New Technology & New Media: A New History.

“Victory for human civilization”

Today homo sapiens are on the cloud nine celebrating the world of interconnectedness. However, of this algorithm-based technology, the initial interpretation on human needs and necessities have signified us that there are significant of intangible forces in driving digital technology revolution.

I shall delve on how our world history is contracted into global community through technology in order to outline the unseen predicament. According to Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, et. al (2013), global community has been occurred since centuries, which later has been internalised the workforce industry. It has driven people over the world to become more aware of social and economic discourses through new media technology. 

To draw the relation between how technology is subjected into global community, we shall question the truthiness about ourselves. Are we really witnessing the global media? Does new technology is really something new, like a fresh bun from the oven? 

Perhaps this critical questions could help to scrutinise the genealogy of new technology, which I argue new technology is an enabler tool for social transformation which marries with the notion of modernity and development. Strathern (1996) has well described that technology is the production of knowledge that represents non-technological sense of knowledge. Because we think it is normal, and we always allocate the tradition context at the periphery, we take advantage of it by simplifying its multiple meaning. Well, it is not surprise that new technology is nothing new, but rather its function as an enabler that helps to enhance the power of human surveillance.

            Stuart Hall’s cultural studies the effect of media towards identity exemplify the production of digital technology has been inundated in mainstream history. He claims that identity is the position which we as the subject is obliged to the tradition of ‘always know’ (Hall, 1996, p.7). In other words, the reality that we always think that we already know is the fraternity of post-colonial worldview since information knowledge have been cloistered in the shadows. But then again, what and who are the shadows?

            Indeed, the construction of knowledge of development is a manifesto of the ideology of democracy and capitalism.  In the article written by Slater (2017),  Old dominance, new dominos in Southeast Asia, it encapsulates how the old dominance is rooted from the similar of the past ruling government have strengthened their power and stabilised position over years. 

             Subsequently, it has legitimised the corpus of imbalance information which I refer as the shadows. Merican (2017, p. 61) criticises new technology and socio cultural connectivity have made the flow of information invisible under the rhetoric of globalisation.

            The crux of the discourse is profound that outlived the configuration of Cold War. Technological advancement unconsciously has made the world to refrain humanity, albeit the institution today calls for sustainability development. I, on the other hand, would rather not to define and conceptualise the term; globalisation and technology, but to emphasize that the result of globalisation is homogenisation through the idea of modernisation. 

            As what has Karl Marx depicted, technology and globalisation help the capitalist to expand for development, whilst the marginalising those inferior is today’s norm. It is the worst scenario for the sake of economic development.

            

           Therefore, I would like end with questions; what is to be done? And who? Maybe you, maybe me. Or neither of us. But one thing for sure, economic and development are the ghosts that will always linger around technology.

Reference:

Hall, S., & Gay, P.d. (1996). Questions of Cultural Identity. London: SAGE Publications.

Merican, A. M. (2017). IN OTHER WORDS: Ideas in Journalism, Social Science and Society . Kuala Lumpur: Institut Terjemahan & Buku Malaysia Berhad.

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, R. E., & Roy, C. S. (2013). Communication Between Cultures (8th Edition ed.). International Edition: WADSWORTH CENGAGE LEARNING.

Slater, D. (2017, October 25). Old dominance, new dominos in Southeast Asia. Retrieved from New Mandala: http://www.newmandala.org/old-dominance-new-dominos-southeast-asia/

Strathern, M. (1996). Enabling Identitiy? Biology, Choice and the New Reproductive Technologies. In S.Hall, & P.d.Gay, Questions of Cultural Identity(pp. 37-52). London: SAGE Publications.