Internet and Culture
Imagine a world where geographic separation does not inhibit the social or economic mobility of people. A place where cement roads are obsolete and unnecessary and the information super highway is the only road you need to know how to navigate. Information technology becomes the glue and nails that binds our (global) society together. Development becomes a matter of installing fiber-optic wiring, cellular towers and satellite launching. World Bank projects change from road building to wire laying. Now imagine a world where there is no electricity, telephones, computers, roads or other mediums of transportation other than legs and feet. Communication exists on a face-to-face level and nothing more. An individuals’ perspective
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The forefront of the revolution of information technology in Latin America is the ever-spreading availability of Internet access. “According to IDC estimates, one in four Latin Americans will own a cell phone by 2004, which will lead to greater mobile internet access.(1)” Similar efforts endeavor to “ …reduce the exclusion [from the internet] of 160 million Brazilians who are outside the fastest growing sector in the world. According to government studies, about 11.1 million of the more than 160 million Brazilians are currently on-line.(2)” “According to a recent survey, only five percent of the country [of Brazil] uses the internet.(3)” In Brazil, the Government is “about to invest $400 million this year to expand Internet use in Brazil(4)” via the introduction of wireless satellite technology. It is hoped that within the near future that everyone in the country, even those living in the most remote rural conditions will be able to communicate via the internet and it will therefore be easier to find jobs, to purchase supplies, to quickly send and receive information to and from surrounding villages or communities. As physical infrastructure within developing countries is lacking, the development of the technological info-bahn seems to be the new, more beneficial …show more content…
“Competition between a burgeoning number of [cell phone] providers has pushed cell phone rates as low as 10 cents a minute in some countries. Most consumers…purchase $5 or $20 worth of air time a month.(8)” The availability of the communication technology to even the members of the lower classes allows those who are socio-economically challenged to have a collective voice. An example of this via the Internet (which costs at most 3 cents for every four minutes of internet use (9)) occurs in a poor neighborhood in Brazil where a group “Leo Coronado is implementing technology infrastructure(10)” by creating a website where by their music is seen and heard through videos and mp3-like tracks. Not only has the web site been created but “CDI units, Schools for Technology and Citizenry are spread countrywide.(11)” Not only has the internet allowed for the expression of an underclass music group that may continue to lead this group in a lucrative direction, but teachers within the schools are continuing to employ the internet as a tool that “might let them leave the actual situation of exclusion they’re in.(12)“ It seems as though the manipulation of this
Even Though women have revolutionized themselves in relation to the world many other aspects of society have not. This phenomenon, originally coined by Arielle Hochschild in her book The Second Shift, is known as the stalled revolution. In essence while female culture has shifted male culture has not. This has created an unequal, unfair and oppressive atmosphere for women across the nation. The title of Hochschild's book tells it all. The second shift refers to the second shift of work women are and have been burdened with at home. Although they have made enormous leaps within the economy and workforce their gender roles at home and within society remain the same. Male culture and their ideas of female gender roles have not progressed. As a result needs of females have not been met. Working mothers today work more than any other demographic, a rough estimate of this comes out to be a whole extra month of work consisting of twenty four hour work days.
Thurgood Marshall overcame discrimination by his dreams of going into the law field despite the racism surrounding him at that time. “Thurgood Marshall, the great-grandson of a slave, grew up in the South and experienced racism and discrimination firsthand” (Hitzeroth and Leon 9). Since he was raised in the South, a more racist part of the country, he was already experiencing racism at a young age. He could not shop in the same store, sit in the same section of the bus, or attend the same schools as white children and white people in general (Hitzeroth and Leon 9-10). Also, he was a cum laude honors student, but he was denied admission to the University Of Maryland Law School because of the color of his skin (Hitzeroth and Leon 10). Despite all of these events, he still chose to pursue a career in law. Part of this could be because his father taught him to respect the U.S. Constitution and the authority of law (Thurgood Marshall Biography). Also, “author John Egerton wrote in his book Speak Now Against the Day, ‘In courtrooms, black lawyers were exceedingly...
Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2000)
Of course the internet (in some respects) is much like the steam engine and mass transit in the way it facilitates more commerce, more social interaction between Americans, greater senses of common identity. These forms of technology will definitely continue to change the social and cultural situation of the American people, compounding the effects of the industrial revolution in America’s history; i.e. compounding the social, cultural, economic, technological, as well as geographical changes accompanying technology. However, the variety of ways in which this
Everyday we experience anxiety. Normally, it’s the feeling you get right before a test, recital, or an interview, but sometimes and for some people it can be a whole lot worse. It can even result in terrible panic attacks that affect the way they live. Anxiety is defined as a general term for several disorders that cause nervousness, worrying,, and fear. Severe anxiety is the most common mental illness and affects 40 million people in the U.S. That’s about 18% of our population. We all get mild anxiety from time to time, but there are more severe cases, types, and forms to this illness. I will tell you about the type of anxiety that could be harmful to your everyday life. Today I will tell you about the types of anxiety, the different treatment options you have, and how these disorders could affect your everyday life.
