspects. Moreover, technological changes have brought positive as well as negative impact amid the entire world and it creates a new evaluation of the cultural and social aspects. Outsourcing is a new kind of change in the business sector. In the past, organizations have been spread its business in own country and employees have been working in the same branch for lifelong (Herman, 2012; Sriramesh & Vercic, 2012). Presently, due to globalization, organizations have been spreading its business in the entire world and for that reason, employees have been outsourcing to different international branches. Accordingly, technological advancement has led to the development of new age technologies with the assistance of which branch employees can get information regarding culture and social life of that particular country. It can be observed that new age technologies have created a positive impact on cultural as well as the social aspect of human society. In addition, new media technologies are also recognized to change the working culture of the employees, as they are able to have constant communication with each other and customers. New media technologies have assisted in obtaining feedback from customers for understanding needs and requirements (Anson & Suchy, 2005). Effects Cultural and social implications have been developing positive as well as negative impact amid societies. Contextually, it has been recognized that cultural and social aspects generate different sort of negative effects in varying levels of general issues such as copyright issue, the notion of authorship, ethics, change in communicational pattern, experience related issues and privacy. Intervention has been generating a dissimilar effect among societies and human beings. The word “culture” has been enriched with different sort of activities such as music, literature, art, and poetry. On a global perspective, there are different sort of cultures and each cultural activities are different from another region. With the help of new age technologies, people of different regions can perform their activities easily (Westra & Werhane, 1998). New age technologies have given a power to an individual that he/she can easily access to this activities and can store such information in a technological device. Due to new age technology, privacy level is under constant threat level. Nowadays, copying any article or music or art is easy, owing to which the notion of authorship of that particular author is harmed and remains in danger. Due to that reason, the government has been strengthening copyright act in a strict and legal manner. Copyright act is an important part of a constitution, which has been followed in most of the regions globally. Therefore, nowadays, copying authenticated article creates the problem for the creator of that particular work. Intellectual property right has been created for protecting the exclusive right of the owner (Boyle & Donnell, 2008; Westra & Werhane, 1998). On the other side, social aspects have been identified to be hampered due to new age technologies. Social networking sites have been playing an important role in generating varied issues among different people. In the age of new technologies, people of the world have witnessed positive as well as negative impact amid societies. Society has been playing an important role in the life of every human being. Social changes have made the society different and people are recognized to be affected. Society is the prime place where people of different cultures, values, and beliefs meet as well as exchanges ideas about different cultures. New age technologies have helped the people of different cultures to exchange their thoughts regarding cross-cultural matters. Due to cross-cultural effect, people of different cultural backgrounds are socially attached to each other and accordingly, different sort of changes are been recognized among the people of the varied region. Due to changes in the society, different sort of variations has been observed in the pattern of communication and in the field of consumption (Inglehart & Beker, 2000). Outsourcing has increased the level of cross-cultural communication among the varied employees who are coming from varied regions of the country. In the communications process, different sort of barriers has been faced by the new employees who are coming from another part of the country. New age technologies have made the process easier for the new employees, as before joining the international organization, they can learn the culture and language pattern through the internet and would not face such barriers (Frackman et al., 2002; Bartel & Lichtenberg, 1985). Through varied communication system, buyers are now interested in multicultural products and accordingly, level of import and export of products is getting progressive. Level of product consumption has increased and buyers of different parts of the world are interested in multicultural products. For instance, IKEA is one of renowned furniture brand from Sweden. IKEA has first made portable and assembled furniture in a decorated and multi-colored manner. Due to unique quality, IKEA has been known as a world brand in the furniture market. Consumers of the USA and the UK have been buying IKEA furniture. The people of the UK and the USA have purchased IKEA furniture designs inspired by Swedish culture. In this respect, multicultural society has some positive effect on the people of varied nations (Chaturvedi et al., n.d.). Due to cultural and social implications, people of different societies have experienced optimistic and pessimistic view about the new age technologies. Most of the researchers have discussed both optimistic and pessimistic view due to the development of new age technologies. Every innovation has gifted certain positive as well as negative influence, which has changed the cultural and social aspects of the societies (Chaturvedi et al., n.d.). Analysis Humanity has been bound with varied cultures, which helps to develop the societies in an improved and glorified way. New age technology is one of the major links to culture and social changes. With the help of the technical tool such as the internet, different sort of evolutions have been seen by the societies. In the path of the cultural transformation, varied kinds of positive and negative impact have been recognized with the use of the internet. The Internet has provided the people with a diverse medium for varied