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Anna Notaro

Document Type

Article

Abstract

[First paragraph]

It is a familiar argument that we are witnessing a period of major cultural and technological upheaval, yet this recognition is rarely related to a recognition of the long history of critical reflection on the nature of cultural and social change. One of the aims of this essay is to consider the most recent discussions over technology and its political impact in the light of the seminal arguments of Raymond Williams. In Television: Technology and Cultural Form. (1974) Williams writes:

      Over a wide range from general television through commercial advertising to centralised information and data-processing systems, the technology that is now or is becoming available can be used to affect, to alter, and in some cases to control our whole social process. And it is ironic that the uses offer such

extreme social choices

    . ... These are the contemporary tools of the long revolution towards an educated and participatory democracy, and of the recovery of effective communication in complex urban and industrial societies. But they are also the tools of what would be, in context, a short and successful counter-revolution, in which, under cover of talk about choice and competition, a few para-national corporations, with their attendant states and agencies, could further reach into our lives, at every level from news to psycho-drama, until individual and collective response ... became almost limited to choice between their programmed possibilities. (156-157, emphasis mine)

Although the above quote refers specifically to television it still has some resonance today at a time when we are faced by very similar 'extreme social choices'. Ours is the age of the Internet, a remarkably multifaceted tool that has experienced an exponential growth and embedded itself in the daily lives of a vast number of people. As a new telecommunication technology, it allows the common individual to engage in a cybernetic system that is globally networked. Today, however, Internet has come to be established as a delimited public arena, and the question is if the cyberspace imaginary will become a highly monitored and regionalized social space or if the Internet will retain its potential for independent endeavors and ideological exchange. With these opposing scenarios in mind, the political implications of the Internet as a social network and the role of media in general present rich issues for creative and critical cultural production.

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