...been put on the technological platform itself and the infrastructure of it, and too little on the social and cultural context of the citizens and users. Communtes basically can not be created with technology if the social and cultural networks are not there, and if users do not see the benefit or are not motivated for using the technology” (Bondebjerg 9)
Legendary jazz songstress Billie Holiday once said in response to the exclusion of African Americans from jazz clubs on the notorious 52nd Street, “You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.” The comparison between the jazz world, or more specifically 52nd Street, and a plantation show the immense racial tension between blacks and whites in the early to mid part of the twentieth century. In the height of the time leading up to the Civil Rights Movement, Billie Holiday was a prominent African American singer who was one of the most well known amongst white Americans. Holiday was tough enough to survive in a racist, phallocentric world where she was frequently objectified and trivialized. However, she was not strong enough to resist the allure of alcohol and narcotics, which ultimately led to her death in 1959. In addition to her usage of drugs and alcohol, Holiday faced many other challenges in her life, which inspired the beautiful music that she left as her legacy. Despite her heavy abuse of drugs and alcohol, Billie Holiday redefined jazz for the world and instated new sense of equality in with it.
Studies using blind or blindfolded subjects have tested and proved the theory of mental rotation (Carpenter & Eisenberg, 1978). Carpenter and Eisenberg’s study, as well as many others which have studied mental rotation with a variety of variables (such as gender, dominant hand and intelligence), all essentially measure the effect of mental rotation through the time it takes for an individual to correctly identify whether or not an object is different, or if it’s simply the orientation that has changed (Silvia et. al., 2013). The way in which this is typically tested is by asking a subject to compare two objects (which can be 3-dimensional objects, 2-dimensional objects, or simply letters from the ...
The movie Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday paints an interesting, and thought provoking portrait of one of jazz and blues most charismatic, and influential artists. The incomparable talent of Billie Holiday, both truth and legend are immortalized in this one-hour documentary film. The film follows Holiday, also referred to as “Lady Day” or “Lady”, through the many triumphs and trials of her career, and does it’s very best to separate the facts from fiction. Her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues is used as a rough guide of how she desired her life story to be viewed by her public. Those who knew her, worked with her, and loved her paint a different picture than this popular, and mostly fictional autobiography.
With an entity as vast as the Internet, it is not surprising that a variety of unanswered questions will arise. I’m positive that the Internet will continue to confound scholars as it continues to quickly evolve. By analyzing the views of the celebrants and skeptics, I have been able to understand the potential that the internet has. By using the PEC, I have been able to understand how democracy and capitalism relate to the issues of the Internet. In the future, I hope that society can develop a further understanding of the Internet and move toward the Internet that the celebrants had hoped for.
In the essay “Our Cell Phones, Our Selves” written by Christine Rosen, the author presents a brief history on how cell phones were introduced into society and how this artifact changed people’s interactions in the physical space. Rosen describes the first cell phone that appeared in 1983 as “hardly elegant,” big and expensive (458). Cell phones at that time were mainly used by important and affluent people. However, seven years later, cell phones became smaller and affordable provoking a big change in society. This big technological advance did not only affect the United States, but the entire world.
Since the launch of the Internet as a global communication network and the boom in communication technologies, our world has been overwhelmed by a new phenomenon – digital divide. It has gradually turned into a major, constantly growing world issue, threatening to further increase the gap between advanced and developing countries. Yet, is digital divide really an unprecedented occurrence or a natural and unavoidable trend? “Divide” is certainly a word whose meaning could be traced back to the mere dawn of human history. It goes even deeper – to human nature itself: to sex and racial differentiation, to unequal physical and mental powers, to different location and social status. During the nineteenth century, though, theory of communism tried to defy the principles of naturally existing divide. However, Marx’s utopia, which contradicted basic economic principles – of scarcity and unbounded need – was unachievable. Indeed, through the failure of the communistic experiment, which became so flagrant after the fall of the Iron Curtain, history promoted the inevitability of divide as a symbol of individual uniqueness. As to “digital”, it is just one of the many attributes of “divide” that has assumed a global meaning. Therefore, although social and economic differences will undoubtedly continue to harass society in the 21st century, the bridging of the digital gap between those in the lead and those who lag behind should be a major issue for modern civilization.
The internet has revolutionized all forms of communication since the beginning of its existence. The world has now become smaller' or more like a global village', so to speak. The internet was first used by the U.S military for communications purposes. The internet, from the communication point of view, has brought on new developments and techniques to keep in touch not only for individuals, but for businesses as well. An example of how the internet has impacted communication would be an example of doctors now communicating through live video feeds via the internet with patients or other doctors to diagnose patients or to even guide and advise surgeons through complicated procedures.
People in the present society have turned from the use of the old means of communication to the more advanced and technological ways of communicating. Technology has made it easier for people to communicate in a faster, efficient, and cost saving means through the introduction of the communication channels. The world has turned out to be the centre for technology with different technologies emerging daily as the people continue to develop from time to time to cope with the growing technology. The benefits of adopting the communication technology are explained in this article which shows why people do not function without technology.
The internet has influenced, and is still influencing the way society communicates in many different ways. The rise of the internet has caused people to communicate differently in areas never dreamed of before the internet came into existence. Education has been revolutionized through the world of the “Information Super Highway”. Medicine has also seen reform as the internet improves research and communication. Individuals are starting businesses from scratch, while others are selling household items for extra cash. This internet “typhoon” sweeping the globe has become a way of life for many individuals all across the globe.