purposes. In the past, people of different cultural backgrounds do not have the chance to flourish and exchange their ideas, thoughts, and feedbacks regarding varied cultural and social issues. Due to technological interventions, people of different regions have a platform to share their views, feedbacks as well as thoughts about dissimilar cultural and social issues. The Internet has been developing a bridge between buyer and customers, reader and author. Additionally, the development of new media technologies has been identified to be effective in bringing the people of the world under one roof (Chaturvedi et al., n.d.). In every medium, whether in print medium or an electronic medium, demand of quality is always a prime need for audience. Internet site has been fulfilling this need of the creator of the idea. Cultural platform is always known for creativity, which needs an appreciation from the other side. Internet and different social networking sites have been interacting places for every creative people. Nowadays, internet writers have been recognising as e-writers, with the help of which e-books and e-journals are viewed as well as downloaded by students and other professionals on the basis of needed topic. In the internet platform, users not only obtain e-books and e-journals of their likes, but they also have an access to world of music and poetry. However, internet is an open platform to share files, photos and other material related to human life. Whenever, a user needed important information and file, he / she can obtain such information and file from pirated sites, which is illegal in nature. With the increased use of internet, privacy level is low and no file or document is protected. Malicious virus is the biggest enemy to the different internet files and documents. Music library, poetry pages and authenticated documents are under threat due to malicious viruses. Accessing social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter among others are the emerging trends of the current society. Though it is a free medium, different kinds of thoughts are shared by varied users of the sites (Brennan & Johnson, 2004; Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). In this regard, it has been identified that for sharing view about a particular topic on the social networking sites, the user faces the problem of privacy. Due to low privacy level, people of different age group have been trapped in cybercrime related issues. Cybercrime is one of the major issues, which has adversely affected data privacy. With the help of high-tech gadgets and unethical use of internet, users of different age group are under the world of crime for committing criminal offences (Gellman & Dixon, 2011; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). People who are involved in unethical activities create a page, which offers lucrative advertisements with the main motive of obtaining private information relating to credit card. This advertisement has created halo effect among the mind of the general people and they are trapped in unethical practices performed in the web. Due to low level of privacy, people involved in cybercrime activities are identified to violate internet norms and privacy measures. Due to easy access to the social networking sites and social massagers, teenagers have been trapped in performing offensive acts (Kagitcibasi, 2005; Gratton, 2003). Cybercrime has been rapidly growing in the society. In this context, self-protection is the prime objective in any culture, but cybercrime culture made the life of general people more dangerous and imbalanced. Protection and privacy are the two major sites of internet security, and recently, different sort of measures have been adopted by the government to improve the level of privacy (Black, 2000). The government of various countries has been improving the privacy level of internet. In cultural ramifications, internet and media technologies have been playing a major role in the development of security measures. If the protection level is lacking day by day, then it will be harmful to the future generations. Culture and society both are interrelated and without proper connection of the stated factors, cultural ramification cannot be possible. Technological intervention is the future of cultural ramification, which may adversely affect the social life of the people to a large extent. Cultural needs have been changing decades after decades and accordingly, measures have been taken to improve the culture of societies (Bainbridge, 2009). Thus, it can be identified that new media technologies have both positive as well as negative implications in the life of the people in a global context. Conclusion From the above discussion, it can be comprehended that new age technologies have made the cultural and social aspects of human life more enriched and improved. Globalization and technological advancement have changed the entire scenario of cultural and social aspects of the worldwide people. Due to technological innovation, people of different countries are now connected with each other, which in turn have assisted in building the better cultural association. The development of internet and social media technologies have led to the enhancement of the communication system, as global people can communicate with each other in an economical manner. New media technologies have also assisted in minimizing language barrier, which is an important issue in cross-cultural communication. The Internet has created a new medium for the creative writers and it develops a new path for the readers and audiences to view such documents with better accessibility. Because of the independent nature of the internet, it has created a new platform for the user to express their views as well as thoughts on a particular topic. Independent nature develops a positive impact on the people of different cultural background. On the other hand, the negativity of internet such as cybercrime has limited the gap between varied cultures. Due to unethical activity by certain intruders and hackers has been hampering the cultural aspects of the society. Privacy and protection are the main measures to safeguard the cultural aspects of the society largely. Respectively, the various positive, as well as negative implications of new media technologies, are identified to influence world culture. References Anson, W., & Suchy, D. P. (2005). 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